Amanda Balionis explains the silence that let Dustin Johnson’s Masters emotion show

Amanda Balionis still thinks about the pause. After Dustin Johnson won the 2020 Masters, she asked him about a childhood dream coming true, then gave him time to answer. As he struggled to speak, she let the silence stand.

In an October 16 interview with Claire Rogers for Skratch's Inside Scoop, the CBS Sports reporter explains why that moment remains one of the interviews she is proudest of. She believes jumping in would have interrupted the emotion viewers were beginning to see.

Johnson had just won by five shots at Augusta National. Golf Digest's report from November 15, 2020, places the exchange on the 18th green after the Butler Cabin ceremony. The tournament was played in November during the pandemic, without its usual patrons.

Balionis tells Rogers that she returns to the memory when another player starts to become vulnerable. She reminds herself that she can give an answer room to develop. Her job in that moment is to keep listening.

She connects that patience to a broader rule: prepared questions have to yield to what a player actually says. If an interviewer ignores a revealing answer to get to the next planned question, she says, the player can sense it and shut down. She wants viewers to feel as though they are listening to a conversation.

The short interview also covers the preparation fans never see. Balionis describes research and potential stories that may wait weeks or months before an opening appears. The work accumulates so she is ready when a relevant moment arrives.

CBS's official biography dates her arrival at the network to 2017, with a full-time role following in 2018. In the Skratch conversation, she recalls wanting a sideline-reporting career as a child and the years it took to reach network television.

Rogers also asks about her work in Butler Cabin, Jim Nantz and Puppies & Golf, the nonprofit Balionis founded. A puppy shares the interview space as the two talk, occasionally testing their concentration.