The Boston Globe Magazine · Quincy, Massachusetts

Mike Lynch sits in a golf cart beside Bob Lobel in a powered chair, with a distant skyline beyond the golf course. — Mike Lynch and Bob Lobel on the course at Granite Links in Quincy.

Lobel and Lynch, together again

For Chad Finn’s Boston Globe Magazine story, former rival sports anchors Bob Lobel and Mike Lynch met at Granite Links in Quincy on July 1, 2026. These photographs follow their conversation and the friendship behind it.

For generations of Boston sports fans, Bob Lobel at WBZ-TV’s Channel 4 and Mike Lynch at WCVB’s Channel 5 were fixtures of the nightly news. Lobel was loose and irreverent; Lynch was meticulous and direct. Their competing sportscasts became an evening ritual in the 1980s and early ’90s, before highlights were available on demand.

Mike Lynch in a pink shirt speaks while Bob Lobel, in yellow, sits beside him. — Lynch speaks during the conversation at Granite Links.

Bob Lobel smiles in the foreground while Mike Lynch speaks behind him. — Lobel smiles as Lynch speaks nearby.

The rivalry was real, but so was the trust between them. In 1987, after Lynch’s photographer missed a Bruins ceremony, he called Lobel. Lobel arranged for footage from WBZ to reach his Channel 5 counterpart in time for the newscast. Chad Finn recounts the episode in his Globe profile as an early glimpse of the friendship behind the competition.

In 2019, after their full-time television years, they began the weekly podcast UnAnchored Boston. They record remotely, revisit Boston sports history, and talk with former players and colleagues. At the time of this shoot, they spoke or texted most days but rarely saw one another in person. Lobel still came to Granite Links to play golf with an adaptive chair; Lynch no longer played.

Bob Lobel laughs beside Mike Lynch near an open doorway. — Lobel and Lynch share a laugh at Granite Links.

Mike Lynch stands with an arm around Bob Lobel in a posed portrait inside the clubhouse. — Lynch and Lobel inside the Granite Links clubhouse.

Mike Lynch and Bob Lobel sit beside each other on a grassy hillside overlooking the golf course at Granite Links. — Lynch and Lobel overlooking the course at Granite Links.

Mike Lynch smiles from a golf cart while Bob Lobel sits beside him at Granite Links. — Lynch and Lobel share a light moment outdoors at Granite Links.

This was a hard day to photograph in the heat. We did most of the shooting inside the clubhouse, but I needed at least a little of the landscape in the story. We made one quick trip outside, got everyone settled, and I photographed them above the course.

I had never been to Granite Links before. I knew Quincy Quarries for its climbable walls, but here the surprise was the view: the buildings of downtown Boston beyond the fairways. It gave us the outdoor frame we needed without keeping everyone in the heat for long.

The magazine

Chad Finn’s profile of Lobel and Lynch appeared in the August 9, 2026 issue of The Boston Globe Magazine. Read the Globe story. The cover shown below is a working design with placeholder text.