People say 'dream big,' that's kind of one of those motivational sayings, but I would dream hard, meaning I just wanted it so badly, I could feel it.
Jim Nantz
Every champion golfer comes to Augusta imbued with a towering source of inspiration. It's a solitary journey, but it's one that no player... makes alone.
Far and away, the question I'm asked most often is, 'What's your favorite sporting event to call?' I can't say I've ever answered the question well, simply because the three biggest events I broadcast for CBS Sports - the Super Bowl, the NCAA Men's Final Four and the Masters - each are incomparable.
As a teenager, Tiger was self-assured and mature, yet also warm and charming. But the warm outward veneer gradually changed. When he pulled off his 'win for the ages' at the 1997 Masters, he already was sharing less of his softer, emotional side.
Hello, friends.' I've had fun with that expression to satisfy the cynics, but it comes from the heart, and I don't apologize for it. Like my dad - for whom I designed the expression during the 2002 PGA Championship, when he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease - I've never met a stranger.
For more than a quarter century, I was fortunate to visit and play golf with President George H.W. Bush dozens of times, usually while paying a visit to the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
Alzheimer's is such an insidious disease.
I wake up every day and give my thanks.
When Jack Nicklaus won the Masters in 1986, it was mind-blowing. How in the world could a 46-year-old win the Masters?
The sport is not about one player, and I say that with a world of respect for his talents on the golf course. But the game is bigger than Tiger Woods.
Golf is a central part of my life and I look forward to working with the great folks at Vineyard Vines to create an authentic golf apparel brand that speaks to the golfer.
As we all know, the concept of the gimme putt is anathema to the PGA Tour.
I don't want anything to disrupt my routine or make people uncomfortable in meetings during the NCAA Tournament or leading up to the Super Bowl.
The dream for me was always the Masters and after my freshman season on the Houston golf team I knew CBS was the only way I'd get there.
I'm loyal to CBS. They have been loyal to me.
Just as many golfers feel a kinship with Ben Hogan or Bobby Jones after studying their lives, such is the closeness I feel with Lawson Little Jr. Little quite simply is the most underappreciated golfer of the first half of the 20th century.
I can't think of anything in my profession that would mean as much. You can talk about Emmys or Super Bowls. Fifty Masters Tournaments, that would be the ultimate.
The late, great ABC golf anchor Jim McKay once advised me, 'When you look into the camera, imagine you are talking to one person on the other end.' The next time you hear 'Hello, friends' at the start of a broadcast, just know that I'm channeling my father at that very moment. I see him on the other side of that camera, smiling right back.
On June 3, 2015, in keeping with a long tradition, I visited my home club in the Pepper Pike suburb of Cleveland, known simply as The Country Club. It's an old William Flynn design and perhaps the most underrated course in America. It's elegant, challenging and filled with old-world charm.
From 1975-'79, I worked for PGA professional Tony Bruno. For five years I watched, lost in admiration, as Tony ran the golf shop at Battleground Country Club in Manalapan, N.J. Tony put in 80-hour weeks doing what nearly 29,000 men and women club pros do every day: Keeping the game alive with a smile.
I call golf with my head and my heart. I don't have any notes in front of me - it's different from basketball and football in that feel.
My father is truly always by my side.
I love being a part of CBS.
I want Alzheimer's. I want Lou Gehrig's disease. I want Parkinson's. I want Huntington's. I want to be the face and voice of all these neurological traumas. I want them all.
No matter the event, a Super Bowl, an NFL game, a rank-and-file golf tournament, there is a demand when you are live and exposed to try to get it right and do justice to the event. That's the way I have always approached it.
I don't like hot takes any more than I like hot cakes.
The Masters is the one tournament with a timeless quality, where legends are celebrated.
George H.W. Bush had perhaps the greatest resume in American history. Director of the CIA, ambassador to the U.N., envoy to China, vice president of the United States and then, of course, president. It's staggering to contemplate one person achieving so much.
My dad had nothing but friends in his life.
People think I can really play golf, but it's actually been almost an albatross for me. I really struggle not only to break 80, but sometimes to break 90.
As my father went through a really, really long and dark period of his health declining and falling deeper into the abyss, I knew I was never going to let my family and my children experience this without any long-term care.
They say time heals all wounds, but sometimes you wonder.
In 2011, my wife, Courtney, and I, with my amazing mother and sister, opened the Nantz National Alzheimer Center at Houston Methodist Hospital.
I actually went to the first game in Saints history. We were living in New Orleans at the time. I was eight. They opened against the L.A. Rams in 1976. I went with my dad, and we bought standing-room only seats at Tulane Stadium. We actually sat in the aisle.
I like stories. I like to figure out how history ties to the present.
I treasure all my friendships.
I think I shot 78 one time. My golf game is so overrated.
My father was very athletic. He was a life-of-the-party kind of guy - walked into the room and there was a presence about him. He was a great storyteller, just a terrific sense of humor. Having said that, he never put all of those talents or abilities into some public arena. He was never interviewed, never on television. His family was everything.
I have, compartmentalized in my head, one file for the NFL, one for college basketball and one for golf. They contain everything I've ever read, watched and learned.
When I tell people that I get interviewed five or six times more than I will interview players or coaches leading up to the game that comes as a surprise. That's part of it and it just goes with being part of a Super Bowl broadcast team. I enjoy it.
I can't imagine anybody who showed up at Firestone for the first time who felt like they knew it better than I did. For me to travel to Akron the first time, 'Oh, my gosh, I can't wait, I know every hole on this golf course. I know the big water tower with the Firestone ball on top, I grew up with this. Here it is! It's real!'
The Masters is poetry to me.
I was named first-team Jersey Shore by the Asbury Park Press, the paper I used to deliver as a young boy. I got to Houston and Coach Williams invited me to walk on the golf team. I was the 18th man on an 18-man golf team.
I've heard it said that the average person is lucky to have only a handful of true friends in their lifetime. Well, I sincerely feel I've got millions.
I'm looking at the world through a very positive prism.
I'm more likely to quote the golfer George Burns than the legendary late comedian by the same name who lived to be 100.
Since 1934 every accomplished player in golf has come to the Augusta National looking for an introduction into history.
The Super Bowl is the biggest event in America, the biggest event in television. The preparation and all of the behind-the-scenes detail is immense. The Final Four is just a fraction behind that in terms of the preparation.
I have always been true to the people who have influenced me as a young boy.
Jim Murray's greatest writings were golf writings.
