Editor’s note: CBS will replay the 2019 Masters from 12:30-6 p.m. Sunday.
Jim Nantz didn’t have a rehearsed phrase at the ready for Tiger Woods winning his fifth green jacket and 15th major title at last year’s Masters.
“As Tiger tried to figure out how to play his second shot at 18, Steve Milton, our director, cut to a shot of the family gathered behind the green and it triggered the thought that if he makes five and wins this thing, ‘What is that scene going to look like?’ ” Nantz recalled in a phone interview from Pebble Beach, California, where he’s been sheltered-in-home since March 19. “I drew a comparison to 2006 when he won (the British Open) at Hoylake for the first time after his father, Earl, had passed away. I thought there might be some parallels. I remembered how emotional that was for Tiger.”
A year after his iconic win at Augusta, @TigerWoods joined Jim Nantz on a video call to describe how much it meant to him as a father. #MastersRewind pic.twitter.com/PffiAPXrr1
— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) April 9, 2020
But Nantz, who has been part of the broadcast team since his debut in 1986 when Jack Nicklaus at age 46 won his record sixth green jacket, still didn’t know what the narrative might be over the final putt.
“Just seeing the family on the monitor, I knew that this was going to be a moment that transcended a golf achievement; this was an achievement that was bigger than that. This was a story about a man that made it all the way back. He was on top of the world and had many things in his life go sideways, including injuries that would have marked the end of virtually anyone else’s career. Doubters by the millions. And there’s his family about to embrace him and welcome him back to a place he’d once been. The word glory surfaced in my head.”
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Nantz witnessed the way Tiger was just lurking behind 54-hole leader Francesco Molinari as they reached the back nine on Sunday, and how the script flipped as four of the last six players dunked balls into Rae’s Creek at the par-3 12th hole. As Woods plotted his way around the final stretch, making 2-putt birdies at 13 and 15 and working the slope at the par-3 16th for another birdie, Nantz felt as though he’d seen this movie before.
“You put him on Augusta, he’s playing well enough to turn it on and tap into those brilliant days of yesteryear. It wasn’t lost on me,” Nantz said. “As his ball was coming off the slope at 16, I thought it was going in. If ever there was a moment that would top what he did on that very hole in 2005 I thought that was going to be it.”
Woods had two putts for the win and when he tapped in for victory, Nantz memorialized the moment by saying simply, “The return to glory.”
Said Nantz: “I meant that, yes, as a golf achievement – the glory in his game – but I meant it equally as much about the glory in his life, and wasn’t that a wonderful thing to see?”
Then Nantz went silent for more than 2 minutes.
“There was nothing else that could be said or should be said,” he explained. “If you tried to insert yourself over that you’d be making a terrible mistake. Let this visual medium with its abundance of emotional audio have its rightful spot center stage and so I got out of the way. Tiger talks about ‘the feels,’ and some people laugh at that, but in broadcasting we have ‘the feels’ too, and it just felt right at that moment. The feels at that moment was to sit back and watch and then I picked an appropriate moment to get back in with a narration.”
Nantz, who was already in Butler Cabin for the upcoming green jacket ceremony, can almost recite verbatim what he said next to broadcast partner Nick Faldo, who was still in the 18th tower.
“I said, ‘Nick, that moment with Tiger and his family, if you’re a parent and you didn’t shed a tear, you’re not human,’ ” Nantz recounted. “And Nick said, ‘Jim Nantz, I will promise you that you will never ever see a moment bigger than that in the game of golf.’ ”
Nantz has one more favorite memory from that day. As a result of the tee times being pushed up to the morning to avoid storms in the forecast, Nantz contributed to a Masters replay that was shown later that day. After Tiger had wrapped up his media obligations and the various celebrations accorded to a new champion, he returned to the Butler Cabin for a second interview with CBS.
It was during this segment, after the adrenaline had worn off for Woods and it had begun to sink in what he had just achieved, that Nantz relayed the story of how Venturi stopped to give him a ride back to the CBS compound in his golf cart after Nicklaus had shot 65 to win the 1986 Masters. It had been Nantz’s first major and Venturi told the rookie announcer that he’d never see a better Masters again.
“Well, you know what?” Nantz told Tiger. “Ken Venturi was wrong.”
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