Quotes from Jim Nantz

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.

I used to write letters to Jim McKay in college. 'Wide World of Sports' was this travelogue, really, that introduced us to sports and it introduced us to parts of the world that we had never seen before. And no one was a bigger tour guide than Mr. McKay.

In 2014, when my wife, Courtney, was expecting our daughter and we were contemplating a name, I said, 'How about Finley?' Only after Courtney said that she loved the name did I reveal that it was inspired by an aspect of Samuel Finley Brown Morse.

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.

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.

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.

I'm more likely to quote the golfer George Burns than the legendary late comedian by the same name who lived to be 100.

The sentimentality that people see and hear in my commentary and sometimes ridicule, parody or just don't like - that's okay. We're all wired differently. I think about that a lot. I can't explain it. That's just what runs through my blood. It's just the way I look at the world.

I never practice calls. Everything you hear is reactionary. The way I look at it is that broadcasters are just paid observers, just there to tell you what we see.

When people ask me, 'What are you most proud of,' I say it's that I've had five people close enough to ask me to present them at the World Golf Hall of Fame. There were any number of people they could have used, but they asked me. It really means a lot to me.

I got to live through the Tiger Woods era and who knows who's still to come.

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.

I see so many people in our industry, in my own network, who throw little tantrums about things that they can't control.

I like stories. I like to figure out how history ties to the present.

One of Tiger's trademarks in his prime was his ability to fight for every stroke.

Lance Barrow's a great producer and we work together exceptionally well.

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 think when you have a National Championship Game, a Super Bowl, a Final Four, a World Series, I don't see why there is any reason to pick out one individual as the MVP because it is about a team winning a championship. Maybe that best explains what I believe in at the core in my work as a broadcaster.

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 could care less about identifying who the MVP is in a championship game.

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.

They say time heals all wounds, but sometimes you wonder.

As we all know, the concept of the gimme putt is anathema to the PGA Tour.

The Masters is the one tournament with a timeless quality, where legends are celebrated.