Quotes from Jim Nantz

The Masters isn't about Jim Nantz and his storytelling. It's about golf's greatest tournament.

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 love Augusta. I get to cover what I consider to be the best golf tournament of the year, and I really would like to think that one day - God willing, CBS willing - I'd be able to say that I worked 50 Masters.

The Masters runs deep in my heart; it's a love affair that I've had since I was a little boy with that tournament, that club.

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.

I would like to work 50 Masters Tournaments.

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!'

I have always been true to the people who have influenced me as a young boy.

Alzheimer's is such an insidious disease.

Super Bowl V was the Colts against the Cowboys and Jim O'Brien kicked a 32 yard field goal to beat the Cowboys. I was traumatized by it. Everyone at school knew I was the only Cowboy fan in the area. I didn't want to go to school and I begged and pleaded with my parents. Those are indelible memories when you are a kid.

We want the game to be attractive to a new audience, but you have to be careful because there are certain traditions this game upholds. Silence over the swing, that's always been there. That's not understood by those who don't play golf.

Since 1934 every accomplished player in golf has come to the Augusta National looking for an introduction into history.

Jim Murray's greatest writings were golf writings.

Chemistry's a word that people who make hires and decisions say, 'Hey, you guys go out and work on your chemistry!'

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.

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.

When Jack Nicklaus won the Masters in 1986, it was mind-blowing. How in the world could a 46-year-old win the Masters?

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.

I'm not an agate type ESPN Sports Center highlight, in-your-face kind of a sports fan.

I just enjoy seeing people break through those ceilings when people press them down and say, 'He can't do this or that.' It's always fun to document those types of stories when someone breaks through.

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.

I try to talk openly from how I feel. People may not agree with it. It may sound foreign to them. That's an uncomfortable position for some people, to be sentimental, nostalgic - it's all kind of the same.

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.

There are two things you don't do: One, you don't open an e-mail from Phil Simms in front of your kids, and, two, you don't jinx a man going for a perfect week.