Jim Nantz Preparing For His Most Important CBS Golf Intro Ever?

Jim Nantz is the generational voice of broadcast golf.

He’s the best, perhaps one of the best-ever.  He’s a generational talent and our most familiar and soothing voice of tournament golf for the past 35 years.

He’s a professional on the highest order and on Thursday, when the PGA Tour returns to action at Colonial Country Club for the Charles Schwab Challenge, Nance and CBS will face challenges unlike any other.

When The Golf Channel takes to the airwaves for Thursday’s first round, Nantz will craft what may well be a thought-invoking, somber introduction to the broadcast.

He’s famous for his opening line:  “Welcome friends!”

Yes, he makes us all feel like friends and those of us who have played golf at various levels of skill, those of us who have loved the game for decades, we are a special group that often has the ability to find common ground with others who love our game, no matter what their race, religion or creed.

Nance knows there will be a lot of eyes and ears open, listening to how he starts us off from Fort Worth.

“I consider this to be perhaps the most important moment in our country in my lifetime,” Nantz said, fully understanding what’s happening all over our country.  “We have to get this right. We can’t let this opportunity pass. I hope to express that at the top of the broadcast.”

You can trust Jim Nance will get it “right.”  He’s 61 now and we’ve all spent countless hours listening to that unique voice of his.

In the world of golf broadcasters, there’s Jim Nance and then there’s all the rest of them.

Nantz is going to try like all get-out to understand the pulse of the country right now.  Golf is considered by so many to be a “white sport.”  And for the most part, let’s be honest here — it has been and remains so today.

Look at the PGA Tour — mostly white faces, a lot of them from white middle class families.

This field is full of superstars — Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson — and the list goes on.

Perhaps the most important guy in the field at Colonial Country Club is Harold Varner III.  Varner put together the most thoughtful, insightful and well-written observations about the current unrest over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Don’t be shocked if, at some point, there’s a one-on-one with Nance and Varner.

Along with the societal challenges, Nantz is facing major broadcast challenges as well.

He won’t venture to the CBS “compound” or even into that historic Colonial clubhouse.  He’ll go straight to his seat in the tower at the 18th hole.  When his day is done, he’ll go back to his hotel.

It’s part of “the bubble” being created to bring live golf back to us.

Nance will be in that tower by his lonesome.  His analyst sidekick — Sir Nick Faldo — will be back in The Golf Channel studios in Orlando along with Ian Baker Finch and Frank Nobilo.

CBS will have 23 cameras on site and roughly half its normal broadcast staff.  The main production unit is typically 22 people.  There will be only nine on site in Fort Worth, the rest are scattered across the country — New York, L.A. and Stamford, Conn.

You’ll see some new stuff as well.

You hear as many players as possible mic’d up in order to include them during each broadcast.

There will be what amounts to a remote “confession cam” if you want to call it that.  It will be a tent located, perhaps near the 10th tee where players can voluntarily step in and provide a 20-second sound bite.  And Nance has sent out a plea for player participation in that “confessional”:

“I want this to be expressed — ‘Guys, we need your help. We’re not asking for a lot,’” Nantz said. “If you had a chance to hear from 30 players in the field, you can’t imagine what a difference that could make to our broadcast.  All they have to do is walk over and talk into a confession cam. We need the players’ help.”

This production, this return of the PGA Tour will be very complex.

“This is the most complicated production plan I’ve ever been involved in and that includes Super Bowls and Final Fours and other events,” said CBS Chairman Sean McManus.

First and foremost is the concern for the health of all those involved.

The world will be watching, and listening.

You’re up, Jim Nance.

We’ll be pulling for you.

Charles Schwab Broadcast Times:

Thursday-Friday:  The Golf Channel (4-7 ET)

Saturday-Sunday:  CBS (3-6 ET)