From Jim Nantz’s first year covering the Masters Tournament in 1986, the announcer was calling some of the most consequential shots in the tournament’s history.

“The Bear ... has come out of hibernation,” a 26-year-old Nantz said as Jack Nicklaus holed a birdie putt on the 16th hole on Sunday that propelled the Golden Bear to his sixth green jacket.

Nantz just hoped he did well enough to earn another invite. And this year Nantz will celebrate his 40th year calling golf at Augusta National.

Nantz has become as synonymous with the Masters as azaleas and pimento cheese sandwiches, his presence a soothing constant at the game’s most cherished major championship.

As he preps for his latest trip to Augusta National, Nantz spoke one-on-one with PGATOUR.COM to discuss a host of topics, including his thoughts on his 40th Masters, the pressure that comes with the job and a recent report of Nantz’s 2036 retirement date, which he called “false news.”

PGATOUR.COM: For many years this used to be the busiest stretch of your calendar, transitioning from a month of college basketball coverage into the Masters. Does prep look any different for you now that you’re not calling March Madness?

NANTZ: This year is feeling very familiar with my 37 previous years, when I hosted the Final Four for five years and called the Final Four for 32, in that I'm going to the Final Four because my alma mater, Houston, is playing on Saturday.
It has altered my plans, which were to arrive at Augusta as early as Sunday. And now, depending on what happens with the Houston-Duke game, I might not be getting into Augusta until Tuesday afternoon, which is back to the old schedule where I have the game on Monday night and fly afterwards or first thing the next morning. So, it feels par for the course right now.

Through the years as there's just more coverage and there's more vignettes and pieces and opportunities to talk about the Masters, whether it's interviews like this or pre-produced pieces that go into the show; last week I was busy working on the openings, working on billboards and narrations and there's things here and there. None of it's heavy lifting. All of it’s a labor of love, all of it gets to me super stoked and excited about the tournament, so I say bring it on.

PGATOUR.COM: This year will be your 40th Masters. Where does your mind go, trying to wrap yourself around that?

NANTZ: It’s hard to believe it’s that number. That number is really staggering if I pause for a second, which I try not to allow myself to do.
But if I do, and it has happened, and I think about 40 years, which ties the great Verne Lundquist for the most ever at 40, I just feel so grateful. That’s the prevailing feeling. I'm actually overwhelmed with gratitude. And I think back to the first year, which timed out quite well, to walk right in as a 26-year-old and be entrusted with the tower at the 16th hole and to have a Jack Nicklaus moment unfold in front of my eyes at 16 and, moreover, to see Jack win that historic sixth green jacket in my maiden voyage. I can feel that initial voyage so clearly. It's so vivid in my mind, what it was like, it doesn't feel possible that I'm 39 years beyond that now. But I will go back, if I'm honest about it and just say that when I was doing the first Masters in '86, I just was a bundle of nerves and just could not believe that I was a part of Frank Chirkinian’s famed CBS Masters broadcast team. To be assigned a hole so late in the action, it was a weighty assignment for sure. And I just wanted to be cautious, careful, minimalist as best I could be, and do everything possible to be deserving enough of coming back a second year. Part of me has always looked at it that way. I take each one with a tremendous level of appreciation for the gift that it is, with no entitlement, anticipation or expectation that it's anything but right now, living in the moment, living present and savoring every second of it while it's right in front of me. That's what I'm going to do this year. 


PGATOUR.COM: I get a sense from that answer that, at least in the earlier years, you felt a pressure to live up to the weight of the Masters. Do you still feel that pressure?

NANTZ: I just feel pressure to be at my very best. I don’t feel restricted by the pressure or the nerves or the anxiousness.
I actually feel controlled now. After all of these years, control of what I'm doing and feel comfortable, which allows you to very easily just fall into a trance, become entranced in the moment and be oblivious to all those things you just mentioned.

I think you described my early years quite well, to be honest, but I think now it's not a routine, it's not just walking through the motions. It's actually the opposite of that.
I found a way to get ensconced in this tournament and just live it shot by shot, and it's a very sweet feeling to be in that bubble and to try to document what's unfolding and just having an awareness of what's going on everywhere on the course.

PGATOUR.COM: You’ve said you were obsessive as a kid, dreaming of working at CBS and broadcasting the Masters. What was an example of a young, obsessive Jim Nantz?

NANTZ: Well, that kid still lives within me and feels that "gee whiz" appreciation that I had when I was 11, 12, 13, 14. I just could not wait for the Masters week to roll around. 
Now, you've got to understand that it was a completely different broadcast presentation back then in terms of volume, in terms of hours. You didn't have until the early '80s some Thursday/Friday coverage to consume, and then the weekend coverage was not full 18-hole coverage. So you were waiting all week and you didn't have – this is going to sound ancient – but we didn't have the Internet. We didn’t have the ability to pull up live scoring. You had to listen on the radio to get your updates, and I was living in Colts Neck, New Jersey. And there were two all-news stations that are still in the market – WINS and WCBS – and they would go to a sports update every half hour, usually at about 15 and 45 (minute marks) but they were not directly across from each other. They were separated with their sports segments by about three minutes apart. I would flip to WCBS and just hope they would give me some Masters scores. They were reading the scores off of an AP wire. And sometimes what they said at 15 was not even updated again at 45 or the following 15 after. Their information flow was slow. So I would go to the other all-news station and try to see if they had any updates on what was going on the leaderboard. It was a Neanderthal era of sports updating and I was a consumer just hanging on, dying for any morsel of information, and it was slow to get to me. But I did. Really in a way, I'm the same guy. It's just the information's coming to me way faster with all kinds of sources but with the same kind of anticipation, though, the same thirst for that information.

PGATOUR.COM: Recently, your "retirement date" was in the news, which I found funny because there are interviews from five years ago saying the same thing. You've always set that date ... (Nantz cuts off the question).

NANTZ: I’ve always said it. Thank you. It goes longer than that. My assistant Melissa found articles 10 years ago from many, many places, the "Dan Patrick Show," Golf Digest, Richard Deitsch when he was writing for The New York Times. And I always said it, with a whimsical way, almost like a twinkle in my eye, like, "Hey, that would be the goal." It was an expression of my love for Augusta. So I was blindsided last week.

PGATOUR.COM: Was it weird to hear people talk about your retirement that might be 11 years down the line?

NANTZ: It was false news because the story has been out there forever. The content police really let their guard down. I was uncomfortable that
there was so much attention given to it. I think what sometimes makes it new is that it gets spun in a certain way.

If you went back and read the original interview, which was conducted in January, the day after I called a Baltimore-Buffalo playoff game, CBS PR set me up with a writer from the UK and he was a great guy and we talked about my love of the Masters. And in there somewhere I talked about, just conversationally, that yeah, "I love being a part of it. Yes, this is my 40th. I would love one day to say I'm there for the 100th playing in the Masters," just casually mentioning like I always have. The writer did a great job with the story, but when somebody gets that information and then spins it like, "Jim Nantz has announced his retirement," no, that's actually journalistically really taking some liberties and it was inaccurate.

So it became as though I had this proclamation declaration, which I didn't. And like I said, there is a little bit of whimsy in it when I say it. Yeah, I want to be there for the hundredth, but who says that I don't want to be there another 10 years beyond that? We just have to take it one year at a time. It was just fascinating that it rose to the level of going viral over something that had been reported and stated time and time again for years and years and years.

PGATOUR.COM: We heard Rory McIlroy at THE PLAYERS Championship say he wanted to leave pro golf a year or two earlier than might be necessary. Others just want to play until they can’t anymore. It's different for a broadcaster, but where do you come down on that? Do you want to keep doing it until someone's going to say, "Jim, we got to take you off air?"

NANTZ: I don’t think anybody wants that option (laughing). I don’t even really think about it right now. I really truly stay in the moment. I have never felt sharper than I am right now. If you want to look around the industry, there are broadcasters that are working well beyond the age I would be if I'm blessed enough to be healthy enough and that CBS and that Augusta National would want me to be there (in 2036). And again, maybe it's earlier than that. Maybe it's beyond that playing of the Masters. Maybe it's well beyond it. Who knows? I don't get caught up in it, but I would like to be at my absolute best for many years to come and I've never felt sharper in all facets of my broadcast skills right now, football, golf. You know, Hubie Brown just hung it up on the NBA at 91. Dick Vitale is into his 80s, I know he has battled health issues. My dear friend Al Michaels is 80 calling the NFL. It happens. Dick Enberg was into his 80s when he was still working, so I'm certainly not trying to project. I'm trying to just really savor where I am right now and not give any life to a story that last week took on a life of its own when it truly didn't need to be.

This interview was edited for style, clarity and brevity.