‘There’s no Jim Nantz’: Nick Faldo recalls white-knuckle Masters broadcast moment

Next on The Scoop: Sir Nick Faldo!

The six-time major champion joined me for a scoop of chocolate chocolate-chip ice cream to discuss all things golf: winning the 1990 Open Championship, his “dark days” that lasted two full years, the greatest lesson he’s learned in his 67 years, career highlights and a whole lot more.

I was particularly interested in talking to Faldo about his transition from playing golf to being on a broadcast team, and the learning curve that came with it. There’s obviously a big difference between teeing it up in a tournament and talking about it in the broadcast booth, but what surprised me most was how little training Faldo went through before beginning his television career. Here’s how he framed it:

“They throw you in the deep end, flat out. You put your ear phones on, they say [pointing], ‘Well, that’s your cough button, that’s if you want to talk to your producer,’ and off you go. We had zero guidance. Zero. And I just said, ‘You know what? My dad always said, just stick to what you know. Don’t get involved in politics or religion or anything.’ And I thought, yeah, I’ll just stick to golf. Don’t get carried away. And so, off I went…. But it’s pretty amazing. You have to learn to train yourself. And that takes time. And timing is very important in that world. To stop and listen and wait, which is tough when you first do it, because you’re like, ‘I want to do this,’ or ‘I want to say that.’ But you learn to let it breathe. ‘If it doesn’t happen now, I can get it maybe a few holes later or something, that thought.’ So you just learn to pace yourself.”

I imagine Faldo had so little training because he already knew the game so well, but, gosh, the nerves he must have felt being on air those first few times. That could not have been easy.

Faldo teamed up with Jim Nantz on CBS as the lead golf analyst in 2007, and his favorite memory with Nantz happens to be from their very first Masters together that same year.

“My favorite memory is actually my very first Masters with him. We’re still calling live golf through the internet [before the network telecast started], and we’re down to two minutes to go. And Tiger’s now going out, so of course we’re going to stay on. And Tiger is now throwing grass in the air. We’re down to one minute. We’re down to 30 seconds and then Jim — the only time Jim has an auto cue is maybe for those opening first lines of the Masters. That’s the only week. And then wallop, 30 seconds to go. Auto cue goes down. So Jim jumps out of his chair. We’re sitting in Butler Cabin and Jim goes into the back room with, you know that sound, technical stuff. And I’m sitting there and I hear, ’10 seconds.’  In our worlds, five seconds is nothing, is it?  But in TV, five seconds is monstrous right? And I hear ‘five seconds’ and there’s no Jim Nantz. And I’m sitting there and I think, ‘oh s***, it’s going to be me. I’m going to go, ‘Hello, I’m Jim Nantz. No, I’m not. I’m Nick Faldo. Well I won this, maybe I didn’t. Uh, welcome to the Masters CBS.’ So I’m panicked.  I had a split second of ‘what the heck.’  and Nantz just waltzes in, sits down and goes, ‘Hello, friends, welcome to the Masters.’  I’m like, [keels over]”. So that was my first Masters.”

 If that doesn’t tell you what a pro Nantz is, nothing will.

Faldo was an absolute pleasure to interview. His storytelling skills are second-to-none, as are his ice cream flavor preferences (I had never tried chocolate chocolate chip before!). So grab a scoop of ice cream, sit down and enjoy this interview, now on GOLF’s YouTube channel.