Jim Nantz kicks off 40th year at CBS with a wild James Bond story

Forty years ago this week, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members. That same day, a 26-year-old sports broadcaster named Jim Nantz was getting ready to leave his home to go out and meet the CBS golf crew – executive producer of golf Frank Chirkinian and the dynamic duo of Pat Summerall and Ken Venturi – for the first time at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

“I showed up at Pebble Beach anxious to meet all these legends and people I’d always heard about who had provided so much content and coverage for me as a young boy that fostered a dream to one day want to be able to do this for a living. That, and CBS’s presentation of the NFL really moved me,” Nantz said.

Advertisement

On Saturday, Nantz will kick off his 40^th year of CBS’s golf coverage with a “Hello, friends,” from Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., and provide play-by-play of the 2026 Farmers Insurance Open. Speaking on a CBS media call, Nantz grew nostalgic as he recalled his start at Pebble.

“Anyway,” Nantz said, “I showed up and I met Frank Chirkinian right in front of the Lodge at Pebble Beach. That’s where I heard we were staying. That’s where, fortunately, CBS still gets rooms to this day. I met the great man. Chirkinian looked at me and says, ‘I’ve got three things for you, kid. Number one, you’re not going to be on the air this weekend. You’re only here to observe. You’re not ready yet.’ That burst a little bit of a bubble. ‘Secondly, they’re sold out at the Lodge. You’re not staying here.’ So, he stashed me in a house on the left side of the first fairway. I roomed in this villa that was once owned by one of the most underrated players in the history of the game – Lawson Little Jr. You can look up his record if you want to, 1940 U.S. Open champion. That was his house. And I roomed with the great golf writer, Bob Drum, in a six-bedroom villa. Didn’t stay in the Lodge.

“So, ‘You’re not going to be on the air. That’s going to wait until Doral – if I still like you. B, you’re not staying at the Lodge.’ I was fine with that, I didn’t care. ‘And C, if you come along in the next few weeks and you show me something, I’m going to put you on my Masters broadcast team in 10 weeks’ time.’ Now that got my attention.”

Nantz held back one of his all-time favorite stories to tell at banquets, which happened that same week 40 years ago. As the new guy on the block at Pebble, Chirkinian told Nantz he’d had at least one too many glasses of wine the previous night and needed Nantz to sub for him on the golf course….at Cypress Point. That’s how Nantz arrived at the first tee and introduced himself to the club’s head professional, Jim Langley, who became such a dear friend Nantz lists him in his dream foursome.

Advertisement

«He put an arm around my shoulder and said, ‘You’re next up on the tee and, oh, by the way, you’re playing with Sean Connery,’ » Nantz recounted.

Heady stuff being paired with the actor best known for portraying British spy James Bond in several movies. After the round, Connery needed a ride back to The Lodge at Pebble Beach and Nantz was more than happy to oblige. But as Connery slid into the back seat of the rental, Nantz failed to notice that Connery’s left leg still hung on the pavement. He slammed the door and heard a blood-curdling scream. Nantz had shoved the door right on the tender spot between the ankle and the shin. Blood seeped through Connery’s partially torn trousers.

«I had done something Blofeld and Odd Job had failed to do. I had bloodied Bond,» Nantz said. «I apologized up and down. I thought I had lost a lunch invitation. We had grilled calamari. I didn’t even know what that was at the time, but it sounded interesting. At the end of the day, he said, you must come over and play my club. If you ever find yourself in Costa del Sol, I live in Marbella. You will be my guest at Valderrama. How do I find you? I wondered. I’m in the phone book. Under Connery, Sean, he said. True story. Not embellished even a bit.»

For Nantz, that inauspicious start has taken him to the heights of his profession and the chance to be the soundtrack for many of the most memorable moments in golf over the last 40 years.

Advertisement

“I’m still that little boy who probably didn’t have the means to be able to go out and watch the PGA Tour in person. But my parents did everything they could humanly possible for me to go out when the Tour was somewhere close to be able to go out and watch and observe it and let me run around and watch the stars of that time,” Nantz said. “And that’s how I feel like every single day I show up at a PGA Tour event.”

Happy anniversary to Nantz and here’s to another season of golf on CBS.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Jim Nantz kicks off 40th year of CBS golf — with a wild James Bond story