I want Alzheimer's. I want Lou Gehrig's disease. I want Parkinson's. I want Huntington's. I want to be the face and voice of all these neurological traumas. I want them all.
The Masters isn't about Jim Nantz and his storytelling. It's about golf's greatest tournament.
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.
The sentimentality that people see and hear in my commentary and sometimes ridicule, parody or just don't like - that's okay. We're all wired differently. I think about that a lot. I can't explain it. That's just what runs through my blood. It's just the way I look at the world.
I hate whenever there's a social issue that comes up in golf and people in the mainstream media who hate golf and who've conjured up all these stereotypes of people who are in the sport, the way they tear it down... I resent it, and I'll defend golf and people in golf until my dying day.
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.
I wake up every day and give my thanks.
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!'
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.
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.
As we all know, the concept of the gimme putt is anathema to the PGA Tour.
Far and away, the question I'm asked most often is, 'What's your favorite sporting event to call?' I can't say I've ever answered the question well, simply because the three biggest events I broadcast for CBS Sports - the Super Bowl, the NCAA Men's Final Four and the Masters - each are incomparable.
I'm looking at the world through a very positive prism.
Since 1934 every accomplished player in golf has come to the Augusta National looking for an introduction into history.
Any time you factor in the enthusiasm that comes with college sports, it comes with a whole new level. It is less corporate, it's more of an unharnessed kidlike enthusiasm.
My father passed away due to Alzheimer's disease, and many things I do are nods to him.
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.
When Jack Nicklaus won the Masters in 1986, it was mind-blowing. How in the world could a 46-year-old win the Masters?
As a teenager, Tiger was self-assured and mature, yet also warm and charming. But the warm outward veneer gradually changed. When he pulled off his 'win for the ages' at the 1997 Masters, he already was sharing less of his softer, emotional side.
