Four Minutes of Nothing But Nat Sound
Four Minutes of Nothing But Nat Sound
Let’s just say that you might not be one of the almost 13 million people who watched the final round of The Masters golf tournament this past Sunday afternoon. It’s understandable. Not everyone is a fan of golf, let alone this singular tournament that casts the sport in almost a cathedral-like atmosphere amongst the azaleas and pine trees that dot the landscape every April at Augusta National Golf Club. The tournament has had its share of social issues over the years, not having a black man admitted as a member of Augusta National until 1990, some 15 years after Lee Elder would be the first black man to compete in the Masters. Seven years later, Tiger Woods would become the youngest Masters champion at age 21. Women weren’t admitted as members to Augusta National until 2012, and the Masters has remained an all-male tournament, but to be fair, so are all the other annual stops on the PGA tour.
But The Masters still stands unique. Not only in golf but in all of televised sports. The event is scrupulously controlled by the leadership of Augusta National Golf Club, right down to having approval of many aspects of the television coverage seen on ESPN in the early rounds and then on CBS. The latter network has televised every edition of The Masters, since it was first shown on TV in 1956. That’s a remarkable streak, given the escalating values and jockeying for televised sports rights these days.
But tradition matters more in Augusta than in most other venues.
The club controls everything from the announcers who work the event to how many commercials run each hour and who the major sponsors are who get those coveted spots. Even the musical soundtrack is a 44-year-old composition from Dave Loggins. There was even some controversy a few years ago when the green-jacket-wearing gentlemen of Augusta National ordered the sound of birds piped in by the TV production truck to enhance the audio when the real ones living in the pines weren’t singing quite enough. (The golf club strenuously denied any such orders.)
We point all this out, to set the stage for understanding just how damn picky they are about every aspect of The Masters. And so when the game’s drama plays out on the 18 holes of that legendary course, it can unfold a bit differently than other moments in sports that capture the audience lucky enough to witness it in person, as well as the millions watching on television. And the 89th edition of The Masters did not disappoint.
The tournament’s first round ended on Thursday with Justin Rose in the lead. Rory McIlroy didn’t have a great first day, finishing the round tied in 27th place. But McIlroy found his game in the second round to shoot the day’s low round with a score of 66, putting him in third place behind the still-leading Justin Rose. As they do in golf tournaments, the field was whittled down to 53 players who “made the cut” to play on the weekend.
Rory McIlroy would take the lead in Saturday’s Third Round with another sizzling round of 66, while previous leader Justin Rose dropped to a tie for 6th place with an uneven round of 75. It would set up a final round on Sunday with the storyline that McIlroy might finally win The Masters on his 11th try, completing the elusive “Career Grand Slam” feat of winning the sport’s four major tournaments. You can just imagine how happy the folks working on the CBS telecast were about the story about to unfold on Sunday afternoon.
However, golf tournaments rarely play out to any kind of script, and the CBS team had to be ready for anything to happen. After leader McIlroy booted his first two holes on Sunday with dreaded double bogeys, this would not be a simple walk through 16 more holes to win a coveted green jacket and become only the sixth man to win that Grand Slam in his career. While McIroy looked unsteady at first, he would regain his composure on the next two holes–but it was clearly going to be no easy day for the 35-year-old from Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, early tournament leader Justin Rose was methodically working through his final round to retake the lead in the tournament from McIlroy with a birdie on the 16th hole. He would finish his round at -11 under with a lead in the clubhouse. The stage was set for a dramatic finish with McIlroy’s final three holes of play to go.
And McIlroy did not disappoint, battling back on 16 and 17 to make the final hole his chance to hold a one stroke lead and win the tournament. But on the final hole, he pushed his second shot into a sand bunker. A strong recovery to the green put him one single short putt away from making par and securing the win over Rose.
So when he stepped up to make his putt, the iconic voice of CBS’s Jim Nantz set up the moment and then said nothing. The crowd around the hole was silent. Even the birds seemed to stop singing–or they were cued to do so by the tv production truck (we’ll never know for sure.)
Rory McIlroy missed the putt. It would force a playoff to determine who would win this Masters. With the sun still high enough in the Georgia sky, the process of closing out the round, signing his scorecard and returning to the 18th tee, the first playoff hole, to be joined by Justin Rose who was sped out to the spot by a green golf cart, in one of the few times TV viewers would see a golf cart used at Augusta National. Now it would be “mano a mano” as the two men would battle one hole at a time, until one would win the playoff. For a little extra added drama, the last time there was a playoff at The Masters was 2017, and the same Justin Rose playing in this playoff, lost that one to Sergio Garcia–on the first playoff hole on the 18th. We include all of this buildup here so you might understand just how much pressure there was in how this would unfold. The two men made it to the green in two shots, but Rose was further from the hole and would putt first. He would miss his putt for birdie. And so it all came down to Rory McIlroy to do what he had just failed to do a half-hour earlier. Sink his birdie, and win.
As his ball rolled toward the middle of the hole and into the cup, the silence was instantly shattered by a thundering roar from the crowd. McIlroy would throw his putter over his shoulder and fall to his knees. The composure of the previous days and maybe even the years fell from his face as he leaned over into the smooth green, now visibly sobbing.
To match the power of the moment, the CBS announcers, led by the veteran Nantz, said absolutely nothing for over four full minutes. All we heard was the emotion fom the crowd, unwilling to stop showering the victor with their applause and cheers. We’ve been in a few production trucks when covering sports events and we’ve heard producers tell the announcers in their headphones to just “lay out” meaning just let the moment breathe without commentary. We don’t know if producer Jim Rikhoff had to tell Jim Nantz to do so, but whoever decided to do so was correct. And it is because of that (and really the entire Sunday telecast) that we would point those who have to appear on live television for moments like these–remember the true power of not needing to speak.
And in some cases, doing so for what may seem like a very long time. Alas, there isn’t a replay of the entire final hours of the tournament available for streaming. If there were, we would urge you to watch it if you didn’t see it live. Even if you did, it would be worth watching again. Why?
Because we agree with the unnamed executive from another network who told John Ourand of Puck.News:
“If you want to teach television, just show the CBS Masters broadcast from the time of the winning putt to the end of the Butler Cabin interview. Absolute perfection in every way….I promise you, there will not be a better stretch of television done in our industry this year.”
And that’s why Jim Nantz gets to deliver the signature line: “A tradition unlike any other.”