The end of a season inevitably brings a sense of nostalgia. Like a school year ending — when ironically most are beginning — the culmination comes with thoughts of what has been. Superlatives are given out. Memories are shared. Plans for the future go from pencil to pen to gone in a blink of an eye.
The PGA Tour is no different. Like any other organization or group, the calendar comes for them with the FedEx Cup Playoffs representing the final salvo for what was an eventful, even surprising, 2026 campaign. Superstars and household names won. Young guns fired on all cylinders. Major championships were claimed by both perennial contenders and outsiders who gained the inside track.
Much of the story has unfolded on CBS airwaves just as the remaining two tournaments — the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship — of the FedEx Cup Playoffs will. At the helm for it all has been legendary broadcaster Jim Nantz amid a season that marked No. 40 since his first call at the Masters in 1986.
Yes, that Masters.
Having experienced a lifetime of calls and a lifetime of once in a lifetime moments from those swinging the clubs, Nantz would not divulge if there has been a favorite broadcast of his to be a part of.
“The next one,” Nantz said. “I love them all.”
Instead, he did what he did best and told a story. This one about the old Crosby Clambake as it was called back then, now known as the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. While the whimsical nature of the event has passed by and those in the pro-am portion of the tournament across the first 36 holes are more C-Suite than C-list, there was a time, and who better to explain how his original answer formed than Nantz himself.
“One time, I was a part of the CBS crew early in my career at Pebble [Beach]. I never forgot this line,” Nantz said. “Phil Harris played this boozy, kind of always looked like a guy that was coming in and out of bars, and that’s not cool today, I get that.
“But actually, on the air, on our air one time, Jack Lemmon hit a shot at 18 at Pebble Beach, down off the rocks and into the ocean and [Pat] Summerall intone, ‘That’s Lemmon on the rocks,’. [Ken] Venturi said, ‘Sounds like a drink I had last night in the taproom.’
“And with that, he turned to Phil, who was now playing the role of Bing [Crosby]. Bing had just recently passed in the last 10 years. He says, ‘You know, Phil, I’ve always wanted to ask you, you’re a renowned drinker, what’s your favorite drink?’
“And he said on CBS, ‘The next one.'”