CBS Sports Commentator Jim Nantz to Receive ASGCA Donald Ross Award

Sports broadcasting legend has spent four decades chronicling historic moments and promoting the game

 

For four decades, hearing the voice of Jim Nantz has meant an important sporting event was taking place. Since joining CBS in 1985, Nantz has brought a level of professionalism matched only by his love of sports and the art of storytelling to viewers who share his passion. His calls from NFL games and Super Bowls, NCAA basketball games and Final Fours, and PGA Tour events, the Masters and the PGA Championship will be remembered for generations. His voice has served as the soundtrack to unforgettable moments from some of the country’s greatest golf courses, creating memories forever etched in the game’s history.

His insights, storytelling, and unmistakable passion for golf have helped millions develop a deeper appreciation for great course design. Beyond the broadcast booth, Nantz, a friend and supporter of the NCGA, has brought that passion to life through hands-on design projects ranging from his backyard golf holes to courses such as Tepetonka Club in Minnesota. Nantz currently serves as a golf course design consultant for Tepontka’s short course, which is being designed by OCM Golf.

Nantz’s positive impact on the game makes him a worthy recipient of the 2026 ASGCA Donald Ross Award. The organization’s highest honor recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to the game of golf and the profession of golf course architecture. Nantz will receive the award during the ASGCA Annual Meeting in October.

“It is fitting that Jim Nantz is the first broadcaster to receive the Donald Ross Award,” said ASGCA President Mark Mungeam. “He has been and is the ‘voice of golf’ for multiple generations of fans. His love and respect for the game – and the courses it is played on – is evident in all of his broadcasts."

A member of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the youngest ever to be inducted into both the Pro Football and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Nantz is a four-time Emmy Award-winner and five time National Sportscaster of the Year. In 2025, he was named Honorary Chair of the First Tee. He graduated in 1981 with a degree in radio/television from the University of Houston, where he was recruited as a member of the golf team.

Nantz joined the CBS Sports golf team in 1986 and has anchored CBS’ golf coverage since 1994. He spent 32 years as CBS’s lead play-by-play announcer for NCAA men’s college basketball and this fall he begins his 23rd season as the lead play-by-play voice for the NFL on CBS.

“My admiration for the American Society of Golf Course Architects runs deep,” Nantz said. “I have long studied their work and the thoughtful process they use to shape their masterpiece landscapes. To be recognized by this extraordinary group is truly an honor.”

In 2011, Nantz worked with Houston Methodist Hospital to create the Nantz National Alzheimer Center (NNAC), dedi­cated to funding innovative diagnostic discoveries for early and accurate detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementing illnesses (www.nantzfriends.org). The center was named in honor of Jim’s late father, Jim Nantz Sr., who lived with Alzheimer’s disease for 13 years.

The Nantz family journey was the basis for the New York Times bestseller “Always By My Side,” whose foreword was written by 2018 Donald Ross Award Recipient President George H.W. Bush.

 

Past Donald Ross Award Recipients

2025 David Fay, USGA Executive Director

2024 Robert Trent Jones Jr., ASGCA, golf course architect

2023 Frank Jemsek, Jemsek Golf
2022 John Lawrence, The Toro Company

2021 Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, ASGCA, golf course architects

2020 Renee Powell, golf pioneer/player/course owner

2019 Joe Passov, golf writer
2018 President George Herbert Walker Bush, U.S. President

2017 Alice Dye, ASGCA Fellow, golf course architect

2016 Michael Bamberger, golf writer

2015 Bradley S. Klein, golf writer

2014 Maj. Dan Rooney, founder, Folds of Honor Foundation

2013 Rees Jones, ASGCA, golf course architect

2012 Bill Kubly, golf course builder

2011 James Dodson, golf writer/editor

2010 Tim Finchem, PGA Tour Commissioner

2009 Ron Dodson, sustainable golf advocate
2008 George Peper, golf writer

2007 Dr. Michael Hurdzan, ASGCA, golf course architect

2006 Jim Awtrey, chief executive officer, PGA of America

2005 John Singleton, irrigation pioneer

2004 Thomas Cousins, philanthropist, urban golf developer

2003 Bill Campbell, president, USGA, captain, Royal & Ancient Golf Club

2002 Byron Nelson, professional golfer

2001 Jack Nicklaus, ASGCA, professional golfer, golf course architect

2000 Jaime Ortiz-Patino, owner and president, Valderrama Golf Club

1999 Arnold Palmer, professional golfer

1998 Judy Bell, president, USGA

1997 Gene Sarazen, professional golfer

1996 Ron Whitten, golf writer

1995 Pete Dye, ASGCA, golf course architect

1994 James R. Watson, agronomist

1993 Brent Wadsworth, golf course builder

1992 Paul Fullmer, ASGCA executive secretary

1991 Michael Bonallack, secretary, Royal & Ancient Golf Club

1990 John Zoller, executive director, Northern California Golf Association

1989 Dick Taylor, editor, “Golf World” magazine

1988 Frank Hannigan, executive director, USGA

1987 Charles Price, writer, “Golf World” magazine

1986 Deane Beman, commissioner, PGA Tour

1985 Peter Dobereiner, “London Observer” columnist, author

1984 Dinah Shore, sponsor of women’s golf tournaments

1983 Al Radko, director, USGA Green Section

1982 Geoffrey Cornish, ASGCA, golf course architect, historian

1981 James Rhodes, governor of Ohio

1980 Gerald Micklem, captain, Royal & Ancient

1979 Joe Dey, executive director, USGA

1978 Herb and Joe Graffis, founders, National Golf Foundation

1977 Herbert Warren Wind, “The New Yorker” columnist, author

1976 Robert Trent Jones, ASGCA, ASGCA founding member