Veteran Sports Broadcasters Should Know When It's Time to Quit

Jim Nantz, the American golf commentator, recently announced in an interview with Bunkered that he hopes to retire after The Masters in 2036. He would be 76-years-old and it would be his 51st broadcast from Augusta.

Oh dear!

Nantz is a decent enough broadcaster who claims to have golf’s best interests at heart. 

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If you follow or are involved with our sport then you will know that one of the toughest challenges it faces is attracting a younger audience. And when you have a veteran such as Nantz saying that he wants to carry on (and on) it is not difficult to understand why.

Nantz is by no means alone. The likes of Henry Longhurst and Peter Alliss went on too long.

In his prime, Alliss was widely hailed as being a master of his craft. His one-liners were the stuff of legend. 

Sadly, many will remember Alliss for the gaffes that marked the latter part of his career. 

At the 2004 Masters, Phil Mickelson holed a winning putt on the final green and leapt into the air in celebration. Alliss, who had been supposedly following the action for 72 holes, informed the viewing public that the American was heading for a playoff before realising his mistake. 

This was how it unfolded:

Mickelson holed an 18-foot putt on the 72nd green to beat Ernie Els by a shot and Alliss said: "And on we go. It's not over yet."

As Mickelson punched the air and hugged his caddie, Jim "Bones" Mackay, Alliss, who was 73 at the time, suddenly realised his mistake. 

He said: "Oh, it is. Of course he has. He's holed it. I'm so carried away I thought he's got that to...that's unbelievable. A birdie...and I'm thinking to myself, well, and Ernie is shell-shocked, I think, absolutely shell-shocked. That's quite brilliant."

It was unforgivable. He should have walked away right there and then. Instead he chose to blunder on. He commentated well into his 80s - including remotely at The Masters in 2020 just weeks before his death - but by that time he had tarnished his reputation.

I have always had a lot of time for Nantz, notwithstanding the excruciating "interview" he conducts with the winner in the immediate aftermath of The Masters. It has become one of the many traditions associated with the first major of the season - and it is one that should have been scrapped years ago. But I am sorry, for him to announce that he wants to go on and on and on smacks of arrogance. We are trying to attract a younger audience to our sport and having it called on TV by men in their 70s and beyond is not helpful.

For many years Dan Maskell was the voice of tennis for the BBC. "Whispering" Ted Lowe fulfilled a similar role for snooker. John Motson was like a walking football encyclopaedia, closely followed by Barry Davies and Brian Moore. 

For all his "Colemanballs", the great David Coleman was able to turn his hand to any number of sports, knowing what to say and when to say it. Bill McLaren had us all dancing in the streets for years as his dulcet tones described the action on the rugby field.

These men all had two things in common - they were masters of their craft and they knew exactly when the time had come to hang up the microphone. Nantz would do well to take a leaf from their book.