“Matsuyama is Japan’s first Masters champion!” was the call from Jim Nantz as Hideki Matsuyama made his final putt to win the 2021 Masters. It was fine, but predictable and left Bill Simmons wanting more.
As first noted by Stephen Douglas of The Big Lead, during Simmons’ Masters wrap-up podcast, he told The Ringer’s Kevin Clark how disappointed he was in the bland call from Nantz. Simmons believed Nantz was scared to go outside the box in celebrating Matsuyama’s victory amid the racial divide seen throughout the country, citing cancel culture as the reason.
“We were hoping for one of his classic pre-baked one-liners when Matsuyama won The Masters. I think he was scared off. He felt nervous to me the last twenty minutes.” Simmons said before pointing to cancel culture as the culprit. “I don’t think Nantz wanted to go near anything. He kept kind of throwing it to Faldo and then when Matsuyama hit the first of all, he missed the par putt, he had the little two-footer coming back, he made it. He wins. And Nantz basically said, Hideki Matsuyama, the first Japanese golfer to win The Masters. I’ve never heard him put less thought, energy, creativity, anything into one of his calls and it was a scared Jim Nantz, let’s be honest.”
Expectedly, Clark asked Simmons if he had an idea of what Nantz should have said as Matsuyama secured the green jacket.
“So I had it. I had the savvy one,” Simmons answered. “Heat of the Moment, which was a song that won like five Grammys by a band called Asia in the 80’s. I think Nantz could have gone stealth and done, It was the heat of the moment, Hideki Matsui is our Masters champion. Something like that and then it just would have been really underground. Nobody really would have gotten it. But he just played it chalk. You know what? You just signed a new contract Jim Nantz. We don’t want a scared Jim Nantz. Come up with some sort of line. Anything? Disappointing.”
That’s not a typo, Simmons said former Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui instead of Masters winner Hideki Matsuyama. So while Simmons was offering his better idea for Nantz after saying the CBS broadcaster was scared of being canceled, he made an egregious mistake that would have negatively headlined media outlets everywhere.
But assuming Nantz would have avoided that colossal blunder, Simmons is correct, no one would have gotten his Heat of the Moment reference. I certainly wouldn’t have. So was his idea even a better, more creative and momentous call for Nantz? A song reference that no one really understood the connection to. That’s some deep thinking from Simmons.
It wouldn’t have been the first song reference for Nantz, having previously quoted Bette Midler’s The Rose after Justin Rose won his first ever PGA Tour event in 2010. But Nantz wasn’t cryptic with that song reference, reciting a full verse. If Nantz left the audience wanting more on Sunday, I don’t think Simmons Heat of the Moment idea would have been a solve.
