Jim Nantz

Revealing some secrets of my back-yard par 3

I’M ASKED periodically what career path I would have pursued had my broadcasting gig not panned out. It’s a hard question, because I’ve been working in television since I was a 20-year-old junior at the University of Houston. But I do know that my “other” dream job as a kid growing up in Colts Neck, N.J., involved golf course architecture.

That passion behind my alternate career choice was reinforced in the summer of 2014, when I gazed out at my somewhat ordinary back yard and imagined a golf hole there. Not just any hole, but a replica of the famed par-3 seventh hole at Pebble Beach, which we admire every day from our house.

The fact it was the seventh hole at Pebble played no small role in pulling it off . In 2012, my wife, Courtney, and I were married on the tee there. It was one of the great moments of our lives, and what better anniversary gift could I present to her than a replica of our wedding chapel? And these days our little ones, Finley and Jameson, use the putting surface as their outdoor playground.