Jim Nantz has been bopping around Pebble Beach, California, since February in his 2012 GMC Yukon ever since the car he won at auction was finally delivered. By now, you probably know the story: it’s the former car of defending Masters champion and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, which he auctioned off for charity. (For more on the back story, click here.)
But no one bothered to ask Nantz why he was willing to pay $50,000 for a vehicle with more than 184,000 miles to it. Nantz is a collector not so much of sports memorabilia but of memories. He already tools around Pebble in the golf cart of his former broadcast partner, longtime CBS golf analyst and U.S. Open champion Ken Venturi.
But Nantz's latest splurge is not so much out of his admiration of Scheffler’s remarkable abilities with a golf club in his hand but out of respect for a mutual friendship. The real reason Nantz purchased Scheffler’s GMC Yukon with 184,000 miles has everything to do with James Ragan, Scheffler’s boyhood buddy, who died of a rare form of bone cancer in 2014 but not before launching Triumph Over Kids Cancer with his sister Mecklin.
“Had he been healthy, he could’ve done anything,” Nantz tells Golfweek. “He had this ability to communicate. And he did do great things. He laid the groundwork for this fundraising and awareness. It was his brainchild. He worried about everyone else.”
Scheffler of Dallas and Ragan of Corpus Christi became friends while competing on the Texas Golf Association's Legends Junior Tour for competitors ages 12-19. Due to his love of the game, Ragan was the cancer patient asked to be the master of ceremonies when Jack Nicklaus, in 2010, was the headliner for MD Anderson’s “A Conversation with a Living Legend,” its long-running series to raise money in support of the mission to end cancer. Nantz interviewed Nicklaus in front of 800 supporters, but first Ragan stole the show.
“I feel like the luckiest guy in the world right now,” said James of getting to meet two icons in the game.
Both Nantz and Nicklaus were moved by James’ infectious attitude and his story.
“Here was a kid who faced the worst of odds for survival and he felt sorry for the doctors,” Nantz said. “How can anyone that age stand up in a room like that and be facing a terrible disease and not show any self-pity?”
That day, Nantz recorded James’ outgoing voicemail message for James’ phone, which meant the world to James – he joked that he’d only swap it out if James Earl Jones did Darth Vader for him – but that proved to be just the beginning of their friendship. Nantz visited Ragan at MD Anderson when he was in Houston and called him regularly. He brought James and sister Mecklin as his guests to the 2012 NCAA Final Four in New Orleans. Nantz still remembers that's the first time ...
