Nantz

In Norse legend, Valhalla meant heaven for those who fell in battle. For this weekend's PGA Championship, the Valhalla Golf Club will mean a place for good scores.That's the take of Jim Nantz and Gary McCord, two of CBS' platoon of golf experts who will call the action from the Jack Nicklaus-designed course in Louisville, where the combination of dry, warm conditions and favorable surfaces should yield birdies, eagles and better. There were two holes-in-one on the first day alone."The greens are bizarre, and the course has all kinds of swoops and sways.

CBS Super Bowl broadcasters Jim Nantz and Phil Simms say they see a lot more than just Ray Lewis when they look at the Baltimore Ravens. And come Sunday, the conversation they do have about Lewis in the biggest broadcast booth in popular culture is going to be primarily about his play on the field and inspirational power in the locker room - not what happened in Atlanta. "I would just say, Ravens?" Nantz said Tuesday when asked for his sense of the team's image during a teleconference.

As appealing as it might be to vent my own frustration and play to the rage of tens of thousands of Ravens fans by ripping the TV coverage of Baltimore's agonizing 23-20 loss to the New England Patriots, facts are facts. And the fact of the matter is that CBS Sports did an outstanding job of telecasting Sunday's AFC championship game. The producer and director used their cameras to make viewers feel as if they were not only in the stadium, but almost on the field in Foxboro at certain points Sunday.

Pimlico Race Course Ben's Cat races to repeat in $75K Mister Diz Stakes The Jim Stable's Ben's Cat carried Jeremy Rose to a repeat score in the $75,000 Mister Diz Stakes, Saturday's feature offering at Pimlico Race Course . Bred, owned and trained by the legendary King Leatherbury , Ben's Cat won for the ninth time in 12 lifetime starts. The son of Parker's Storm Cat has won four stakes since his debut as a 4-year-old last year, but this was his first added-money victory racing on the main track.

TV call 'nice 'n' easy' What a pleasure to listen to Jim Nantz and Phil Simms telecasting a Ravens game after the past two weeks of Dick Enberg and Dan Fouts, and Brian Billick and Thom Brennaman. As Frank Sinatra put it in a 1960 LP, "Nice 'n' easy does it every time." Of course, Nantz and Simms only make it sound easy. After listening to all the misinformation and flat-out confusion at times from Enberg last week, you realize how much preparation goes into supplying the kind of smooth and steady stream of background information and context that Simms and Nantz offered throughout Sunday's victory over the Oakland Raiders.

4 p.m. [ESPN] Mike Tirico hosts and the ESPN signage will be popping up, but otherwise it's the CBS version of golf's revered championship - with Jim Nantz, Nick Faldo, Verne Lundquist and the gang. Oops, I'm sorry. "Gang" is an inappropriate word to use in any reference to what's happening at Augusta National. Somebody might just snatch away my pimento-and-cheese sandwich.

It has been five years now since Karrie Webb provided one of the most spectacular finishes in Kraft Nabisco Championship annals, holing a wedge from 116 yards for an eagle that set up a playoff victory over Lorena Ochoa. Annika Sorenstam was still the LPGA's dominant player then, replaced a year later by Ochoa. Now both are no longer active players; Webb remains. And after two early-season victories, the Australian once again finds herself among the favorites in the season's first major.

On July 30, 2006, ALICE JEAN FOLL, age 69, of Ocean Pines, MD, formerly of Baltimore; beloved wife of William A. Foll; devoted mother of Alison Nantz and Heather Ransone; sister of Sally Harper; loving grandmother of five. A memorial service will be held today, August 2, 2 P.M. at the Community Church at Ocean Pines. In lieu of flowers the family suggests contributions to Community Church at Ocean Pines, 11227 Racetrack Road, Berlin, MD 21811. Arrangements by Hastings Funeral Home, Selbyville, DE.

TV call 'nice 'n' easy' What a pleasure to listen to Jim Nantz and Phil Simms telecasting a Ravens game after the past two weeks of Dick Enberg and Dan Fouts, and Brian Billick and Thom Brennaman. As Frank Sinatra put it in a 1960 LP, "Nice 'n' easy does it every time." Of course, Nantz and Simms only make it sound easy. After listening to all the misinformation and flat-out confusion at times from Enberg last week, you realize how much preparation goes into supplying the kind of smooth and steady stream of background information and context that Simms and Nantz offered throughout Sunday's victory over the Oakland Raiders.

The television listings will say that CBS is carrying a golf tournament this weekend, but make no mistake: This year's Masters, just like every year's, looks more like a gymnastics meet. That's thanks to all the contortions and bends, verbal and otherwise, that CBS officials and announcers have to do to stay on the good side of the courtly Southern gentlemen who run the Augusta National golf course as if it were the '90s. The 1790s, that is. Consider, for instance, the vaults over reality that CBS anchor Jim Nantz and golf coordinating producer Lance Barrow did the other day during the annual pre-Masters conference call.