Authors: Gil Capps
Nicklaus was in the other players’ heads without doing anything. As Tom Weiskopf bluntly puts it, “When you looked at Nicklaus and he looked at you, he knew that you knew that he knew he was going to beat the shit out of you.”
That was the case on many Sunday afternoons. Nicklaus didn’t even need to play superb golf to win. He would wait for those around him to make mistakes.
“Players would watch the leaderboard, and all of a sudden the Nicklaus name would appear, and they go, uh-oh, here he comes,” says John Mahaffey. “All of a sudden, they can’t hit it in a ten-acre field, they chili-dip it in the water, and all kinds of stuff happens. Instead of concentrating on your game, you end up watching to see what he’s doing.”
If Jack Nicklaus lost, that didn’t mean his edge was gone. As long as he played well, his edge remained. If someone played better and won, hats off to him.
“Jack was extremely competitive. Jack didn’t want to lose. He knew the edge was important,” says Sneed. This translated to casual rounds and practice rounds as well. “If he’s got a six-foot putt on the
18th hole on Tuesday for $10, Jack knew to step up there and knock it in the middle and look you in the eye. Jack knew what that meant. It wasn’t life or death to him, but he didn’t want to give anybody a freebie.”
Nothing made Nicklaus angrier than when he beat himself, but those occasions did not stick in the minds of his colleagues.
“Ever remember Jack missing one that mattered?” asks Maltbie. “They did happen. They were few and far between. But we all have pictures of all the ones that did go in, that did matter.”
EARLY ON, BOB JONES
knew Nicklaus possessed everything for extended greatness; but from his own personal experience he concluded that it was possible “providing only that he retains his keenness for competition and his desire to win. It is in these subjective attitudes that the competitive golfer deteriorates long before his physical competence begins to wane.”
Jones experienced the phenomenon himself. During his competitive days, Jones played in only a handful of tournaments each year. He juggled getting three degrees from three separate institutions—a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech, a Bachelor of Science in English Literature from Harvard, and a Law degree from Emory. Growing his law practice followed. The pressure and strain of playing well became so great that once Jones won the Grand Slam, he retired.
The fact that his sustained success on the course was under threat wasn’t a surprise. Nicklaus was now thirty-five years old, and his life seemed like a multi-exit interstate interchange. He had five children at home. His golf architecture business was beginning to flourish with a dozen projects in some stage of design or construction. He was soon inaugurating his own PGA Tour tournament. There were books and numerous other business ventures and endorsement obligations. Distractions would have affected others. For Nicklaus, all of the off-course responsibilities helped to recharge his golfing batteries.
“I wasn’t totally absorbed by the game of golf,” says Nicklaus. “I was absorbed more by my family and other things I was doing. That was a blessing to me. I think I would have gone crazy if golf was the only thing I had to think of.” The whirlwind kept his senses fresh.
“I wouldn’t go on the practice tee for six hours,” he says. “I had other things to do. I would go to the practice tee for a couple of hours and I would make sure I got six hours of practice in two hours because I focused on what I was doing.”
He practiced because he wanted to, not because he felt like he had to. Pointing to just four events a year helped combat any boredom or mediocrity. “I always built myself up for Augusta and let myself down, and built myself up for the U.S. Open and let myself down,” he says. “I did that so that I was always trying to climb a mountain going into a major championship, so that I knew I was focused and working on what I was trying to do.” He and Bob Jones were the only players who could raise their games on call and peak for events.
A few months following the 1964 PGA Championship at Columbus Country Club, the champion Bobby Nichols remembers playing with Nicklaus, who said, “We had such tremendous crowds there in Columbus, it got me to thinking this town really needs a golf course.” The blueprint was easy.
The Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters inspired Nicklaus to emulate Jones in another way. Back in Columbus on Christmas Eve in 1965, Nicklaus first mentioned his interest in copying the Augusta formula to several hometown friends: Ivor Young, Pandel Savic, and Bob Hoag. The conversation turned more serious one night at the house Nicklaus rented for the 1966 Masters. Nicklaus thought it would be great to have a similar course and event in Columbus. By June, Nicklaus fell in love with a piece of property northwest of the city. But it would be a long journey.
Financing the project proved difficult, even after it was announced in February 1968. Nicklaus bought more land with his own money. Even when it was decided, against his initial desire, that the best way
to go forward was to make it a residential development, it remained stalled. By 1973, Nicklaus was on the hook for a lot of money, and options were about to expire that were vital to completing it. “If I ever saw a project that came close to taking someone down the tubes, this was close to it,” he said. Finally, a deal was struck with a local securities company and the project, with Nicklaus still in control, moved forward (amazingly with all that going on, he won the 1973 PGA Championship the next week).
He named it Muirfield Village—after the course on the east coast of Scotland where he played his first Walker Cup in 1959 and won his first British Open in 1966. When the course finally opened on Memorial Day 1974, Nicklaus struck the first tee shot. Weiskopf and Putnam Pierman held the scissors at the ribbon cutting ceremony. Two years later, the Memorial Tournament would be inaugurated with Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. as its first Memorial Tournament honoree.
Nineteen Seventy-Four would see Nicklaus release his fifth book, the instructional classic
Golf My Way
. It would see him inducted as part of the inaugural class into the World Golf Hall of Fame in Pinehurst that September. And it would see him continue a remarkable streak of consistent excellence: at least two wins and a top-five position on the money list every season since his rookie year in 1962. But 1974 also served as a kick in the pants for Nicklaus.
He failed to capture a single major championship in 1974—the first time that had happened in five years. “If I have any one goal in golf, it is to try and capture one major championship each year,” said Nicklaus during this period. He wasn’t getting younger either. Even the game’s most popular player, Arnold Palmer, had not won a major championship after age thirty-four. That led Nicklaus to start thinking about the Masters on August 12—the day after the previous year’s PGA ended.
“I did not play all that well last year,” he said. “Consequently, I have had to work harder on my game. My own game was lousy. I decided that I wanted to play golf for a long time. And that I had to get my game ready.”
Nicklaus felt he never had a true break in the early-1970s, which led to him being tired and stale at the start of each year. So he changed his schedule at the end of 1974. Instead of playing until December and raking in money, he played only twice after late September. By taking much of the fall off, he spent time with his five kids, going to games, fishing, hunting, even playing in a recreational basketball league. Nicklaus enjoyed being a homebody (he was always proud that he kept a promise to his wife of never playing more than two weeks in a row his entire career).
The long breaks, he felt, made him much more eager. “That’s how I kept myself playing and how I kept myself interested and how I kept kicking myself in the rear end just to get going,” he said.
Then Johnny Miller started winning.
“He awakened the wounded bear,” accused Miller Barber. “He got Nicklaus mad. When Johnny started tearing up those courses and killing par every round, some guys back home began making noise about Miller taking over as number one man. I tell you this: that Miller thing has Nicklaus in the same frame of mind like he used to be for Palmer when Arnie was number one.”
“Don’t make Jack mad,” said Trevino. “Talk nice to him. Don’t wake him up. They woke him up and got him mad in Florida and look what he did to us.”
Nicklaus concurred, but without singling out Miller. “Johnny Miller, Sam Spade or whoever it is, my own game was lousy and that was my inspiration and motivation,” he said. “Granted when anyone else is playing well, it puts a bug in you. It’s a challenge I suppose. Good for me, good for golf.
“Nobody likes to think that he’s still not considered the best player in the game.”
THE MAJOR-LESS
season of 1974 and ascent of Johnny Miller had prodded Nicklaus into focusing even more for this Masters. Yet,
there was another unchecked dream. For a man who had accomplished nearly everything in the sport, Nicklaus still longed to reach the ultimate goal that would bring him full-circle with the legacy of Bob Jones: the Grand Slam.
“I have not accomplished all I want in golf,” said Nicklaus that Tuesday. “If I could win all four of the majors in a single season, then, perhaps, I would not play the tour as I have played it.” Of course, when Jones won his forty-five years earlier, he quit playing competitively. Would Nicklaus do the same?
He had come closest to achieving his quest in 1972. After winning the year’s first two majors, the Masters and U.S. Open, he found himself in the lead with three holes to play in the British Open at Muirfield. Harkening back to memories of his triumph there in 1966 when the fairways were narrow and rough deep, Nicklaus had played conservatively on the links course the first three days and stood six shots behind Lee Trevino going into the final round. Changing course, Nicklaus decided to go all out, and by the time he got to the 16th tee he was six under par and leading by one. The spectators had been vocally behind Nicklaus all day as the momentum built. An emotional Nicklaus thought a par-birdie-par finish would win it.
Then, his tee shot on the par-three 16th hopped left into long rough, and he didn’t properly read the break on his six footer for par. On the par-five 17th, he hit a drive off-line and couldn’t recover for birdie. A par on the last gave him a 66, the low round of the day. “Even though I knew I screwed up coming in a little bit, I still thought that I was going to win the tournament when I finished,” said Nicklaus. In trouble virtually the entire way up the 17th having hooked his drive into a bunker, hit his third shot into the rough, and bladed a wedge across the green, Trevino looked dead. Then, he chipped in for par from in back of the green. Trevino made another par on the final hole to edge Nicklaus by one. “I was flattened,” said Nicklaus when that happened. “That was a hard, hard loss for me.”
“What would he have done had he won all four?” asked Trevino. “There would be nothing left for him to do. He’d have to quit. Thinking back, maybe I should have let him win.”
The major season in 1975 set up with layouts Nicklaus thought suited him well: Augusta National, Medinah Country Club outside Chicago, Carnoustie in Scotland, and Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio. “They were all good courses for me, and I wanted to get off to the right start,” he says.
“So many times playing in the Masters if I didn’t win it, I just forgot about the year,” confesses Nicklaus. “I wasn’t going to win the Grand Slam and that was how it worked.”
Whether because of 1974, Johnny Miller, or the Grand Slam, Nicklaus believed he put in more work in preparation for the 1975 majors than he had since he turned professional. Leading into Augusta, the hard work was paying off. He won in each of his previous two starts at Miami and Hilton Head and stated, “I’m probably playing better than I ever have in my life.” In fact, Nicklaus was attempting to win three consecutive starts on the PGA Tour for the first time in his career.
With his opening round 68 at Augusta National, Nicklaus was on his way to finding out definitively if this was the best golf of his life. On his way to cementing his place on top of the golf mountain. On his way to emulating Jones—maybe with his own Grand Slam. On his way to having fun.
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7
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“M
r. Roberts would like to meet you,” said the voice on the other end of the telephone. Vin Scully was already nervous. This call did nothing to alleviate his anxiety.
At age forty-seven, Scully was already a legendary baseball broadcaster. He joined the Brooklyn Dodgers radio team at age twenty-two, just a year after graduating from Fordham University, and then followed the team to Los Angeles in 1958. After a quarter-century in the business, Scully was one of the most revered and respected announcers in all of radio or television. In 1975, he had just been hired by the Columbia Broadcasting System to call NFL games, host tennis, and anchor its golf coverage. That meant he was going to be the lead commentator at the Masters, taking over for Ray Scott, who had called the action from beside the 18th green the previous five years. When Roberts was told of the change, he responded, “You mean the baseball fella?”
The request to meet with Mr. Roberts came on short notice. Even with his new CBS contract, Scully still called Dodgers games, and he and the team were already in Cincinnati to face the Reds in the opening series of the year. He wasn’t supposed to travel down for the
Masters until later in the week. It was the CBS golf producer, Frank Chirkinian, on the other end of the line. Scully told him there was no way he could travel to Augusta and make it back in time for the game that night. Chirkinian replied that he’d call back, and a few minutes later he did. “Arnold Palmer’s plane is being serviced in Indianapolis. It will swing by, pick you up at Lumpkin Airport so that you can have the morning meeting, and then you can fly back commercially and do the game,” he said. The irony of his maiden voyage to the Masters wasn’t lost on Scully. “So this left-handed hacker got off in Augusta arriving in Arnold Palmer’s jet,” he says.