Jack Nicklaus For the past 30 years, Jack Nicklaus has been considered by many to be the greatest golfer of all time (1). His stamina has matched that of Arnold Palmer, and only the likes of Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Bobby Jones, and Tiger Woods are to be considered players in Nicklaus’ league. In numbers of major tournaments won, Nicklaus stands alone with 18 victories (1), a number that does not include major titles won on the Champions Tour. He has won 73 times on the PGA Tour and has 58 second-place and 36 third-place finishes, as well as a total of 113 victories worldwide.
(1) Nicklaus has finished top PGA Tour money winner 8 times and has also held the tour’s low-scoring average eight times. (1) He was named the PGA’s Player of the Year in 1967, 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1976, and Golf magazine in 1988 named him the ‘Player of the Century.’ (1) In his career on the PGA Tour, Jack Nicklaus has proven to be one of the best golfers in the history of the game, and has shown a true love for the sport since childhood on until his old age. Nicklaus began playing golf at the age of 10 in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio (7). He shot a 51 on the first nine holes he ever played.
(2) At the age of 13, he broke 70 and held a three handicap. (2) Tutored by club pro Jack Grout, Nicklaus showed real Page 1 potential early on for tournament play and he dominated local and national junior golf events as well as going on to capture two U. S. Amateur Championships in 1959 and 1961. (1) By the time he turned pro in November, 1961, he had established himself as the country’s greatest amateur golfer while at the same time giving the professionals a scare. He finished runner-up to Arnold Palmer by only two strokes in the 1960 U.
S. Open, and was a fourth-place finisher in the 1961 U. S. Open (1). In 1962, at the Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh, Nicklaus beat Arnold Palmer in a playoff to win the U. S.
Open (1). Palmer’s millions of diehard fans and the huge crowd of gallery members, called Arnie’s Army (9), that followed their hero from tee to green, were crushed by their hero’s loss. The Nicklaus victory went down as one of the most unpopular the world of golf had ever known (9). Nicklaus’s mind, even more than his great natural talent and long-ball swing, was the key to his success. He rarely made a poor decision in a tournament and never second-guessed himself. One of the most amazing examples concerning Nicklaus’ concentration was the fact that early on in his career he was an addicted cigarette smoker, as most professional golfers were at the time, and smoked two packs per day (2).
However, he never lit a cigarette on the golf course, unlike every other smoker in the field, even when he was stuck in a trying moment. When asked why this was so, Jack simply replied, “I just don’t think about it.” (2) In 1963, Nicklaus won the Masters and the PGA Championship (1). He ran away with the 1965 Masters, winning by nine strokes, in what Bobby Jones called ‘the greatest Page 2 performance in golf history.” (2) Nicklaus shattered Ben Hogan’s Masters record of 274 by three strokes. (1) Nicklaus successfully defended his Masters title the following year and won his first British Open, becoming one of only five golfers to win all four majors (1) (the others are Gene Saracen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Tiger Woods). (1) At the 1967 U. S.
Open, Nicklaus pulled away from Palmer in the final round to win by four strokes (1), finally proving to “Arnie’s Army” that Jack Nicklaus was truly the best golfer in the world. The beginning of the 1970’s was the start to Jack’s most dominant decade. When it came to winning consistently, Nicklaus was a machine. Between 1970 and 1975 he won seven more majors, the only victories ‘that count,’ (2) as he liked to say. His 1973 PGA Championship title put him one ahead of Bobby Jones’ thirteen major victories, and his 1975 Masters was his fifth win at Augusta (1), and was hailed by the gallery and sportswriters to have been one of the most thrilling golf victories of all time. (2) On Augusta’s sixteenth hole during the final round of the tournament, Nicklaus sank a 40-foot putt to take a one-stroke lead and held on the last two holes, winning by one over Tom Weis kopf and two over Johnny Miller.
(2) In 1977, Nicklaus was involved in a thrilling duel with Tom Watson, America’s new star, at the British Open. He lost what was later called by sportswriters as “The Duel in the Sun” (3) to Tom Watson, but came back in 1978 to claim the British title as his. With the emergence of players such as Watson, however, Nicklaus’s victories seemed Page 3 less easy to come by with each passing year, and by the end of the decade, many in the golfing world believed that Nicklaus’s dominance, at least when it came to the majors, had ended. In 1979, he had the worst season of his career, having gone win less and finishing 71 st on the money list. (1) His length off the tee and the long flight and high trajectory of his iron shots had once given him a huge advantage over the rest of the field and had revolutionized the game. But there was a new generation of golfers who hit the ball as high and as far as their idol could.
Nicklaus decided to go back to the drawing board, looking to improve on his biggest weakness, the short game, and turn it into a strength. In 1980 he returned to top form, winning the U. S. Open and PGA Championship (1).
He continued to rack up significant wins on the PGA Tour during the 1980 s, and at the 1986 Masters he won what is perhaps golf’s most emotional victory. He had by then become the game’s elder statesman and had gone from being golf’s villain, the kid who beat Arnie, to being one of the most popular athletes the world of sports had ever known. Although Nicklaus has not won in several years on the Champions tour, he claims that he will continue to play until he feels that he “can’t win anymore.” (3) What Jack Nicklaus has done in his career is tremendous, and what is even more tremendous is his impact on the game of golf. He set the standard for what greatness in golf truly is, and has inspired all of today’s professionals, including Tiger Woods, who claims Jack is his Page 4″idol.” (4) Jack Nicklaus doesn’t play the kind of golf he was once able to, but he still never fails to disappoint his fans, such as when he recorded a hole-in-one in 2003 at the Senior British Open. (1) The mark he has left on the game of golf is undeniable and indisputable, and he will certainly be remembered as one of the greatest to ever play the game for generations to come. Page 5 Works Cited 1.
web web The Volume Library, Book II. Copyright 1999, Southwestern Company, Nashville, TN 4. Woods, Tiger. Tiger Woods: How I Play Golf Time Warner Publishing, 20015. web 6. web 7.
web web Sports century: Jack Nicklaus; ESPN documentary Page 6.