Legend Of Legends Is What Power Begat

For 30 years, he was the most recognizable silhouette on a golf course. Also its most dominant force.

He was always the one to beat. The path to the championship ran through him. Lee Trevino had him to beat to win the Open at Oak Hill in ’68 and again at Merion in ’71. Tom Watson had him to beat to win his Open at Pebble Beach in ’82. Tom had him to beat to win his British Open at Turnberry in ’77. Trevino had to chip in to beat him by a shot at the British at Muirfield in ’72. De Vicenzo beat him by two shots at Hoylake in ’67 and Gary Player beat him by two at Carnoustie the following year.

Even in Arnold Palmer’s lone win in the Open at Cherry Hills in 1960, he was second--at the age of 20--and Ben Hogan himself, who played the final 36 holes with him, said later, “I played the last day with a kid who, if he had a brain in his head, would have won the Open by four shots.”

No one was ever to say that about Jack W. Nicklaus again.

What Babe Ruth was to baseball, Dempsey to fighting or Tilden to tennis--and what Bobby Jones and Hogan had been to golf--Jack Nicklaus was to his sport.

Never mind the perfectly astonishing 20 “majors” he won. Or the 70 tour tournaments. You get the true measure of the man when you know he was second--take a deep breath!--59 times in his career! And that’s only in this country. He was second in the British Open a record seven times.

It’s easy to see where Jack Nicklaus could easily have won more than 100 tournaments (he thinks maybe he did--the PGA totaling system is whimsical at best). He could have won, conservatively, five more “majors.”

Winning more than 90 tournaments (counting European, Australian and other Asian wins) is mind-boggling enough, but being runner-up, the man you had to beat, more than 70 or 75 times staggers the psyche.

Oh, yes! He was third on the U.S. tour 35 times.

The greatest player of all time? Only Hogan and Jones could dispute it.

When Jack Nicklaus first came on the golf tour, he was, well, “fat” is the only word that comes to mind. He was so overweight, the tour seers predicted a short career, a diminishing role.

So, he slimmed down to movie-star dimensions. It was our introduction to the spires of will power and determination Jack Nicklaus could ascend to.

Jack was the greatest there was for looking a fact in the face. His career was meteoric: The first tournament he won was the U.S. Open. That’s like winning the heavyweight championship in your first fight. He was 22 at the time. Hardly anybody wins a U.S. Open before he’s 35, maybe 40.

Watching Nicklaus stare down a fairway was like watching a predator peeking out of the bushes at his prey. You felt the golf course should at least be blindfolded, given a last cigarette.

He didn’t assault it with boots on and guns out and charging at it like Arnold Palmer. He surrounded it where necessary. He was like a general who would accept its surrender.

He wasn’t the first to use a one-iron, but he was the best. He was the first, really, to make multiple use of it. I cannot remember his ever hitting a fairway wood. Too imprecise for Jack. The ball ran too much off a wood club for scientific golf. Jack didn’t like to leave the ball on its own. He wanted it disciplined.

No one ever saw him throw a club or kick a ball-washer or heard him cuss a caddy. And no one ever saw him smoke on a golf course although off it he did (not any more). Jack never tarnished the game of golf for an instant.

When he first came on tour, no one had ever seen shots the distance Nicklaus hit them. They were the longest, straightest drives in history. The famous quote on them came from Bobby Jones, no less. “He plays a game with which the rest of us are unfamiliar.”

He was of the “What elephant?” school of concentration. (“Didn’t that elephant bother you running across the green as you were putting?” “What elephant?”)

Yet his career was never gaudy. He wouldn’t let it be. He hit that ball 350 yards on occasion--and about 300 yards any time he wanted--with a steel shaft and a persimmon head.

But idolatry rolled right off him. Bear in mind that no golfer, much less a great one, likes to admit to any shortcoming at all in his game. A Cary Middlecoff would never admit he was a poor sand player, though he was. A Lloyd Mangrum would never confess to being an erratic driver (“Are we playing how or how many?”)

But listen to Jack as he sits in a press tent at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf this week at PGA West.

“My game was power golf,” he admits readily. “That was my strength. Sure, I hit the ball far, where I could drop a short iron in on the green close to the hole. The short game was never my strong suit. I was an adequate short-game player, never more than that. But I was a more-than-adequate putter. I made my living off par-fives.”

He sure did. Most guys try to make birdies on par-fives. Nicklaus was always trying to make eagles.

Hearing him put down his short game is like hearing Muhammad Ali say there were hundreds of guys with a better left jab.

Jack doesn’t even think he’s being modest, just honest. Jack is like that French general who said, “There is no use getting angry at facts--it is a matter of indifference to them.”

Imagine going to a ballpark today and seeing a Joe DiMaggio batting against a Bob Feller and both of them being within a reasonable facsimile of their old selves and you get a clue on what it’s like to see a Nicklaus in a tournament like the Liberty Mutual.

Nicklaus supplanted Palmer as the definitive golfer of his age. But no one replaced Jack. Lee Trevino and Tom Watson came closest. Johnny Miller, Seve Ballesteros. But they fired and fell back.

Jack admits he has lost 25 yards off his tee game. But if he had today’s equipment 30 years ago, he might be driving the greens.

It may be your last chance to see a true legend, a player the golf fan of the 2000s may have difficulty believing existed. He’s still meticulous. He believes the short-game artists--Raymond Floyd, Dave Stockton--may have passed him by.

Don’t you believe it. He’s still the one to beat.