A Golden Age of Golf Ends With Nicklaus’ Farewell

For five hours they cheered, standing in scratchy heather, hanging from attic windows, wobbling deep on the cobblestone streets, reaching deep into the Scottish heart.

For five hours Friday, hole after hole, shot by shot, golf’s historic home cheered the final walk of history’s best golfer.

But what could Jack Nicklaus, struggling against an ancient wind and a 65-year-old body, give them in return?

He botched putts. He wandered into shrubs. He hit backward out of a bunker. He cursed himself and threw up his hands and shook his head as this final British Open slipped from his white-gloved hand.

When he finally, tearfully walked across Swilcan Bridge and down the 18th fairway, the noise swirling around the old stone buildings and enveloping him in a warm fog, Nicklaus knew this was it.

Lining up a 13-foot birdie putt on the final hole, he knew he had one chance at a fitting goodbye.

He said it.

He sank it.

It was the only big putt he made all day. It was the only putt he had to make. The glorious farewell roll of a champion.

The ball jumped into the hole, Nicklaus raised his right hand in a fist, a giant black clock struck 6 p.m., the roar will be remembered forever.

“I knew that the hole would move wherever I hit it,” Nicklaus said later with a smile. “I wanted that putt badly.”

How splendid an end to a 45-year career that included a record 18 major championships, perhaps none of which felt as warm as Friday.

None of them included a post-match family hug like this one, with several members of the Nicklaus clan clutching each other and crying behind the 18th green while the cheers raged on.

“It was very emotional, there were a lot of tears ... but that’s how you have to finish,” said son Steve, his caddie.

How perfect an ending to an era of class and grace, when the fans felt as if the golfers played not just for them, but with them.

“Get down, get down!” a female fan shouted to photographers standing in front of a throng behind the 17th green. “This is our moment too!”

How splendid a final chapter for a champion with enough guts to write it himself, before the ravages of time wrote it for him.

“When I come in here and say that I shot 72 and it’s the best round I shot this year ... and I’m missing the cut by three shots, you know it’s time to leave,” said Nicklaus, who finished at three over par and missed the cut by two strokes.

He was done, and he knew it. Even though he still held hope of playing the weekend, Nicklaus showed up Friday afternoon dressed for a farewell.

He wore the same type of blue argyle sweater that he had worn when he won the British Open here in 1978.

And, for the first time in a long time, just like in 1978, he did not wear a cap.

“That was sort of my ... sentimental old fool,” he said.

The entire round was a throwback, Nicklaus waving and thanking each of the dozens of mobs of fans who stood and cheered as he passed.

“He has always done everything right,” said Blair Smith, a Scottish salesman who led cheers after planting himself by the 15th green for 10 hours. “In his game and in his person, there is nothing wrong with him. He is a true legend.”

Nicklaus even stopped and smiled at each of the half-dozen reporters who accompanied him the entire way. Afterward, his news conference ended with the media giving him a standing ovation.

“Let me just say I want to thank you,” Nicklaus told the media. “You guys and gals have been very kind to me over the years.”

It was easy to be nice. For years, Nicklaus was the ultimate sportsman, competitive without being nasty, confident without being a jerk.

He was equal parts golden and bear, a nice guy with a tough streak that came out of hibernation on weekends.

Yes, he began his final round dressed as a memory. But by the third hole he had removed the blue argyle sweater because of the heat. And by the fourth hole, he and his son were shaking their fists at putts that were continually short or wide.

“I was a golfer today ... until it was quite obvious that I wasn’t going to make the cut at 17,” he said, adding, “and that was the first time I stopped being a golfer.”

His eyes began welling with tears after the 16th hole, when he received yet another prolonged ovation for another missed putt, causing him to stare into the stands almost in disbelief while mouthing, “Thank you.”

The emotion grew along the famous Road Hole, the 17th, when the windows of the Old Course Hotel filled with faces of golfers and busboys and businessmen, cheering and toasting him.

“This means so much to him,” said his wife, Barbara. “It’s incredible, it’s really incredible.”

He missed a par putt on 17, only to receive another huge ovation, and by now he was biting his lower lip. But a near-perfect tee shot on the 18th seemed to settle him.

“Then when he got to the bridge on 18, he lost it,” Steve said.

Throwing his left leg up on the stone bridge as if he owned it, Nicklaus turned his back to the falling sun and waved to a crowd whose cheers seemingly suspended the old village in time.

Children screamed, “In the hole!”

Adults cried, “Thank you Jack!”

Tom Watson, his playing partner, soon joined Nicklaus on the bridge, along with the caddies, Nicklaus always insisting on sharing the moment.

“You have the greatest player ever to play the game, coming up the 18th fairway of one of the greatest courses ever, for the last time,” Watson said. “The emotion, the pictures, they spoke for themselves.”

Then all that was left was the putt, which went down because, well, it had to.

“I frankly think the hole must have moved ... the ball was going along, and every other putt that’s going that way missed the hole, but this one gobbled it in,” Nicklaus said. “It was just like Pac-Man.”

And then he was gone, blowing kisses to a crowd that refused to leave, glancing up at a scoreboard that refused to retreat.

Woods, it read.

Minus 11.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.