Golf Equipment
Home Page > GREATEST GOLFERS EVER > Jack Nicklaus
 You are not logged in. Click here to log in.

Jack Nicklaus

Jack Nicklaus
Description
Nicklaus celebrates 40 years on Tour
Jack Nicklaus' first tee shot as a professional golfer went in the water.

In his PGA TOUR debut, he finished tied for 50th and earned one-third of last place money, or $33.33.
In his first U.S. Open, at age 17, he shot 80-80-160 and missed the cut.
The Golden Bear is the ultimate embodiment of the cliche about the importance of how you finish rather than how you start.
"I've done all right," he said modestly. "I tried as hard as I could and did the best I could do."
Forty years ago this week the incomparable Nicklaus embarked on his PGA TOUR career at the Los Angeles Open. Nicklaus, 61, a father of five, grandfather of 12 and the designer of more than 200 golf courses, can look back on an epic record that was more than all right: 18 professional major championships, 70 PGA TOUR titles, and earnings of more than $5.7 million - a princely sum for a man who led the money list eight times but never exceeded $316,911.
And it all began so unassumingly.
He was a 17-year-old when he appeared in his first U.S. Open at Inverness Club in Toledo in 1957. He would go on to play in an incredible 44 straight Open championships and win it a record-tying four times to go with six Masters titles, five PGA Championships and three British Open crowns. His first stroke as a professional was at the Country Club of Miami on Dec. 30, 1961, where he competed in an exhibition over the New Year's holiday with Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Sam Snead. Player won with a 70. Nicklaus hit it into a lake. He rinsed two more tee shots, missed an 18-inch putt on the 17th hole and shot 73.
Then he took off for the L.A. Open at Rancho Park Golf Course, a municipal layout in the heart of the city. Nicklaus, a two-time U.S. Amateur champion, received a lot of pre-tournament attention from press, but his scores of 74-70-72-73-289 fell 21 shots shy of the winner, another rookie named Phil Rodgers, who fired a closing 62.
"The press at that time were comparing me and Phil as the two sort of up-and-coming rookies," Nicklaus recalled in a telephone interview from his home in North Palm Beach, Fla. "He got off to a better start than I did."
Nicklaus said he was neither nervous nor intimidated. "I just played badly," he said. "But I wasn't intimidated. I didn't know what that meant. I'd been competing at golf since I was 11 years old. I don't know how to spell intimidation and I've never wanted to know. "There was some hesitation about turning professional. My dad wanted me to remain an amateur, but I felt like I could play golf and I wanted to see how good I really could be."
Nicklaus already was married to Barbara - they celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary in July - and the couple had had the first of their five children, son Jackie, when Jack embarked on his Tour career. Barbara stayed home with Jackie and missed Jack's debut, but made it out West for the Crosby Clambake at Pebble Beach, now called the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
If Jack was confident in his abilities, Barbara was equally sure her husband's prospects were bright.
"I didn't know much about golf, but I knew Jack, and I knew that he'd do OK because he loved the game and he loved to compete," she said. "I didn't have any high hopes, just a confidence in him that anything he chose to go into, he'd do it 100 percent and do it well."
Nicklaus, who turns 62 on Jan. 21, and who will begin his 41st pro season Jan. 26-27 at the Senior Skins Game at Wailea Resort's Gold Course in Maui, Hawaii, said he doesn't remember much else about that first week in L.A., at least in terms of his golf.
"I'm piling up the anniversaries," he pointed out with a laugh.
The most memorable event was making a new friend.
"There was this crazy engineer kind of wandering around the golf tournament and he had these very different kind of putters that made a ping sound," Nicklaus recalled. "No one would give him the time of day. I felt kind of sorry for him so I went and had lunch with him. That's how I met Karsten Solheim (the founder of Ping) and I made a lifelong friend.
"I don't think we ever did a lick of business together, but that was a friendship I'll always cherish. I was disappointed with how I played because I expected more of myself. But for that reason alone it was a pretty good week."

For more information on Jack Nicklaus contact www.nicklaus.com

Other products you may be interested in:

Ben Hogan
Ben Hogan
Arnold Palmer
Arnold Palmer
Tiger Woods
Tiger Woods
Bobby Jones
Bobby Jones
Copyright © Golf Direct 2010 Directory Software by Global7.co.uk