The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta (17 page)

The Masters, however, was not the most important major to Nicklaus. Being a limited-field invitational event, it may have been the least. Like Jones, the U.S. Open sat number one on Nicklaus’s list. That was, after all, the national championship of American golf.

On the other hand, no tournament pulled on Nicklaus’s emotions more than the Masters. It may not have been the most important major, but it was his favorite to play. From the first time he stepped on the grounds there in 1959, he and Augusta National were a perfect match.

Of course, there weren’t many courses that didn’t favor Nicklaus, but there his strengths were accentuated: his prodigious drives; his high, towering iron shots with a slight fade; and his putting. Longer drives equaled shorter irons. Shorter irons equaled loftier clubs for a higher ball flight. A 9-iron for Nicklaus may have been an 8- or 7-iron for someone else.

“While length helps a bit more perhaps than it does at some other courses, to win there takes sound all-round golf,” he said. “You must really be in command of your irons to bring the ball in on the proper side of the flag, and you must be a very good putter to cope with the breaks, contours, and the subtle little rolls on the huge greens.”

Nicklaus admits to being a good putter, but he thought there were a lot of good putters at the time. It was his strength that separated him from them. “I had more of an advantage than most people because of the ability to eliminate some of the hazards on the golf course from power,” he says. “I suppose my power gave me more opportunities to be in that position (to make putts) under pressure.”

Nicklaus realized that chipping and putting were key, but since scrambling and short game weren’t his strong suits, managing one’s
way around the greens became more important. He could overpower the course, but he chose to dissect it.

“His style of play was somewhat conservative,” says Ed Sneed, another Ohio State golfer who lived in Columbus while winning four times on the Tour. “He went for par fives because it was in his game.” Nicklaus didn’t need to take unnecessary risks at Augusta National because nearly everything the layout asked of a golfer was already in his game. “The course was just built for Jack,” says Miller. “His iron game with that high stopping shot and as good as he was on those par fives. He could just pick his spots.”

After that missed cut in his first Masters, he recorded top-twenty finishes in his next three appearances—tied for 13th in 1960 and tied for 7th in 1961 as an amateur and then tied for 15th in his first attempt as a professional in 1962, which was a disappointment to him. “It’s not an easy place to learn,” said Nicklaus of Augusta. But he developed some axioms. “The secret here is not to make any mistakes on the short holes and get your birdies on the par fives,” he said.

In just his second full year as a professional in 1963, Nicklaus arrived wounded and worried. He had been suffering from bursitis in his hip, which had limited his play. But the injury had a silver lining that helped Nicklaus going forward.

“I hurt my hip and couldn’t hit it left to right. I was forced to learn how to hit it right to left,” says Nicklaus, who felt that was a big key for him on holes 2, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 17. “It really helped. It gave you an advantage.” Even so, he did not become preoccupied with hitting a draw. “I never went to Augusta trying to hit right to left shots, unless it was a situation with wind and conditions that I thought I needed to do it,” says Nicklaus. “But I had the ability to do it when I wanted it.”

“They can say what they want about Nicklaus playing a fade,” says Bob Murphy. “He didn’t play a fade at Augusta.”

In just his fifth Masters, Nicklaus had enough talent, experience, and confidence to handle the tricks and turns that the course
could throw up. At age twenty-three, he became the youngest Masters champion. During the presentation ceremony Nicklaus proudly handed his winning golf ball to Jones himself. It would be his only professional major victory without his wife Barbara by his side. She was back home in Columbus pregnant with their second child. Four days later, Nicklaus would be there to welcome son Steve into the world, although he didn’t handle that moment as well. He would faint during the births of four of his five children.

After finishing tied for 2nd in 1964, Nicklaus was in contention again in 1965, tied with Arnold Palmer and Gary Player after 36 holes in what looked like a battle of the big three. With little breeze and a lightness in the air, Nicklaus fired a bogey-free 64 in the third round, equaling the course record set a quarter-century earlier by Lloyd Mangrum. He didn’t have a score higher than four on his card, hitting every green in regulation but one and birdying all four of the par fives and three of the four par threes. Nicklaus didn’t hit a club longer than a 6-iron into any par four, and he went at both par fives on the back in two with 5-irons.

In slightly tougher conditions Sunday, Nicklaus again shot the low round of the day, a 69, to win by a record nine shots at 17-under-par 271. It was the lowest score to par ever in a major and broke Hogan’s tournament mark of 274.

“I still say that was the easiest golf tournament I ever played from the standpoint of ease on me because it was just driver, wedge; driver, 9-iron,” said Nicklaus. “It was so easy. Everything was easy.” Afterward, the superlatives were effusive. Clifford Roberts called it “the finest golf that has ever been exhibited at the Masters and probably the best anywhere.” And at the presentation ceremony, Nicklaus’s idol Bobby Jones was moved to declare: “Jack is playing an entirely different game—a game I’m not even familiar with.” Like Jones at a young age, the twenty-five-year-old Nicklaus was considered the best player in golf.

The next year, Nicklaus returned to create more history in an attempt to become the first to win consecutive titles. Then he nearly didn’t play.

Just before bedtime on Wednesday, the night before the tournament, Barbara Nicklaus learned about a plane crash from the local NBC affiliate. Earlier in the day, four friends, Bob and Linda Barton and Jim and Jeretta Long, had taken off from Columbus to fly down to Augusta for the tournament. All were friends of the Nicklaus’s, but Bob Barton was especially close having been one of his best friends growing up. Nicklaus was even the best man at his wedding. Barton, an Air Force Reserve pilot with some 4,000 hours flying time, was at the controls of the leased Beach Travelair plane when one of the engines appeared to ice up over mountains in northeast Tennessee. The plane crashed as he attempted an emergency landing near Johnson City. All four were killed instantly.

Nicklaus didn’t want to play the next day, but his wife thought he should and convinced him so. Although, he had a hard time concentrating, Nicklaus shot a 68—the low round of the day by three shots.

The weather and course conditions weren’t nearly as good in 1966, but Nicklaus remained the man to beat. Playing with Hogan in the final round, Nicklaus pulled a three-and-a-half-foot birdie putt on the 71st hole. It left him tied with Tommy Jacobs and Gay Brewer.

Following the round, he saw highlights running on a television in the clubhouse. Not only was it the first year the Masters was broadcast in color, but it was the first year for CBS’s “stop-action” technique, or taped replay as it was later called. Upon watching his putt at the 17th, he immediately noticed his setup. Instead of being directly perpendicular over the ball, his eyes were over the outside of the ball, causing the stroke and ball to go left.

The next day, he didn’t hit a bad putt the entire round. He won the 18-hole playoff and literally presented the green jacket to himself.

Then came the Jack-proofing. “They changed the golf course in the mid-1960s because of me,” says Nicklaus. “I won the tournament
three out of four years, and they put in bunkers and tried to restrict where I could hit the ball.” For example, the right fairway bunker on the 1st hole was moved twenty-seven yards closer to the green, and a new bunker was added on the outside of the dogleg on the 2nd hole. None of those alterations changed Nicklaus’s attitude. In fact, he believed they helped. “I thought that was great that they made the changes because it forced me to play better golf,” he says.

Other players were driving the ball farther now as well. With these changes, Nicklaus had to think even more—which was his strength. More than his physical prowess, Augusta set up well for Nicklaus’s mind. With so many risk-reward holes, his calculation of the percentages came down to whether the penalty would be greater than the reward. “I played within myself and what I knew I thought I could do,” said Nicklaus, who because of that made fewer poor decisions than anyone.

Nicklaus’s success at Augusta National did wane after 1966. In his attempt for three in a row, he missed the cut in 1967. His score of 79 in the second round, in which he bogeyed half of his holes, was his highest competitive round ever at Augusta National.

By the late-1960s, life was changing for Nicklaus. He had a growing family at home and more off-course interests and commitments. He went twelve starts in majors without a title and admits he didn’t work as hard as he should have. His professional wake-up call was a personal loss. In February 1970, his father Charlie passed away after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. He was just fifty-six. It was a crushing blow to Nicklaus. His father lived for every tournament, and Nicklaus regretted he hadn’t been totally committed the previous few years. So, he rededicated himself. He lost weight and got in shape. Victory in the 1970 British Open at St. Andrews got him back on track.

After finishing joint runner-up in the 1971 Masters, he took control of the 1972 tournament early and led wire-to-wire. Even with some spells of sloppy play—he made three bogeys in the final eight
holes—he still won by three shots. Nicklaus finished tied for 3rd in 1973 and tied for 4th in 1974, giving him nine top-five finishes in thirteen Masters starts as a professional.

“Jack Nicklaus was never more comfortable playing any place than he was playing there,” says Murphy. “He loved it. He was perfectly comfortable there.”

His experience at Augusta and golfing ability gave Nicklaus such a distinct advantage that it allowed him to make statements no one else in the field could. “I could play badly at Augusta and still win,” said Nicklaus. “I couldn’t play terrible, but I didn’t have to play well.”

JACK NICKLAUS
didn’t fist-pump, didn’t sword-dance, didn’t blow kisses, didn’t trash talk, and didn’t curse. The closest he got to uttering an on-course expletive was, “Oh, Jack.”

But he winked.

It frequently came after a stellar shot and could be sent in the direction of his caddie, his playing competitor, a fan, or a writer. It signaled, “Yes I did it. I’m in control of my game and the situation I’m in.” All of his confidence and attitude and bravado were summed up whenever he flashed that wink of an eye.

Ben Wright remembers standing to the side of the tee on the 17th hole during the final round of the 1972 U.S. Open. Nicklaus chose a 1-iron on the hugely difficult par three at Pebble Beach with a stiff wind coming off the ocean. Then a voice that could be heard by everyone on the tee, including Nicklaus, said, “He’ll never get there with that.” It was the British golf writer Pat Ward-Thomas. Well, Nicklaus rattled the ball off the flagstick and dropped it inches from the hole. He walked off the green, in the direction of Ward-Thomas, looked him in the eye, and without saying a word or breaking his stride, winked at him with a grin. “It was the biggest put-down,” says Wright.

Of all the things the wink represented at the golf course, it represented the edge Nicklaus had over everyone else in the game.

“I knew exactly how intimidating I was, and I’ve got to tell you, it was a tremendous advantage,” Nicklaus said. “I knew that many of the other players had the physical skill I had, but I also knew that few of them had the mental skills to use that physical skill properly.”

The greats of the game all had a certain edge over their competitors at one point and in varying degrees. Vardon. Hagen. Jones. Nelson. Snead. Hogan. Palmer. To maintain it was sacrosanct. Once the edge was lost, it was never regained. No one knew that better than Ben Hogan.

With a mystique greater than any player in the game’s history, Hogan had understood the power of always having an intangible edge over your opponents and felt that his biggest mistake ever was throwing it away at the 1955 U.S. Open at Olympic Club. Before teeing off in an 18-hole playoff with Jack Fleck, a club professional from Iowa who had never won on Tour, Hogan strolled up to him and said, “I see you’re playing my clubs, Fleck.” By acknowledging Fleck, he had put him at ease and calmed his nerves. The nine-time major champion, maybe the most intimidating figure to ever play the game, had foolishly given away his edge. Later, Hogan believed uttering those seven words allowed Fleck the upset win and prevented him from capturing a record fifth U.S. Open.

The edge Nicklaus held didn’t involve any shenanigans that some players would use to try and unnerve or rattle an opponent intentionally. “Gamesmanship was not one of Jack’s tactics,” says Kessler. Nicklaus claims, “I never worried about an edge. The edge was if I played well I believed I could beat them.” His record, performances, and the way he carried himself, however, gave him an edge, even if it was an unspoken psychological one.

“Not in word, but in the way he carried himself, it was very clear who he was and who you were,” says Roger Maltbie. “Well earned, and not a hand that he played, but he knew it was there.”

His powers were so great that anything he said was taken as a commentary not only on his game, but on yours as well. Maltbie
remembers a prime example occurring in the opening round in Memphis, just a month and a half after the 1975 Masters. Victor Regalado, a third-year player on Tour from Mexico, got paired with Nicklaus for one of his first times and kidded with his pals that he couldn’t wait to take down “Big Jack.” Regalado’s bravado held true on the front nine as he was nearly even with Nicklaus and thought he was playing pretty well. Then, on the 10th tee, Nicklaus strode over to Regalado, put his arm around him, and said, “Come on Victor, we got to get going, we’re playing like crap.” Regalado’s spirit sank. Nicklaus birdied 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 to shoot 31 on the back nine and a 66 for the round. Regalado slumped to a 74 and eventually finished in a tie for 16th at five over while Nicklaus finished tied for 3rd at 11 under. “You think you’re giving it all you got, and he’s thinking, man I’m missing on four out of six cylinders,” says Maltbie.