The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta (15 page)

As with all of the amateur pairings in the opening round, the Masters champion in the group teed off first. Nicklaus sent a towering
drive that split the middle of the fairway. Strange says he somehow got the tee in the ground and the ball to stay on it. He ripped his drive hard down the right side with enough power to clear the bunker, though just off the fairway. “I was very much relieved,” he says of his first shot in a Masters.

Strange’s nerves calmed down after that. He hit a 9-iron into the opening green, about twenty-two feet behind the hole. Strange then struck what he thought was a pretty good putt. It just missed but kept rolling, and rolling, and rolling. The ball eventually stopped eight feet past the hole. Nicklaus turned toward Strange. “He looked at me and said, ‘Welcome to Thursday at Augusta’,” recalls Strange. “They were quicker.”

There was a good reason, and not necessarily because the club was trying to play tricks on the players. The warm-weather Bermuda grass, which was dormant over the winter, was just beginning to reemerge. The cool-season ryegrass used to overseed the greens in the autumn was barely hanging on. “If you cut the ryegrass too low for any length of time, it’s going to die on you,” says Bob Kletcke, especially when they were not watered. This was the reason the greens weren’t cut lower until Thursday, but it fooled inexperienced players who had grown accustomed to one speed during practice rounds. The last thing officials wanted during the weekend were brown greens. The fact you never got a true practice round was one of the major complaints at that time. Nicklaus new this and adjusted accordingly.

Strange made the comebacker for par.

What stood out about Nicklaus’s game? “Everything. Absolutely everything,” replies Strange. “He was long, straight, un-emotional, and went about his business.” There wasn’t a lot of conversation, but Nicklaus initiated what there was and always in a complimentary tone. Strange felt comfortable the rest of the round and was impressed by his gracious nature and “the overall package” of Nicklaus’s game.

With his new driver, Nicklaus didn’t hit the ball as far as before. Strange, who was a very long hitter at the time, kept up with him
most of the day. Strange used a long swing, upright plane, and strong grip—all characteristics of his game that would later change. The wide fairways helped keep some of his erratic tee shots in play.

Meanwhile, Strange watched Nicklaus hit every green in regulation and hit all four par-five greens in two. Nicklaus two-putted for birdie on the 2nd from twenty-five feet (after a 2-iron), the 13th from thirty feet (3-wood, 4-iron), and 15th from thirty feet (after a 1-iron). He only made par at the 8th, misreading a three footer after hitting his 3-wood seventy feet past hole. His only miss-hit of the day came on the 18th tee, where he switched from a driver to a 3-wood and hit it left of the newly planted trees. Lying 195 yards out, he recovered by hitting a 4-iron to the front of the green and two-putting from sixty feet for par. He had begun with a bogey-free, and stress-free, 68.

“He played absolute perfect golf,” says Strange. “One of the greatest rounds I have ever seen in my life. I don’t know if he remembers the round or not, but I’d be anxious to know if he does.”

Three-and-a-half decades later, Nicklaus doesn’t. His response upon hearing of the ball-striking statistics and the score: “I must have really putted awful.”

Nicklaus knew that at Augusta a ball in the middle of the green on every hole wouldn’t leave a difficult putt. On most greens, they would be manageable uphill putts twenty to thirty feet from the hole. It may not be a makeable birdie putt, but percentages for a two-putt par were pretty good. His experience told him to always protect the short side of the green. Plus the moisture on the ground and balls factored into his caution. “When it is wet, you have to be careful,” said Nicklaus. “You can’t spin the ball. You can hit some wild looking golf shots.”

“I couldn’t ask for a better start,” Nicklaus admitted at the time. “When you have thirty-six putts and shoot a 68 at Augusta, you’ve played a pretty good round of golf.”

“I relived his round as much as mine that night,” says Strange, who felt he hit the ball reasonably well. But his inexperience in dealing
with the fast undulating greens, difficult chips and putts, large galleries, and all the other intricacies of the golf course plagued him. Bogeys on three of his last five holes gave him a 75. Only one of the seven amateurs broke par—Jerry Pate with a 71. “I couldn’t imagine if I have to play that well to play the Tour,” he says. “I’ve got a long ways to go.”

“I wouldn’t have traded that experience (of playing with Nicklaus) for the world,” says Strange, who had seen up close what the pinnacle of the sport looked like. “I played with him when he was absolutely in his prime. I realized that this guy is the best of all-time.”

Nicklaus’s score was a foreshadower of bad news for the field. In the other four Masters in which Nicklaus had opened with a 68 or lower, he had won three of them. Nicklaus was conditioned more for distance and endurance than for speed, so a fast start boded poorly for everyone else. As Roger Maltbie figured, “He knew the longer we played, the less chance you had.”

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NICKLAUS

“Y
es sir, Mr. Jones,” the clubhouse attendant said, opening the front door to the Scioto Country Club. From a distance, the young man approaching may have borne some resemblance to Mr. Jones with his stout build, his pleated knickers, and his hair parted down the middle. But this fellow was not the Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. The boy, eleven years younger than Jones, seized the opportunity, flashed a smile at the attendant, and walked right in without a clubhouse pass. An innocent case of misidentification that would change golf years later.

That story was a favorite of Charlie Nicklaus’s. It occurred during the 1931 Ryder Cup. Although Jones wasn’t competing, he came up from Atlanta to attend the matches. Nicklaus liked to say that from that point on, Bobby Jones was his favorite golfer. But his fascination with him had begun even earlier.

The 1926 U.S. Open had also been contested at Scioto, and twelve-year-old Charlie was there, his ticket courtesy of Fred “Doc” Mebs, the pharmacist he worked for after school. Jones was coming off of his first victory in the British Open two weeks earlier and traveled directly from Liverpool, England, to Columbus, Ohio. The long journey by
boat and train left Jones weary, and with a 79 in the second round, he looked as if he’d shot himself out of the championship. Following a 71 the next morning, Jones was three shots behind Joe Turnesa going into the final round, and Turnesa retained a sizable lead until bogeying five of his last seven holes. His stumbling finish gave Jones an opportunity to win with a birdie on the par-five 18th hole. After a drive measured at more than 300 yards, Jones laced a mashie just past the flagstick. Two putts later, he was the national champion again and the first person ever to win both the U.S. Open and the British Open in the same year. Little Charlie had watched virtually all 293 of his shots that week.

When Nicklaus’s son Jack took up the sport as an impressionable ten-year-old, two-and-a-half decades later, all he heard about was Bob Jones. The family now had membership at Scioto, and every day, Jones stared at him from pictures around the clubhouse. Jack listened to countless stories about Jones and his exploits from his father and other club members, including Stanley Crooks who had befriended him.

He heard about how Jones played the short par-three 9th at Scioto in four over par that week. He heard about the 480-yard par-five 8th, one of Jones’s favorite holes on the course, where he made an eagle three in the first round. And of course, he heard about the manner in which Jones played the 72nd hole to ensure victory. Nicklaus took those images and used them for inspiration when he played the course that had changed very little in the previous three decades.

He was schooled on Jones’s accomplishments as a teenager, his thirteen major championships, his Grand Slam, and his retirement when at the top of the game.

As much as Jones’s golfing prowess, it was his public persona that endeared him to Charlie Nicklaus and the rest of the nation—his sportsmanship, his conduct, his charm, his gentlemanly manners. Even though Jack Nicklaus would never see him hit a golf shot in person, this legendary figure—his accomplishments and character—would become his benchmark.

Imagine their nervousness when in 1955, the Nicklauses first met Bob Jones. Just fifteen, Jack qualified for the United States Amateur in Richmond, Virginia. As it was the twenty-fifth anniversary of his final win at the 1930 Amateur, Jones agreed to come up and speak at the players’ dinner. During a practice round, Jones sat in a golf cart watching players come home on the long par-four finishing hole. Jones was already feeling the effects of syringomyelia, a spinal disease he was diagnosed with in 1948. He had not played a round of golf since. He inquired about the only player he saw reach the green in two shots. When told the player was a mere fifteen, Jones was doubly impressed. He asked to meet him.

“This session with Jones was a tremendous thrill for me,” said Jack, who always referred to him as “Bob Jones” and addressed him as “Mr. Jones” in person, “but I am sure it meant twice as much to my dad.” They talked for twenty minutes, and Jones said he’d be watching for more of him. In his first round match against Bob Gardner, Nicklaus was 1 up after the 10th hole when he saw Jones sitting in a cart at the next tee. The pressure of impressing Jones got to Nicklaus. He went bogey-double bogey-bogey. Feeling his presence was causing the boy to try too hard, Jones left. Nicklaus did recover, although he lost the match on the 18th hole. The Nicklauses saw Jones again at the 1957 Jaycee Tournament in Columbus won by Jack, and for a third time at the 1959 Masters during the annual Wednesday night dinner held for amateurs.

This bond with Jones was the main reason his first invitation to the Masters in 1959 was so meaningful.

“Because of my admiration for Bob Jones, the Masters—the tournament he created, played on the course he helped design—has always been something unbelievably special for me,” admitted Nicklaus in 1969. “When I have been fortunate enough to win it, I have treasured not only the victory itself but the generous things he has said about my play at the presentation ceremony. When Bob says something about your golf, you know there is substance and sincerity in it. Above
and beyond this, you always feel that he understands what you are all about as a man as well as a golfer. This gives everything a deeper meaning, and it sticks to your bones.”

Jones would send letters of congratulations after Nicklaus’s significant wins. Each year at the Masters, Nicklaus and his father would visit Jones in his cabin, talking golf and replaying shots Jones had played at Scioto in 1926 (he was a remarkable nine under on the par fives there).

Jones even penned the foreword for Nicklaus’s 1969 autobiography,
The Greatest Game of All: My Life in Golf
, in which Jones was effusive in his praise. He wrote, “I do think it is completely safe to say that there has not yet been a more effective golfer than Jack Nicklaus.”

Nicklaus doesn’t know why Jones took such a liking to him. “Maybe he saw in me some of himself as a young lad and that maybe I could follow a little bit along in the footsteps of what he had started,” says Nicklaus, “and that’s what he had alluded to me many times in staying an amateur.”

By the time Jones passed away on December 18, 1971, Nicklaus had become more like Bobby Jones than any golfer since. His spirit remained with Nicklaus, whose accomplishments and character were now respected and admired as much as Jones’s nearly a half century earlier.

Nicklaus was keenly aware how lucky he’d been to have developed this connection to Jones that began through his father and Scioto and its members. “I have learned an awful lot from him,” said Nicklaus of Jones.

If not for the pedestal that Bobby Jones sat upon, it’s possible Jack Nicklaus’s aspirations would have turned to something other than golf.

LIKE MANY BOYS
, Jack Nicklaus grew up with childhood dreams of sports stardom. He was supposed to be a star for the Ohio State University Buckeyes football team, sprinting out into the Horseshoe of Ohio Stadium on Saturday fall afternoons in his hometown of
Columbus behind legendary head coach Woody Hayes. For thirteen years, he attended every home football game.

Nicklaus played several sports growing up—baseball, basketball, tennis, track—but football was his favorite. Quarterback, linebacker, and placekicker were a few of the positions he played. His love for all sports came directly from his father Charlie.