Jack Nicklaus

American golfer

• Born: January 21, 1940
• Place of Birth: Columbus, Ohio

One of the greatest golfers in the history of the sport, Nicklaus ended his remarkable career after seventy-three Professional Golf Association (PGA) victories, which included a record eighteen wins in major championships. He was named Golfer of the Century by the PGA in 1988 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. Additionally, he designed hundreds of golf courses and clubs around the world.

Early Life

Jack Nicklaus (NIHCK-luhs) and his younger sister, Marilyn, were the only children of Charlie and Nellie Nicklaus, growing up in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington. His father was a pharmacist who established a string of Columbus-area stores named Nicklaus Drugs.

Nicklaus would develop his father’s passion for all sports, but it took a doctor’s advice to his father, who had broken his ankle, to walk for exercise that landed Nicklaus and his father on a golf course. Golfing would become a regular event for the two. At the age of nine, Nicklaus began playing locally at Scioto Country Club, and he was encouraged by Scioto Club professional Jack Grout to join the club’s junior program. Under the tutelage of Grout, who Nicklaus credits with teaching him how to play golf, Nicklaus won the Scioto Club juvenile trophy at the ages of ten and eleven. He went on to win a series of state junior championships in his early teens and was considered the best junior golfer in Ohio in the 1950s.

Even though Nicklaus excelled at other sports in high school and had aspirations of one day playing with Ohio State University’s football team, virtually all his free time was devoted to golf. From an early age, Nicklaus played golf with his father’s friends, and in tournaments he defeated older boys regularly. After winning the Ohio Open at the age of sixteen, Nicklaus knew that golf had become his sport.

After graduating from Upper Arlington High School in 1957, Nicklaus enrolled at Ohio State to pursue a degree in pharmacy. During his freshman year he met Barbara Bash. They were married on July 23, 1960. His golf success led him to decide to leave Ohio State before graduating.

Life’s Work

Nicklaus’s success as a golfer spanned six decades. At Ohio State, he helped the Buckeyes win the Big Ten golf championship in 1961 as the individual medalist. That same year, he was the individual medalist at the NCAA championships. Even more important to his career was winning the US Amateur Championship in 1959 and 1961; he was a member of the US Walker Cup team that played at Muirfield in Scotland in 1959, and he led the United States to victory in 1960 at the World Amateur Championship.

Nicklaus’s decision to turn professional was not an easy one, in part because Nicklaus’s hero, Bobby Jones, remained an amateur golfer his entire career and because Nicklaus’s father had always envisioned his son as Jones’s heir apparent. Contributing to Nicklaus’s decision to turn pro was the birth of his first child, Jack William Nicklaus II, on September 23, 1961, and the need to practice and play full time rather than part time while selling insurance, which he had started doing while in college. On November 8 he officially became a professional golfer. To be the best golfer possible and to support his family, Nicklaus needed to become a member of the PGA Tour.

Before Nicklaus made his professional debut on the tour in 1962, he signed a management agreement with Mark McCormack, who was already the agent for Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. McCormack and his agency, International Management Group (IMG), were instrumental in Nicklaus’s achievements off the golf course. Endorsements and speaking engagements became the norm for Nicklaus as a result of his association with IMG in the 1960s.

While his pro career began uneventfully, it was Nicklaus’s eleventh tournament, the 1962 US Open at Oakmont Country Club in western Pennsylvania, that changed everything for him. Paired with Palmer, Nicklaus, who was ten years younger, defeated the "King of Golf" forty miles from Palmer’s hometown of Latrobe. Later, nicknamed Golden Bear for his build and prodigious drives off the tee, Nicklaus would win thirty-eight tournaments, including seven majors during his first eight years on the tour.

Always a colorful dresser on the links, Nicklaus enhanced his image and popularity by shedding extra pounds during the year following his father’s death from cancer in 1970. His most memorable stretch of the 1970s was when he won the PGA championship in 1971 and the Masters and the US Open in 1972; he lost the British Open in 1972 to Lee Trevino by one stroke. Nicklaus considered this loss the most devastating of his career. Of the thirty-seven tournaments he won in this decade, eight were majors.

Entering his third decade on the PGA tour, Nicklaus won the US Open and the PGA Championship again in 1980. His eighteenth and final victory in a major was the Masters in 1986. He was forty-six years old, the oldest golfer to win the Masters. Nicklaus continued to play on the PGA Tour after joining the PGA Senior Tour (now known as the Champions Tour) in 1990. His final appearance in a major was the British Open at the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland, in 2005. Complementing his individual accomplishments was his participation as a member of the US Ryder Cup teams that competed against golfers from Europe. He served as team captain in 1987.

A significant challenge for Nicklaus beyond the tour was fulfilling his dream of building a golf course in his home state. Increasingly interested in designing golf courses and inspired by Augusta National, the home of the Masters tournament in Georgia, Nicklaus spent time and money on developing the Country Club of Muirfield Village and Muirfield Village Golf Club, home to the annual Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus where the Nicklaus family maintains a home. The Muirfield courses opened in 1974, and the first Memorial Tournament was held there in 1976. He also decided to break from McCormack and IMG and established his own business, Golden Bear, near his Florida home in Palm Beach.

Equally important for Nicklaus was the continuous support of his wife, Barbara, and their five children. Beginning with the 1982 US Open, sons Jackie and Gary often caddied for their famous father, and the Nicklaus family received the Golf Family of the Year Award from the National Golf Foundation in 1985. In 1999 he was named Male Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated magazine.

Nicklaus has remained active in retirement. His interest in golf-course design has only intensified, and his courses are considered some of the finest in the world. In fact, in 2011, fourteen of his designed courses were part of Golf Digest's "75 Best Golf Resorts." In 2008, he became a global ambassador for golf and was a key spokesman for the return of golf to the Summer Olympics in 2016, the first time golf will be part of the Olympic Games since 1904.

Significance

Although he earned a total of $5.7 million as a player, less than the amount of the average single-tournament purse for most PGA events today, Nicklaus took professional golf to a new level. A worldwide ambassador of the game, he epitomized the sportsmanship and etiquette of golf’s rich history. His style of play and golf swing have been emulated and written about extensively, and his relationship with other players, fans, and the media remained positive throughout his career. As a young player in the 1960s, Nicklaus was befriended by the great golfer Jones; like Jones, Nicklaus, too, befriended another young golfing great, Tiger Woods.

Nicklaus’s interest in golf-course architecture and his ability to design quality courses made him a major part of the development of nearly four hundred courses around the world. The success of his company, now called Golden Bear International, enabled Nicklaus to continue marketing his own line of equipment and apparel and to offer golf academies for budding golfers from around the country. Nicklaus’s legacy continues into the twenty-first century.

Nicklaus's impact on the sport led him to become the first sportsman fourth person to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2005), the Congressional Gold Medal (2014), and the Lincoln Medal (2018).

Bibliography

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Barrett, Connell, and Joe Passov. "No.1 Player of All Time Jack Nicklaus." Golf Magazine, vol. 54, no. 10, 2012, pp. 88. Academic Search Complete. Accessed 6 June 2024.

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Nicklaus, Jack, with David Shedloski. Jack Nicklaus: Memories and Mementos from Golf’s Golden Bear. Stewart, 2007.

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