Unbalanced logo

Getting it Done When it Matters

Jack Nicklaus

By Rob WatsonPublished 2 years ago 11 min read
1

Ben Hogan mastered the art of ball striking better, Seve Ballesteros had more magic and flair about him, Bobby Jones played with more style and grace, Tiger Woods had a greater ability to dominate a field when playing his best and in every technical aspect of the game you can find better exponents of them than Nicklaus in the history of the game, but when it came to getting it done when it mattered, no player did it better than Jack. The ‘Golden Bear’ has 18 victories in professional major championships, four more than Woods and seven more than anyone else.

Early on in his career Jack Nicklaus came to the realisation that a golfer’s reputation is forged largely by their performances in the major championships and so he decided to make those four championships the focus of his every season, bringing his game to close to its peak for these events proved to be his greatest ability. Along with the 18 victories, he also finished second 19 times and third 20 times. That many runner-up and third place finishes would normally point to someone who didn’t know how to win under pressure, but golf is a game where even the best players get beat more often than they win due to the vast amount of top quality players and the fact that it is a game where each player looks after his own ball and no one is playing directly against you making things difficult. So to have nearly sixty top three finishes in the game’s biggest events is a phenomenal record that points to a competitor who thrived on the high pressure environment. In fact many of those second and third place finishes would come when Nicklaus never really looked like winning but he kept his game together when all but one or two were starting to throw shots away and collapsing under the pressure of trying to win.

He would often leave other Golfers dumfounded with his theory that major championships were the easiest of all professional events to win, this flew in the face of all golfing ‘wisdom’, that constantly reminds players and fans how difficult it is the win the big ones and how many excellent players over the years haven’t quite been able to make that step up to the elite level by winning one of the Majors. It is exactly that fear factor that brought Nicklaus to his own conclusion, he felt the majority of the field had talked themselves out of the possibility of winning before the event even started simply because it was a Major Championship and they would think that way even if the exact same players were playing in a regular tour event they would think they had a chance of winning. The other part of Nicklaus’ theory was that players were so nervous when it came towards an end of a major championship and they were in contention to win that Jack felt that he didn’t have to push to win the tournament, he could just wait for the others to lose it.

Lots of Jack’s greatness is more down to mental and emotional factors rather than physical. Clearly he had the physical skill to hit the ball long distances and far more importantly it would a lot more often than not go in the direction he wanted it to and he most definitely hold more than his fair share of putts. Physical control of a golf ball has been had by many players over the years though, what most set Nicklaus apart from everyone else was his ability to make the most of his skills and being able to execute them when he needed them most. Whilst most players tend to play from week to week, working on their game in general but not having any particular thoughts about the majors until the week before the event at the most, Nicklaus was always preparing for the next Major. Abraham Lincoln is quoted as saying ‘If you have eight hours to chop down a try, spend six hours sharpening your axe.’ It would appear that Nicklaus had a similar belief in the value of planning, he knew that he could never guarantee that he would perform well at any given moment, but he wanted to go into every Major knowing he had done all he could to give himself the best opportunity to perform at his best. That sort of preparation generally helps to provide a positive sense of anticipation for the upcoming event, like someone before an exam who has revised all they can, compared to the unhelpful anxiety of someone whose only revision was a couple of hours in the early hours of the morning before the exam.

Another great asset that Jack had was his understanding of the game itself and more importantly a great understanding of his own game. He would constantly amaze other professionals with his prediction of what the winning score would be after playing a couple of practice rounds at a major championships, most professionals are honest enough to admit that wouldn’t really have a clue and any score they came up with would just be a guess, whereas Nicklaus had a freakish ability to get that score spot on or be within one or two shots so often. That showed he had a better understanding of what score was required to win, his even more useful ability was his understanding of how he could get to that score. He knew better than anyone that Golf is a game that is about playing within your capabilities and that once your try and do something outside those limits you usually end up in a whole heap of trouble. In the cold light of day, whilst have a chat in the clubhouse over dinner probably anybody who has ever played the game of golf would agree with that and most would completely understand what it meant. What really set Nicklaus apart was his ability to put that theory into practice virtually every single time he hit a golf shot. Golf is a game that has probably witnessed more psychological melt downs in the heat of battle than any other, due largely to the masses of thought time allowed to each play, virtually every player ever suffers from going further away from all the logical theories that they know about golf the more under pressure they feel. Nicklaus was one of the rare ones who actually seemed to become clearer with his thought process the more pressurised the situation he was in. That well known phrase about keeping your head when all around you are losing theirs is a fitting one when it comes to the end of a Major Golf Championship and nobody kept their head as well or nearly as often as Nicklaus kept his.

Nicklaus also provided one of the all-time great swansongs to the end of an elite career in sport, in fact it was so long after his previous Major win that it was more of a comeback tour than a swansong. When he arrived at Augusta in April for the 1986 Masters he hadn’t won a major since 1980. His career was well and truly on the slide and so far his year had been nothing short of awful by his standards. He’d had times in his career when he had been written off before only to prove people wrong, but this time everybody really did think he was finished, nothing more than a former champion living off former glories.

All the build-up to the event surrounded the modern superstars at the time like Greg Norman and Seve Ballesteros. Much to the television and golf writers delight both those players found their way to the top of the leader board, along with American stars Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw and Zimbabwean Nick Price. Going into the last round on name was a little further down the leader board and just about within striking distance, at least he would be within striking difference if he was in his pomp, that player was Jack Nicklaus and even after three good rounds still nobody thought it was anything more than a nice gently reminder of days gone by, him adding to his record five Masters titles was still considered nothing more than a fairy tale with so many top young players ahead of him.

There was at least one person who considered the possibility of Nicklaus winning to be a serious one, fortunately for him it was the one person that mattered. Before he went out he said to his son who was caddying for him something along the lines of ‘I think if I shoot 65 today it might just get it done, what do you think?’ His son raised his eyebrows and replied something like ‘Let’s get it done and find out.’ He started the final round with eight straight pars, good golf on the last day of a major but if he really wanted to win then he needed better scores, so far it was nothing more than the pleasant ceremonial round of a great former champion. At last a birdie came on ninth, producing a great cheer from the crowd but only because they were delighted to witness a Nicklaus birdie at Augusta. The tenth and eleventh are two of the toughest holes at Augusta, no one knew that better than Nicklaus. He birdied the tenth, more big cheers, it was great to see a glimpse of the legend at his best before Seve and Norman would come round and fight it out for the title. He birdied the eleventh, even bigger cheer, surely he could? Could he? Was he really contemplating winning?

Nicklaus has described the twelfth at Augusta as the most demanding hole in championship golf. The little par three caught him out this time, he made a bogey and it appeared the dream had died. Probably any other golfer would’ve take that blow as a terminal one, using the spike mark on the green that helped keep his par putt out of the whole as a sign from the golfing Gods that he wasn’t meant to win. Nicklaus birdied the 13th and made a good par on the fourteenth and then boomed a long drive down the middle of the par five 15th leaving him within range of the green with his next shot. As he stood by his ball waiting to hit his second shot he said to his son ‘How far do you think a three will go here and I don’t mean club?’ That his Dad was even contemplating an eagle was virtually too much excitement to bear, so he could only reply along the lines of ‘make it happen.’ Nicklaus sent a towering four iron over the pond in front of the green to the middle of the green around twenty feet from the hole, creating another loud cheer. The definition of ‘loud cheer’ was about to be redefined during the rest of that round. He studied the putt and then stroked it majestically towards the hole, the cheers from the thousands of people around the green and the emphatics ‘Yes Sir!’ from the commentator told you all you needed to know about where that ball ended up. An eagle three and all of a sudden it wasn’t just a fairy tale, there actually was a chance he could win. For one glorious afternoon the washed up has been had managed to morph into another version of himself, that self when he was in his majestic prime.

Performing at your best is in large parts due to controlling your emotions, it is difficult to even begin to understand how emotional Nicklaus was feeling at this point. He’d been written off by all the ‘experts’, he had his son caddying for him for the first time at Augusta, other members of his family had come to watch him at Augusta for the first time, and now he was on the brink of creating one of the greatest ever sport stories. He still had three holes to play with all that to deal with, again to a lesser mortal it would’ve been way too much. On the par three sixteenth Nicklaus sent another towering iron shot over water and arrow straight at the flag. ‘Be right’ his son said, urging the ball to be the right distance. Before the ball reached the top of its flight Jack had turned back to his son to hand him the club back and showing that great understanding of his own game he calmed his son’s nerves by saying ‘It is.’ Sure enough it the ball settled around four feet from the hole, a tricky nerve wracking putt for mortals, an easy birdie for a golfing God.

The par four seventeenth green was reached in two shots, leaving him a birdie putt of around the same length as the eagle putt on fifteen, he stroked it towards the hole and by this stage it looked as if he was putting down a drainpipe into a drain, it was impossible for the ball to go anywhere else but the whole and there was one more deafening cheer. For a while now the other players knew what was going on, even without updated leader boards around the course, they might not be able to believe it but they knew only one man could be causing those sort of cheers. By the time the last group of the day containing Greg Norman and Nick Price got to the fourteenth, there was virtually nobody there to watch them, they had all gone to catch a glimpse of the Golden Bear on the charge.

His long birdie putt on the eighteenth came up tantalisingly short, but the par meant that he had the 65 he talked about and it was good enough to win by one shot. One more time he had shown he knew exactly what was needed to win and how to do it.

culture
1

About the Creator

Rob Watson

I love writing, and I love sport. So many of my stories will be about sport. But I also love writing fiction too, so there will be short stories, extracts from novels and maybe some scripts and even some poems too.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.