Presidents Cup 2007

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Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), also known as “The Golden Bear”, was a major force in professional golf, first on the PGA Tour from the 1960s to the mid-to-late 1980s, then on the Champions Tour from the late 1980s to the 1990s. Nicklaus is widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time.

Together with Arnold Palmer, he is credited with turning golf into the major spectator sport it has become. While Palmer brought golf into the television era, it was the developing Nicklaus-Palmer rivalry that drove subsequent interest.

Career highlights
Nicklaus was born in Columbus, Ohio. He was raised and attended public schools in the suburb of Upper Arlington. Overcoming a mild case of polio as a child, he took up golf at the age of ten, shooting 51 for his first nine holes. At 13, he broke 70. He won the first of six Ohio State Junior titles at the age of twelve. While attending Ohio State University, he won the U.S. Amateur title twice (1959, 1961), and an NCAA Championship (1961). At the 1960 U.S. Open, he shot a 282, finishing second by two strokes to Arnold Palmer, who won the tournament with a final round 65.

Nicklaus began his professional career in 1962, and his record of eighteen wins in major tournaments (three British Open Championships, four U.S. Opens, five PGA Championships, and six Masters) is as yet unmatched. He is one of only five golfers to win all four current majors in a career (the “Career Grand Slam”), the first of only two (the other being Tiger Woods) to have won all four majors more than once, and the only golfer to win all four majors at least three times. In 1986, he became the oldest player to ever win The Masters. In all, Nicklaus racked up 46 top-3 finishes in majors (including 19 second-place finishes and nine third-places), 56 top-5 finishes, and 73 top-10 finishes.

Nicklaus’s six wins at the Masters came in 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975 and 1986. Not only is his win tally a record, but he also finished as runner-up a record four times. In the decade of the 1970s, Jack finished in the top ten at Augusta every year. Over his career, he appeared in the event 45 times and made the cut 37 times. In 1998, at the age of 58, he finished an impressive sixth.

Nicklaus won the U.S. Open in 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1980, and is tied with Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, and Willie Anderson for most wins. He is the only player to win the title in three different decades, and also had four runner-up finishes in his 42 appearances. He made the cut 35 times.

Nicklaus won the Open Championship (British Open) in 1966, 1970, 1978, and was runner-up seven times. He made the cut in 32 out of 38 appearances, and from 1966 to 1980 he never finished worse than sixth. So revered is Nicklaus in the United Kingdom for his British Open exploits that in July 2005, the Royal Bank of Scotland announced that Nicklaus’s image would be printed on a special issue of two million £5 notes.

His five wins at the PGA Championship came in 1963, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1980. He is tied with Walter Hagen for most wins. He made the cut 27 times in 37 finishes and was runner-up four times. His 1971 victory made him the first player to win the career Grand Slam twice, an achievement which was matched by Tiger Woods at the 2005 British Open.

Several of Nicklaus’s epic defeats in major tournaments helped established the greatness of other players in the public’s mind. Nicklaus suffered excruciating losses to, among others, Tom Watson and Lee Trevino that both raised the stature of those outstanding players and made Nicklaus a more sympathetic character (in contrast to Tiger Woods, who has won nearly every major in which he has ever led).

Nicklaus also won the prestigious PLAYERS Championship three times (though never at the TPC at Sawgrass, the current PLAYERS site and a course whose setup he harshly criticized, likening some of its approach shots to “stopping a 5-iron on the hood of a car”). He won various events around the globe as well, including six Australian Opens (1964, 1968, 1971, 1975, 1976 and 1978).

He is second to Sam Snead on the all-time list of players with most PGA Tour wins, having accumulated seventy-three titles. In seventeen consecutive seasons from 1962 to 1978 he always won at least one PGA Tour title and always finished in the top ten on the money list. He topped the PGA Tour money list eight times: 1964, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1976. He play on six Ryder Cup teams: 1969, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, and 1981 and captained the team in 1983 and 1987.

In 1996, Nicklaus was the first person in the history of the PGA to win the same Senior PGA Tour (now the Champions Tour) event four times. He is the only person in the history of the PGA to win all of the major championships on both the PGA TOUR and Champions Tour. (Although he never won the Senior British Open, it was not recognized as a major in the United States until 2003, after he had stopped playing the Champions Tour.) He never played a full schedule on the Champions Tour, but he won ten Champions Tour events, including eight majors.

In 1978, he received Sports Illustrated magazine’s “Sportsman of the Year” award. In 1980 he was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality Award.

Jack Nicklaus had an unusual playing style, combining being one of the greatest putters of all-time with being the longest hitter on the tour during his prime. He popularized the “power fade,” which was his characteristic ball flight.

When Nicklaus won the 1986 Masters using the Response ZT putter, the manufacturer, MacGregor Golf, received 5,000 orders the next day; the company had planned to sell only 6,000 for the entire year.

In what could be seen as a symbolic passing of the torch from one golf great to another, Tiger Woods won each major in the year that Nicklaus last appeared in it as a player. In 2000, Nicklaus played in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship for the last time, with Woods winning both; Woods also won The Open Championship in that year, which Nicklaus originally intended as his last appearance in that event. In 2005, Nicklaus made his last Masters appearance, and decided to play The Open one last time. Woods won both events as well.

Jack Nicklaus has been inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame and the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Current career
Nicklaus turned 65 in January 2005, which was the last year he entered a PGA tournament as an exempt player. He announced that he would retire from tournament golf in 2005 at The Open Championship at The Old Course at St Andrews. The very fact that the 2005 Open was scheduled at The Old Course can be seen as a tribute to Nicklaus. Several years earlier, the organizers of The Open, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A), had scheduled the 2006 Open for The Old Course. However, aware that Nicklaus’ exemption to play in The Open would run out after the 2005 Open, The R&A moved The Old Course up in the rotation one year to give Nicklaus an opportunity to play his last Open there.[citation needed]

Nicklaus devotes much of his time to golf course design and operates one of the largest golf design practices in the world. His first design was opened for play in 1970. For the first few years all of his projects were co-designs with either Pete Dye or Desmond Muirhead, who were two of the leading golf course architects of that era. His first sole design opened for play in 1976. He is now in partnership with his four sons and his son-in-law through Nicklaus Design. The company had 299 courses open for play at the end of 2005, which was nearly 1% of all the courses in the world (In 2005 Golf Digest calculated that there were nearly 32,000 golf courses in the world, approximately half of them in the United States. [1]). There are Nicklaus Design courses in more than thirty U.S. states and more than twenty five countries around the world. Jack Nicklaus is personally responsible for over 200 golf course designs. These include Muirfield Village, Shoal Creek, Castle Pines and the PGA Centenary Course at the Gleneagles Hotel.

Nicklaus also continues to manage the Memorial Golf Tournament he created in his home state of Ohio, which is played on a course he designed and is one of the more prestigious events on the PGA TOUR. His other interests are varied and many, and include a golf equipment company and golf academies. There is a Jack Nicklaus Museum on the campus of The Ohio State University in his home town of Columbus, Ohio.

Final tournament
Nicklaus played without much preparation in April 2005 at The Masters, a month after the drowning death of his 17-month-old grandson Jake (child of his son, Steve) on March 1, 2005. He and Steve played golf as therapy for their grief following the death. After days of playing, it was Steve who suggested his dad return to The Masters. He made that his last appearance in the tournament. The last competitive tournament in which Nicklaus played in the United States was the “Bayer Advantage Classic” in Overland Park, Kansas on June 13, 2005.

However, Nicklaus finished his professional career at The Open Championship at St. Andrews on July 15, 2005. He played with Luke Donald and Tom Watson in his final round. On the 18th hole, Nicklaus hit the final tee-shot of his career, and strolled to the Swilcan bridge and waved to the appreciative crowd (who gave him a ten-minute standing ovation). He then began posing for commemorative photographs with his son and caddy, Steve, as well as Donald and Watson. Afterwards, Nicklaus ended his illustrious career in style, making a fifteen-foot birdie putt and extending his putter and left arm in the air as he had done so many times to celebrate crucial putts. Jack wound up missing the 36-hole cut with a score of +3 (147).

PGA Tour wins

* 1962 (3) U.S. Open, Seattle World’s Fair Open Invitational, Portland Open Invitational
* 1963 (5) Palm Springs Golf Classic, The Masters, Tournament of Champions, PGA Championship, Sahara Invitational
* 1964 (4) Phoenix Open Invitational, Tournament of Champions, Whitemarsh Open Invitational, Portland Open Invitational
* 1965 (5) The Masters, Memphis Open Invitational, Thunderbird Classic, Philadelphia Golf Classic, Portland Open Invitational
* 1966 (3) The Masters, The Open Championship, Sahara Invitational
* 1967 (5) Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, U.S. Open, Western Open, Westchester Classic, Sahara Invitational
* 1968 (2) Western Open, American Golf Classic
* 1969 (3) Andy Williams-San Diego Open Invitational, Sahara Invitational, Kaiser International Open Invitational (October)
* 1970 (3) Byron Nelson Golf Classic, The Open Championship, National Four-Ball Championship (with Arnold Palmer)
* 1971 (5) PGA Championship, Tournament of Champions, Byron Nelson Golf Classic, National Team Championship (with Arnold Palmer), Walt Disney World Open Invitational
* 1972 (7) Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, Doral - Eastern Open Invitational, The Masters, U.S. Open, Westchester Classic, U.S. Professional Match Play Championship, Walt Disney World Open Invitational
* 1973 (7) Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, Greater New Orleans Open, Tournament of Champions, Atlanta Classic, PGA Championship, Ohio Kings Island Open, Walt Disney World Golf Classic
* 1974 (2) Hawaiian Open, Tournament Players Championship
* 1975 (5) Doral - Eastern Open Invitational, Sea Pines Heritage Classic, The Masters, PGA Championship, World Open Golf Championship
* 1976 (2) Tournament Players Championship, World Series of Golf
* 1977 (3) Jackie Gleason-Inverrary Classic, MONY Tournament of Champions, Memorial Tournament
* 1978 (4) Jackie Gleason-Inverrary Classic, Tournament Players Championship, The Open Championship, IVB-Philadelphia Golf Classic
* 1980 (2) U.S. Open, PGA Championship
* 1982 (1) Colonial National Invitation
* 1984 (1) Memorial Tournament
* 1986 (1) The Masters

Senior PGA Tour wins

* 1990 (2) The Tradition at Desert Mountain, Mazda SENIOR TOURNAMENT PLAYERS Championship
* 1991 (3) The Tradition at Desert Mountain, PGA Seniors’ Championship, U.S. Senior Open
* 1993 (1) U.S. Senior Open
* 1994 (1) Mercedes Championships
* 1995 (1) The Tradition
* 1996 (2) GTE Suncoast Classic, The Tradition

Other wins

* 1959 U.S. Amateur Championship
* 1961 U.S. Amateur Championship, NCAA Championship (individual)
* 1962 World Series of Golf (U.S. - not then a PGA Tour event)
* 1963 World Series of Golf (U.S. - not then a PGA Tour event), Canada Cup (team event with Arnold Palmer and individual event)
* 1964 Australian Open, Canada Cup (team event with Arnold Palmer and individual event)
* 1966 PGA Team Championship (with Arnold Palmer), Canada Cup (team only, with Arnold Palmer)
* 1967 World Series of Golf (U.S. - not then a PGA Tour event), World Cup (with Arnold Palmer)
* 1968 Australian Open
* 1970 World Series of Golf (U.S. - not then a PGA Tour event), Piccadilly World Match Play Championship
* 1971 Australian Open, World Cup (team event with Arnold Palmer and individual event)
* 1973 World Cup (with Johnny Miller)
* 1975 Australian Open
* 1976 Australian Open
* 1978 Australian Open
* 1983 Chrysler Team Championship (with Johnny Miller)
* 1991 Senior Skins Game
* 1999 Wendy’s Three-Tour Challenge (with Tom Watson and Hale Irwin), Office Depot Father-Son Challenge (with Gary Nicklaus), Diners Club Matches (with Tom Watson)
* 2000 Hyundai Team Matches (with Tom Watson)