The Magnificent Masters: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Weiskopf, and the 1975 Cliffhanger at Augusta (42 page)
Authors: Gil Capps
The following year, the superstitious Nicklaus wore the same Sunday outfit in the Masters in a bid to win back-to-back titles. He shot a pair of 73s on the weekend and was unable to keep up with Raymond Floyd’s blistering 271 total that tied Nicklaus’s tournament record set in 1965. The tie for 3rd marked Nicklaus’s thirteenth consecutive top-ten finish in a major championship—still the all-time record.
The man who wound up challenging Nicklaus in the later part of his career wouldn’t be Miller or Weiskopf, but the person who played with Nicklaus that final day in 1975. Tom Watson may have been the forgotten figure among the final four at the Masters, but a victory three
months later in the British Open at Carnoustie boosted his confidence even more and propelled him on a remarkable run over the next decade. “I think Watson was a young guy who came along with blinders who just wanted to beat everybody and didn’t care who was on the sideline,” says Nicklaus. Watson combined his high-ball flight with a short game that was one of the best in golf. Nearly ten years younger than Nicklaus, their tussles resembled Nicklaus’s rivalry with Palmer, only with the roles reversed. Watson would get the better of Nicklaus at the 1977 Masters, 1977 British Open, 1981 Masters, and 1982 U.S. Open with an incredible chip-in on the 71st hole at Pebble Beach.
When some Augusta National caddies didn’t show up for a rain-delay restart in 1982, Masters participants had their opening to bring their own caddies the next year. So Nicklaus let Jack Nicklaus II start carrying his bag. Eleven years after walking all 18 holes on Sunday as a thirteen-year-old to see his dad win Masters number five, he was inside the ropes to witness number six. At age forty-six, Nicklaus produced a spine-tingling back-nine 30 to come from behind and capture his eighteenth, and final, professional major at the 1986 Masters. It was unlike in 1975 or any other win. Instead of controlling his emotions, he rode the high of the moment throughout the second nine. No longer in his prime, he had to recall the player he had been in 1975. This time, all the competitors around him melted under the pressure of playing for a Masters title with the Nicklaus name on the leaderboard. It was also the only Masters other than his first in 1959 that his mother and sister attended.
In 2001, Nicklaus became only the second Masters champion to become a member of the Augusta National Golf Club, joining Arnold Palmer. Nicklaus played in his last Masters in 2005 with little pomp and circumstance, his final hole actually being the 9th hole on a Saturday morning because of weather delays. In 2010, he joined Palmer as an honorary starter. Gary Player made it a threesome in 2012.
“I go back and look at the record and say, ‘That wasn’t too bad’,” said Nicklaus. “And I don’t mean that in a braggy sort of way. But I
was very proud of that. But it was fun. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed playing the game for the game. And I enjoyed getting better to get better. I enjoyed the work that I put into it to get something out of it. And I think that anybody who’s good at something enjoys that. He better enjoy it, if you don’t you’re not going to be around long.”
Sitting in his office thirty-six years later, Nicklaus enjoys reminiscing. “1975 was fun because I was under control of my golf game,” he says. “Weiskopf was in control of his game, and Miller was in control of his game. It was not an event where we were giving stuff away. It was each of us taking the challenge of the next guy, and that was fun being on both the receiving end and giving end. Of course, obviously, I ended up giving more to them at the end than receiving.”
A bit of frustration seeps into the air. Nicklaus competed in forty-five Masters, played 163 competitive rounds, and hit 11,733 shots. He can’t remember them all, and even some important ones slip from his mind occasionally as a septuagenarian. The feeling of that final day of the 1975 Masters is still present. “It was probably the most exciting and best tournament and most fun I had finishing a golf tournament,” he says.
Nobody seeks to emulate Bobby Jones today. It’s Jack Nicklaus who’s the all-around benchmark. Emulating his respect for his game, his sportsmanship, and his record are the goals of aspiring golfers. He took the best shots from golf’s golden generation—Palmer, Casper, Trevino, Watson, Miller, Weiskopf, and others—but no one could dislodge him from the throne.
Nicklaus’s affair with Jones, the Masters, and golf began with that simple invitation mailed to his parents’ house in 1959. It’s not forgotten. Today it resides in the Jack Nicklaus Museum on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus, along with the clubs, trophies, medal, and green shirt from the 1975 Masters.
HOLE-BY-HOLE SCORES OF TOP-THREE PLAYERS
Jack Nicklaus
Johnny Miller
Tom Weiskopf
A NOTE ON SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
In writing this book, I was fortunate to have such a wide variety of sources to use. I was able to watch the live broadcast of the final two rounds. I was able to speak with the actual participants. I was able to delve into endless newspaper clipping and magazine articles.
At times, I nearly had the feeling that there was too much material because the more you research, the more things you discover that don’t match. In any instances that memories and/or reports varied, I carefully weighed the research and evidence before coming to any conclusions, if I came to one at all.
Being able to talk with so many people involved with the game at that time presented another problem: how to distinguish between present-day quotes and those of almost four decades ago. To delineate between them, I have written quotes in two different tenses. Any quotation that is preceded or followed by a verb in the present tense is from a personal interview I conducted. Those associated with a verb in the past tense come from sources during that period of time.
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