DUBLIN, Ohio — Jack Nicklaus’s golf tournament turns 50 this week. How does it feel, knowing you’ve played host to a half-century of PGA Tour golf?
“Old,” Nicklaus said on Tuesday afternoon.
He chuckled as he said it, addressing a room’s-worth of assembled media at his Muirfield Village Golf Club ahead of his Memorial Tournament. He was 36 the first time they played this event; he’s 85 now. The purse, he noted with wonder, is $20 million, with $4 million going to the winner. In 1976? Winner Roger Maltbie earned $40,000, exactly one percent of this year’s first-place prize.
“Then Roger celebrated so much, he left his check — I don’t know what bar he was in town, but he left his check there. I think he got it back, though,” Nicklaus remembered. (The tournament host won in Year 2, by the way. There are layers of good memories here.)
The decimal points aren’t the only things that have shifted in the decades since. The turf ’round Muirfield Village has changed plenty. The tournament host has changed, too, even as he remains its constant. And on Tuesday he he didn’t hold back; over the better part of an hour he spoke freely about his memories, about his invitees, about the state of the game, about his likes and dislikes.
Nicklaus likes No. 14 at Muirfield Village — best of all, in fact. Asked if he has a favorite hole, he initially demurred. But as he talked his way through the question he settled on the pivotal short par-4.
“I think 14 is a really challenging hole, it’s an easy hole, it’s a dangerous hole, it’s a pretty hole. It’s got all the elements there that you could want.”
Nicklaus likes Rory McIlroy, although it’s clear a phone call would have gone a long way. McIlroy is skipping this week’s Memorial for the first time since 2017. And while Nicklaus handled the subject with perspective and grace, it was clear that the 18-time major champ — who lives near McIlroy in south Florida and met with him in advance of this year’s Masters win — is rather disappointed not to have the World No. 2 on property.
“Yeah, it surprised me,” he said. “But guys have schedules and things they do. And I haven’t talked to [Rory] for him to tell me why or why not. It’s just his call. I made a lot of calls that I had to make when I played, to play or not play, and sometimes it wasn’t popular …
“I don’t hold anything against Rory for that. He did what he likes to play. I know he likes to play so many in a row. He likes to play the week before a U.S. Open. And so he, that’s what he’s doing. So, you know, I really don’t have a comment on it. It’s very difficult, very difficult.”
Nicklaus is right. McIlroy likes to play the week before the U.S. Open, which means next week’s RBC Canadian Open. But he doesn’t like to play too many starts in a row, and he’s playing Travelers the week after Oakmont, which means something had to give, and here we are.
“I mean, I’m a big Rory fan, I always have been. I’m sure that I will remain that way. I just, I was a little surprised, yes,” he said.
Nicklaus likes a good message, no matter the source. This week the tournament is honoring his wife Barbara for her decades of contributions, and mid-presser he thought back to 1987 and a missed cut at a tournament in Oklahoma City.
“Friday night after I missed the cut, Barbara went to McDonald’s with my son Michael for dinner, and they came home and the next morning I had a little glass of orange juice in front of me in a sippy cup that she got from McDonald’s,” he said. “And it said, ‘There is no excuse for not being properly prepared.’ She was right, absolutely right. [I’ve] still got that sippy cup, incidentally. Because there isn’t any excuse.”
Nicklaus dislikes how far the golf ball goes. The idea of driving No. 3 at Augusta National, for examples, strikes him as basically wrong.
“I mean, the golf ball goes too far. It has gone too far for a while. Then they continue to lengthen things. But to me, lengthening only does a couple things: One, it takes longer to play. It costs more money, it costs more money, it costs more money. The whole thing, it just gets expensive.”
“We can’t just keep buying land. You can’t, you can’t just buy the golf course next door. Not many people can afford what Augusta did at Augusta Country Club, you just can’t do that.”
Nicklaus dislikes long par-3s, and he’s not afraid to say so. Asked why golf courses need them, he pointed out that perhaps they don’t.
“I don’t have any on my golf courses. But do you need them? Probably not. I can’t answer your question because I don’t like them. How is that?” he said. “I always liked to have one par-3 in the 220 to 235 range. I liked to have two of ’em right in the 190 to 210 range. And then one usually somewhere shorter, 170 or shorter.
That puts him in good company, by the way — Viktor Hovland said something similar at the same podium just a few hours before. But long par-3s are on golfers’ minds with a 300-yarder coming at Oakmont in two weeks’ time.
“But it is downhill,” Nicklaus said with an eyeroll.
Nicklaus dislikes all the hullaballoo about whether or not athletes should be required to face reporters post-round — nor did he have interest in getting baited into an answer about McIlroy’s media absence. He favors a simpler philosophy.
“I’ve always felt that you guys and gals have a job to do, and for you to do your job you need to talk to me. And whether I played well or whether I played poorly, if you still want to talk to me, I’ll talk to you. And I always have.”
And in that spirit, Nicklaus left the presser on a high note.
“Well, thank you for your questions,” he said. “I thought you guys did a nice job today.”
