Jack Nicklaus en route to his fourth and final U.S. Open win in 1980.
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We conclude this week of Bamberger Briefly dispatches with a (virtual) visit with Jack Nicklaus. The lineup, for those keeping score at home: Part I, Bryan Zuriff, Match II Producer. Part II: Superstars Among Us. Part III: Golf and Social Justice. Part IV, Wake Forest Women’s Golf. Next week, Bamberger will be back on the ground, at the Colonial Country Club, as the PGA Tour resumes play.
The golfer I’ve spent the most time with this year, virtually and in person, and the golfer I’ve probably quoted the most, is Jack Nicklaus. As it happens, Jack’s business partner, Howard Milstein, is my ultimate boss, but that’s a coincidence. It’s hard to imagine another sports figure more available to reporters than Jack Nicklaus.
Jack’s a golfing polymath. If you’re interested in the game, you’re going to learn something, talking to him.
On Thursday, through the good offices of the USGA (Michael Trostel, USGA historian, presiding), a small group of us taped Nicklaus discussing his fourth U.S. Open win, in 1980, at Baltusrol. Fourth and last, as it turns out, but nobody could say that at the time. The USGA is going release the taped interview on June 15, what would have been the Monday of U.S. Open week, had the U.S. Open not been postponed. (It will air on the USGA’s social channels.)
For more than a half-century now, the U.S. Open has concluded on Father’s Day, the third Sunday in June. June 21, this year. That is, this year, the Sunday of Hilton Head.
Nicklaus was terrific, remembering how he played four straight rounds with Isao Aoki of Japan, and Aoki’s unique pop putting stroke, the toe of his putter pointing almost to the sky.
He talked about how fans swarmed him and Aoki on the last hole, much as they did Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods on the final hole of the Tour Championship at East Lake in 2018.
Nicklaus talked about how he went winless in 1979 and how, in 1980, his lifelong teacher, Jack Grout, helped Nicklaus with his full swing and how his friend and contemporary Phil Rodgers helped him with his pitching game.
All the while, Nicklaus was watching a highlight reel of the ABC broadcast of the 1980 U.S. Open, but now Jack was adding his commentary. He talked about his haircut. (A pageboy. Stylish!) His 3-wood. (Persimmon, of course. Old and tiny). His caddie. (Angelo Argea. A dignified man). The golf course. (Baltusrol ends with two par-5s. Name other course that does that.)
Jack’s son, Michael, and wife Barbara were on hand at Baltusrol. getty
Jack and Barbara have five children and I asked Jack how many were there. Jack wasn’t sure, but he knew their youngest child, Michael, was.
A moment later, Michael showed up in the highlight reel, and we could all see a casual father-and-son hug, in a crowded, chaotic scorer’s tent.
“We went to McDonald’s that night,” Big Jack said. “That’s what Michael wanted to do, so that’s what we did.” The U.S. Open winner and his young son.
Michael Bamberger writes for GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. Before that, he spent nearly 23 years as senior writer for Sports Illustrated. After college, he worked as a newspaper reporter, first for the (Martha’s) Vineyard Gazette, later for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He has written a variety of books about golf and other subjects, the most recent of which is The Second Life of Tiger Woods. His magazine work has been featured in multiple editions of The Best American Sports Writing. He holds a U.S. patent on The E-Club, a utility golf club. In 2016, he was given the Donald Ross Award by the American Society of Golf Course Architects, the organization’s highest honor.
