NICKLAUS, Jack (William) 1940–

PERSONAL: Born January 21, 1940, in Columbus, OH; son of Louis Charles, Jr. (a pharmacist) and Helen (Schoener) Nicklaus; married Barbara Bash, July 23, 1960; children: Jack William II, Steven Charles, Nancy Jean, Gary Thomas, Michael Scott. Education: Attended Ohio State University, 1957–62. Hobbies and other interests: Fishing, hunting, basketball, tennis, skiing.

ADDRESSES: Home—11397 Old Harbour Rd., North Palm Beach, FL 33408. Office—11780 U.S. Highway No. 1, North Palm Beach, FL 33408.

CAREER: Professional golfer, 1962–2005. Chairman, Golden Bear International.

MEMBER: American Cancer Society (former chairman of Ohio division), National Easter Seal Society (former chairman of sports division), PGA Junior Golf Foundation (honorary chairman), Ohio State University President's Club, Phi Gamma Delta.

AWARDS, HONORS: Winner of U.S. Amateur Championship, 1959 and 1961; winner of over one hundred professional golf tournaments worldwide, including: U.S. Open, 1962, 1967, 1972, and 1980, U.S. Masters, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975, and 1986, Tournament of Champions, 1963, 1964, 1971, 1973, 1977, and 1986, Professional Golfers Association (PGA) Championship, 1963, 1971, 1973, 1975, and 1980, Australian Open, 1964, 1968, 1971, 1975, 1976, and 1978, British Open, 1966, 1970, and 1978, International Pro-Amateur Tournament, 1973, Atlanta Golf Classic, 1973, Walt Disney World Golf Classic, 1973, Hawaiian Open, 1974, World Series of Golf, 1977, Gleason Inverrary Classic, 1977, Memorial Tournament, 1977 and 1984, Philadelphia Classic, 1978, Colonial National Invitational, 1982, The Tradition at Desert Mountain, 1990, 1991, 1995, and 1996, Mazda Senior Players' Championship, 1990 and 1991, PGA Seniors Championship, 1991, U.S. Senior Open, 1991 and 1993, and Mercedes Seniors Championship, 1994; Byron Nelson Award, 1964, 1965, 1972, and 1973; PGA Player of the Year, 1967, 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1976; Dunlop Professional Athlete of the Year, 1972; D. of Athletic Arts, Ohio State University, 1972; Golf Writers Player of the Year, 1972, 1975, and 1976 (with Jerry Pate); Bobby Jones Award, 1975; Sportsman of the Year, Sports Illustrated, 1978; named Athlete of the Decade, 1979; named Golfer of the Seventies, 1979; named to World Golf Hall of Fame; L.L.D., University of St. Andrews, 1984; named Golfer of the Century, Golf magazine, 1988; named Golf Course Architect of the Year, Golf World, 1993; the Jack Nicklaus Museum was established at Ohio State University, 2002; ranked by Golf Inc. magazine as the most powerful person in golf, 2004; image issued on a five-pound bank note by the Royal Bank of Scotland, 2005.

WRITINGS:

My Fifty-five Ways to Lower Your Golf Score, illustrations by Francis Golden, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1964.

Take a Tip from Me, illustrations by Francis Golden, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1968.

(With Herbert Warren Wind) The Greatest Game of All: My Life in Golf (autobiography), foreword by Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1969.

(With Ken Bowden) Golf My Way, illustrations by Jim McQueen, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1974, reprinted as Golf My Way: The Instructional Classic, Revised and Updated, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2005.

The Best Way to Better Golf, Numbers 1-3, Fawcett (New York, NY), 1975.

(With Ken Bowden) Jack Nicklaus' Playing Lessons, Golf Digest (Trumbull, CT), 1976.

(With Ken Bowden) Jack Nicklaus' Lesson Tee, illustrations by Jim McQueen, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1977, revised edition, 1992.

(With Ken Bowden) On and Off the Fairway (autobiography), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1979.

(With Ken Bowden) Play Better Golf with Jack Nicklaus, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), Volume 1: The Swing from A to Z, 1980, Volume 2: The Short Game and Scoring, 1981, Volume 3: Short Cuts to Lower Scores, 1983, one-volume edition published as Play Better Golf: An Illustrated Guide to Lower Golf Scores, Galahad Books, 1988.

(With Ken Bowden) Jack Nicklaus' the Full Swing in Photos, Golf Digest (Trumbull, CT), 1984.

My Most Memorable Shots in the Majors, Golf Digest (Trumbull, CT), 1988.

(With Ken Bowden) Jack Nicklaus: My Story, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

(With Ken Bowden) My Golden Lessons: 100 Plus Ways to Improve Your Shots, Lower Your Scores, and Enjoy Golf Much, Much More, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

(With Chris Millard) Nicklaus by Design: Golf Course Strategy and Architecture, Abrams (New York, NY), 2002.

(With John Tickell) Golf and Life, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 2005.

Nicklaus's books have been published in England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Switzerland.

SIDELIGHTS: Former professional golfer Jack Nicklaus, nicknamed the "Golden Bear" because of his once large physique and platinum blonde hair—as well as for his stature in the game—is regarded by many observers as the best golfer in the world. Nicklaus has earned this distinction by winning a phenomenal number of golf tournaments since 1959. He has won twenty major golf titles, more than any other professional golfer, and is "the only man ever to win a major golf title in four separate decades," as a reporter for Time stated. Nicklaus, along with Arnold Palmer, has won a U.S.G.A. Championship in each of the last five decades. "One wonders," observed a writer for the New Yorker, "if there has ever been an athlete who has accomplished more in any sport." He played in a record 154 consecutive major championships between 1957 and 1998. Since reducing his appearances in golf tournaments in 2000 due to health issues and retiring from tournament competition in 2005, Nicklaus has devoted more time to his work as a designer of golf courses; over 250 of his designs can be found throughout the United States and in some 24 foreign countries. He is also involved with the upscale Nicklaus, a quarterly magazine that "celebrates the game of life."

The "Golden Bear" was first introduced to the game of golf by his father. The elder Nicklaus, suffering from an ankle injury, was advised by his doctor to walk more. Accordingly, he took up golf and used son Jack as a caddie. Whenever his father paused to rest on the course, Jack would "sort of fiddle around the greens," as he told Nation's Business. Jack was soon playing golf so well that he filled the family house with his amateur trophies. He won the Ohio State Junior Championship at the age of thirteen.

An important influence on Nicklaus's early career was Jack Grout, a professional golfer who taught private classes in Nicklaus's hometown of Columbus, Ohio. Grout taught Nicklaus the basics of a powerful golf swing based on his own ideas concerning the placement of one's feet and the proper shifting of weight. The three elements of a strong golf swing, Grout teaches, are to keep the head still, roll the ankles to maintain proper balance, and swing the arms in the widest possible arc. Grout also emphasized that Nicklaus should hit the ball in a high parabola. A ball hit in that manner will come down vertically and so be less likely to roll far, making it easier to keep the ball on the green. Because of Grout's training, Nicklaus is known as a power driver, able to hit the ball three hundred yards. In the early days of his career, the New Yorker contributor wrote, "it was [Nicklaus's] thunderous power off the tee that attracted the most attention."

In 1959, at the age of nineteen, Nicklaus was one of nine golfers to make the American Walker Cup team, selected to compete against a British team in Muirfield, Scotland. The American team won, with Nicklaus contributing two victories to the effort. Later that same year, he won the U.S. Amateur Championship and went on to win an astounding twenty-nine matches out of thirty. In 1960, he finished an unbelievable second to Arnold Palmer, then the world's best-known golfer, in the U.S. Open.

Nicklaus began to tour professionally in 1962 and made his name by defeating Palmer by three strokes in an eighteen-hole playoff in that year's U.S. Open. Other major victories quickly followed: the U.S. Masters, the Tournament of Champions, the PGA Championship, and the British Open. Along the way, Nicklaus has set or tied one record after another. "The world's largest bookshelf may be needed one of these days," wrote Dan Jenkins in Sports Illustrated, "to store all the records that belong to Nicklaus." Besides winning more major golf titles than any other golfer in history, Nicklaus has also won both the U.S. Open and PGA Championships with the lowest golf scores in their histories, and is one of only three golfers to win the Open and PGA in the same year. His career tour average was an impressive seventy-one strokes per round. Nicklaus decided that because of continuing hip problems, 2000 would be the last year he would compete in all four major tournaments. Five years later, Nicklaus would enter his final major tournament, the British Open, ending his illustrious career on the grounds of St. Andrews, considered by many to be the birthplace of the sport.

The secret to Nicklaus's phenomenal success, many observers believe, is his intense concentration. Seemingly oblivious to the tension of the moment, the crowd watching him, and even his fellow golfers, Nicklaus is able to sink the crucial putt needed to win a match. "He seems actually to thrive on pressure," observed a New Yorker contributor. "Out on the fairway, surrounded by thousands of exuberant fans, he wears the tournament golfer's invariable frown of concentration, but he seems completely relaxed." "The ability to concentrate to the fullest on what I'm doing …," Nicklaus told Nation's Business, "has helped me in life more than anything else. Once something is finished I can switch off and go to something else … So when I'm on the golf course, I'm able to concentrate on golf."

Nicklaus's formidable power of concentration may also be responsible for his success in business. He is chairman of Golden Bear International, the management entity responsible for developing and managing all of Nicklaus's golf-and sports-related businesses. Perhaps the most satisfying of Nicklaus's business ventures is his designing and construction of over 250 golf courses worldwide. Because of his success as a golf course designer, Nicklaus was ranked by Golf Inc. magazine as the most powerful person in golf in 2004. Nicklaus maintains a giant garden of tropical plants near his home in Florida where a wide variety of species are grown for use on his golf courses. He emphasizes that each course be landscaped with the plants and fruit trees native to the area. "I think it's fun," he was quoted as saying in Nation's Business, "to be able to walk along a golf course and if you're hungry, pick some fruit and eat as you go along." Summing up his thoughts on golf course design, Nicklaus was quoted in the New Yorker as saying: "I can't describe the satisfaction you get when you see one of your courses looking and playing just the way you meant it to."

In his books on playing golf, Nicklaus has provided seasoned advice for fans of the sport who want to improve their game. His My Golden Lessons: 100 Plus Ways to Improve Your Shots, Lower Your Scores, and Enjoy Golf Much, Much More, for example, covers the entire game from teeing off with power to putting successfully, each step illustrated with an appropriate photograph. Steven Silkunas, reviewing the book for Library Journal, found that the tips were suitable especially for those who wished to make golf their game for life. Who was giving the advice was also important, Silkunas noted: "In the world of golf, the name Jack Nicklaus speaks for itself. While the world follows Tiger Woods, Tiger is chasing Jack's records."

In 1997 Nicklaus published Jack Nicklaus: My Story. Centered around the twenty major championships of his career, the book recounts in shot-by-shot detail just how he won these victories and established records still unbroken in the sport of golf. Nicklaus also tells of his family life, especially his long and happy marriage to his college sweetheart, Barbara. William Curran noted in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that she has "remained indispensable to Jack's serene personal life and his unparalleled success as an athlete." Bill Ott found in Booklist that the aging Nicklaus's account of how he had to change his golf swing radically in 1979 in order to continue being competitive "is perhaps the greatest testament possible to the rigors of golf." The critic for Publishers Weekly called the book a "warm and personal memoir by the greatest of the great."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Andrisani, John, The Nicklaus Way: How to Apply Jack Nicklaus's Unique Course Strategies and Scoring Techniques to Your Own Game, HarperResource (New York, NY), 2004.

Argea, Angelo, and Jolee Edmondson, Bear and I: The Story of the World's Most Famous Caddie, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1979.

Business People in the News, Volume 1, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1975.

Corcoran, Mike, Duel in the Sun: Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus in the Battle of Turnberry, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2002.

Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd edition, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1998.

Gibson, Nevin H., Great Moments in Golf, Barnes (New York, NY), 1973.

Grout, Jack, Let Me Teach You Golf as I Taught Jack Nicklaus, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1975.

Jacobs, Timothy, editor, Golf Courses of Jack Nicklaus, Popular Culture Ink, 1990.

Lardner, Rex, Great Golfers, Putnam (New York, NY), 1970.

Mackintosh, David, editor, Golf's Greatest Eighteen: Today's Top Golf Writers Debate and Rank the Sport's Greatest Champions, Contemporary Books (Chicago, IL), 2003.

McDonnell, Michael, Golf: The Great Ones, Drake (New York, NY), 1973.

Nicklaus, Jack, and Herbert Warren Wind, The Greatest Game of All: My Life in Golf, foreword by Robert Tyre Jones, Jr., Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1969.

Nicklaus, Jack, and Ken Bowden, On and Off the Fairway, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1979.

Pachter, Marc, and others, Champions of American Sport, Abrams (New York, NY), 1981.

Riger, Robert, Athlete, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1980.

St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 2000.

Sampson, Curt, The Eternal Summer: Palmer, Nicklaus, and Hogan in 1960, Golf's Golden Year, Taylor Publishing (Dallas, TX), 1992.

Shaw, Mark, Jack Nicklaus: Golf's Greatest Champion, Sports Publishing, 2002.

Shedloski, David S., Golden Twilight: Jack Nicklaus in His Final Championship Season, Sleeping Bear Press (Chelsea, MI), 2001.

Sounes, Howard, The Wicked Game: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, and the Story of Modern Golf, Morrow (New York, NY), 2004.

Sports Immortals, Prentice-Hall, 1974.

PERIODICALS

Biography News, August, 1974.

Booklist, March 15, 1997, Bill Ott, review of Jack Nicklaus: My Story, p. 1202.

Books, October, 1997, review of Jack Nicklaus: My Story, p. 17.

Business Week, February 15, 1988.

Connoisseur, March, 1983.

Esquire, April, 1968; April, 1973.

Field & Stream, April, 1974.

Golf (special commemorative issue), September, 1988.

Guardian (Manchester, England), July 10, 1997, David Davies, review of Jack Nicklaus, p. 12.

Library Journal, October 1, 1996, review of Golf My Way, p. 53; April 15, 1997, review of Jack Nicklaus, p. 87; April 15, 1999, Cliff Glaviano, review of Jack Nicklaus (audio edition), p. 166; October 15, 2002, Steven Silkunas, review of My Golden Lessons: 100 Plus Ways to Improve Your Shots, Lower Your Scores, and Enjoy Golf Much, Much More, p. 79.

Look, April 16, 1968.

Nation's Business, September, 1982.

Newsweek, April 25, 1966; July 18, 1966; February 6, 1967; March 20, 1972; April 24, 1972; July 3, 1972; July 24, 1972; August 27, 1973; April 14, 1975; March 27, 1978; July 24, 1978; June 30, 1980.

New Yorker, August 13, 1966; November 5, 1966; July 8, 1967; July 8, 1972; July 14, 1980; May 30, 1983.

New York Times, June 18, 1962.

New York Times Book Review, June 8, 1997, review of Jack Nicklaus, p. 26.

New York Times Magazine, July 9, 1972.

Publishers Weekly, March 10, 1997, review of Jack Nicklaus, p. 58.

Quill & Quire, June, 1992, review of Jack Nicklaus's Lesson Tee, p. 30.

Readers Digest, October, 1973.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 1, 1997, William Curran, review of Jack Nicklaus, p. 5D.

Saturday Evening Post, April 8, 1961.

Sport, February, 1978; January, 1981; June, 1982.

Sporting News, June 30, 1997, review of Jack Nicklaus, p. 7.

Sports Illustrated, April 4, 1966; April 18, 1966; July 18, 1966; December 19, 1966; January 30, 1967; June 26, 1967; October 14, 1968; April 14, 1969; May 19, 1969; October 27, 1969; November 7, 1969; December 8, 1969; June 15, 1970; July 20, 1970; August 3, 1970; March 8, 1971; May 3, 1971; June 28, 1971; August 9, 1971; November 8, 1971; January 24, 1972; April 3, 1972; April 17, 1972; June 26, 1972; September 4, 1972; February 19, 1973; June 11, 1973; August 20, 1973; October 15, 1973; October 14, 1974; February 3, 1975; June 16, 1975; August 18, 1975; September 22, 1975; December 22, 1975; June 7, 1976; September 13, 1976; May 30, 1977; July 18, 1977; March 27, 1978; July 24, 1978; December 25, 1978; March 31, 1980; April 7, 1980; June 23, 1980; August 18, 1980; September 1, 1980; April 21, 1986; July 25, 2005, John Garrity, "A Legend's Fond Farewell," p. G12.

Time, April 22, 1966; July 15, 1966; February 3, 1967; June 30, 1967; November 10, 1967; July 6, 1970; April 24, 1972; June 20, 1980.

ONLINE

Jack Nicklaus Official Web site, http://www.nicklaus.com (September 6, 2004).

PGA Tour Web site, http://www.golfweb.com/ (September 6, 2004), "Jack Nicklaus: Biographical Information."