Is This Really The End?

The same qualities that made Jack Nicklaus great make it difficult for him to say goodbye

The difficulty of letting go was apparent for Nicklaus at the Masters

By Jaime Diaz

Photos By Dom Furore

July 8, 2005

Rather than The Greatest Game of All, Jack Nicklaus wanted to call his 1969 autobiography The Education of a Golfer, except it already had been taken by Sam Snead. Similarly, his generically tagged 1997 personal history, My Story, might have benefited from the title of John McPhee's earlier portrait of Bill Bradley: A Sense of Where You Are.

For better than four decades, Nicklaus' most distinguishing attribute on the golf course has been an uncanny command of the moment. No one thought more clearly under pressure, responded so potently to competition or was as astute in managing his playing career. No one better knew where he was.

That persona seemed to rule Nicklaus' pronouncements this spring that 2005 would mark the end of his participation in serious tournament golf. Whereas in the past similar soundings had been met with collective eye-rolling, there was no doubt that this time Nicklaus was serious.

The most profound factor was the devastating blow Nicklaus suffered in March when his 17-month-old grandchild, Jake, accidentally drowned in a hot tub while under the supervision of a nanny. Immediately, Nicklaus' role as patriarch of a large and closely knit extended family became more important than ever.

Along with fate was the insistent march of time. Nicklaus turned 65 in January. His body--mostly his back and hip--betrayed him a long time ago. His last official victory came on the Champions Tour in 1996. He last made a cut in a major championship in 2000. His life away from competition is more active than ever, with worldwide course-design projects, far-flung fishing and hunting trips, as well as myriad business commitments. On the surface it's enough to produce a studied indifference in Nicklaus the golfer. "I have no game--you know that," he half-joked to reporters at this year's Memorial, then conveyed his ambivalence about playing in tournaments with a line that could have come from a country song: "I'm always looking forward to waiting for it to be over."

Accordingly, next week's British Open over the Old Course at St. Andrews provides the perfect opportunity to gracefully exit the stage. It's Nicklaus' favorite place in golf, the place where the game began, the place to end.

Except for one thing: Nicklaus still isn't truly ready. It's clear whenever he's pressed to explain his de facto competitive retirement in depth. The glibness stops, replaced by sentences that have been hairsplitting, contradictory, heartfelt and ultimately non-committal. Although the mulligan he took to reserve the right to play indefinitely in his Memorial Tournament was reasonable, at this particular moment, the man who has always known where he is seems lost. Consider the verbal gymnastics Nicklaus went through at the Masters.

"So this will be my last time," he said before the first round, "somewhere in my head believing that I might be able to shoot a reasonable round of golf. But you know, I may come back in five years, I may come back in 10 years and decide I want to go tee up and play, I can do that ... I'm not going to come back, I think you all know me well enough."

After his second-round 76 missed the cut, Nicklaus seemed resolute. His son Jackie, who caddied at Augusta, had been struck by his father's words to him ("It's been sweet.") just before he hit a 6-iron to five feet on the final hole. He knew they were the same words his late grandfather, Charlie Nicklaus, had said to Jack before being taken into his last surgery. Later, Nicklaus recounted what his thoughts had been coming up his final hole.

"That this was going to be the last time I was going to walk up the fairway," he said. "I just said, you know, obviously, I had made up my mind. This is just too tough for me. I just cannot do this. ... I'm an old man trying to figure out some way to get out of the way."

But the audible portent of his own words sent him backtracking. "I have the ability to come back," he said. "I mean, Billy Casper came back after [missing] how many years? I don't think I will do that. But I certainly have the right to do that ... I'm not positive ever of anything. Arnold changed his mind about how many times? I mean, didn't he? Yeah, I have the right to change my mind."