58 golfdigest.com | may 2019BoB StrauS
How I choked during my firstencounter with Jack Nicklaus.The Golf Life The View from Pebble BeachJim Nantz
A loop with a boyhood hero
▶ learning from the best Nantz survived his test.O
Park City, Utah, June 1,- I was still finding my
legs as a sports anchor at KSL,
then the local CBS affiliate
in Salt Lake City. A couple of
weeks earlier, someone want-
ing publicity arranged for me
to caddie for Jack at the open-
ing of Park Meadows, a course
he’d designed. The unspoken
return favor was the under-
standing I would follow up
with a first-person report on
the 10 o’clock news.
It should’ve been no sweat.
I knew golf, having played on
the team at the University of
Houston. A few days before
the 18-hole exhibition, which
I learned would be a “match”
between Jack and the local
Utah hero, Johnny Miller, I
even scouted the course and
carefully walked off yardages.
I was going to come prepared.
Jack arrived fresh off a win
in his Memorial Tournament
the week before. There were
about 3,000 invited guests,
and the crowd made me a
little nervous. After a brief
warm-up, Mr. Nicklaus—I
wouldn’t have dreamed
of calling him “Jack” back
then—pulled me aside and
asked about my golf back-
ground. He was aware some-
one had set up my role as his
caddie, and he expressed his
appreciation for my advance
prep work.
Then Jack got down to
business. He pulled out a
sleeve of MacGregor Tourney
golf balls and handed one to me.
“See this ball here, Jim? This is
ball No. 1. It will be used today
on the first, fourth, seventh,
10th, 13th and 16th holes.” He
pulled out another. “This is ball
No. 2. Please give it to me on the
second, fifth, eighth, 11th, 14th
and 17th holes.” I accepted the
third ball and nodded, indicat-
ing I understood the rotation.
I discovered later that Jack
believed wound balata balls
needed time to “rest” before
they were put back into play.
After some warm remarks
and a ribbon-cutting, Jack pull-
hooked his opening tee shot
over the heads of the gallery
on the side of the fairway. He
looked around at the shocked
faces and declared, “Since I de-
signed the place, I’m allowingmyself a mulligan.” The gallery
laughed. Jack then looked at
me expectantly. In the heat
of the moment, I’d forgotten
I was carrying the other two
balls, one in each pocket for
inventory control. “Jim, may I
have another ball, please?” he
requested, patiently. Snapping
out of my fog, I retrieved a ball
and walked toward him. “That’s
OK, Jim, you can just toss it,”
he said. Jack snatched my pitch
out of the air and then ripped it
long and straight into the thin
Wasatch Mountains air.
As we came upon Jack’s
first tee ball in the rough, he
said, “You can pick that one up;
we’re playing the other one.”
At that point my brain became
even more addled. Does the
first ball go to the back of the
1-2-3 lineup and get rebranded
as ball No. 3? What about the
one in the middle of the fair-
way—is that still ball No. 2, orhas it become the new No. 1? I
fumbled at my pockets. I clear-
ly was choking, which I’m sure
Jack noticed. After his two-putt
par, he said deliberately, “This
will now be ball No. 1.” As if to
remind me, he added, “The ini-
tial ball doesn’t come out again
until the third tee.”
The third hole produced
a three-putt and Jack’s only
bogey of the day. Thankfully
his performance the rest of
the way prevented any further
chance for confusion on my
part. The balls played out in
their reworked order, and Jack
hit every green in regulation.
He and Johnny couldn’t have
been more gracious. The match
ended in a tie.
A week later, I got a beauti-
ful handwritten note from
Jack. Enclosed was an auto-
graphed picture of the two of us
“strategizing” over club selec-
tion: Dear Jim, Remembering
our round at Park Meadows.
Thanks for your help. See you
soon, Jack Nicklaus.
I had no idea that “soon”
would be less than two years
later, on a warm Sunday in
April of 1986, when he knocked
home a four-footer for birdie on
the par-3 16th hole at Augusta
National. At that point, his
former looper declared from
the CBS tower overlooking the
hole, “There’s no doubt about
it, the Bear has come out of
hibernation!”
I’ve visited with Jack hun-
dreds of times since, in the
booth at his Memorial Tourna-
ment, at the Masters, at his
home in Florida, at my home in
Pebble Beach, and even at the
Congressional Gold Medal cer-
emony in the U.S. Capitol Ro-
tunda, where I was honored to
co-serve as his presenter along
with his son, Jackie. I’d like to
say I’m no longer star-struck,
but who would I be kidding?
Some 35 years later, this old
caddie still considers Jack the
greatest player of all time.ne of my favorite pastimes on tour is watching kids get
autographs from their golf heroes. I never weary of the star-
struck expressions on the kids’ faces, the way they’re some-
times rendered speechless. I love the way the players interact with
them and the joy that pervades that environment. It always reminds
me of my first encounter with Jack Nicklaus, one of my boyhood
heroes. The fact it happened when I was 25 years old is irrelevant.