Jack Nicklaus considered the question – “Are there any golf shots you wish you could have back?” – and did not hesitate to answer.
“Two of them,” he said June 2 during his annual meeting with the media before the start of the Memorial Tournament.
Neither shot was his own.
“Watson’s chip and Trevino’s chip,” he added, smiling.
We’ll get to those, but first let’s put to death a sports expression that has been around since the caveman days, when one Neanderthal finished behind another in a race around a woolly mammoth.
Second place is for losers.
While I can appreciate the sentiment behind that phrase – you play the game to win, not place or, heaven forbid, show – suggesting that Nicklaus is a loser is to lack understanding of what it means to finish as a runner-up.
Hard to rank most impressive accomplishments of Jack Nicklaus
Ranking the Golden Bear’s golf accomplishments is borderline folly. Too many outstanding ones. Is it his record 18 major championships? His streak of competing in 154 consecutive majors for which he was eligible, 54 more than second-place Adam Scott? Winning 30 tour titles before turning 30? Twenty-one seasons with at least one win? His 21 holes-in-one?
Or maybe it’s this: The Upper Arlington native, founder and host of the Memorial Tournament, finished his illustrious career with a PGA Tour record 19 second-place finishes in majors.
By comparison, Tiger Woods, who with Nicklaus is considered one of the two best golfers in history, owns seven runner-up finishes in majors. (Note: Woods won 14 of his 15 majors when holding at least a share of the lead after 54 holes; dude knew how to close the door.)
Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka can’t touch Nicklaus’ record
Active PGA Tour players with the most second-place finishes in majors are Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Brooks Koepka, all with four. Combine their runners-up and they still come up seven short of what Nicklaus accomplished.
And to think the Bear came this close to turning a handful of those seconds into firsts. Twelve of his 19 seconds were by two strokes or fewer. A made putt here, or an opponent missing a putt there and Nicklaus might well have collected six more major titles.
Which brings us back to those Watson and Trevino chip-ins.
“The ’82 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, I thought I had that tournament won,” Nicklaus said. “Then [Watson] pitched the ball in at 17.”
While Nicklaus was being interviewed on TV as the presumed winner, Watson wedged his shot into the cup from deep rough just off the 17th green to stun the Golden Bear, ultimately winning by two shots.
If Watson was Nicklaus’ foil in the late 1970s and early 1980s – Tom Terrific topped a second-place Nicklaus four times – Trevino was the Bear hunter a decade earlier, when he also got the better of Nicklaus four times. Most famously, Trevino chipped in for par from a nasty lie in the rough on the 71st hole of the 1972 British Open to keep the lead and go on to win by one.
“Shame on him for chipping in like that,” Nicklaus cracked.
“Watson beat me in ’77 at Augusta,” Nicklaus recalled. “He birdied 17, and for some reason, I couldn’t collect myself and change my club at 18, which I should have, and I bogeyed 18 and let him play 18 any way he wanted to.”
Watson also bettered Nicklaus during “The Duel in the Sun” at the 1977 British Open at Turnberry.
“He just played better than I did,” Nicklaus said. “I missed a putt I could have made, or should have made, at 17.”
Trevino got Nicklaus by a stroke at the 1974 PGA Championship at Tanglewood Park in North Carolina, burying putts down the stretch that kept the Bear at bay.
“I played well, didn’t have any issues with that,” Nicklaus said, before bringing up the 1971 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club near Philadelphia, where Trevino beat him in an 18-hole playoff, the only one of four playoffs he lost in majors.
“I managed to screw that up a little bit, left it in the bunker on the second and third holes,” Nicklaus said. “Took 2 to get out of the bunker on two holes in a row and never caught up.”
Is Nicklaus bitter about those close calls, looking back with huge regret?
“No, I never worried about any of the seconds,” he said. “As long as I prepared myself and gave it my best effort and I got beat, that was OK. Somebody just played better than I did.”
The Golden Bear is friends with foils Tom Watson, Lee Trevino
Likewise, Nicklaus holds no ill will toward his tormenters, which speaks volumes about the man as much as it does the golfer.
“I beat them a few times, too, and they’re still friends of mine,” he said with a wink.
Mostly, Nicklaus is philosophical about finishing second, seeing each “loss” as an opportunity to get better.
“Learning experiences help sort of mold your thinking of how you go about what you do in the future,” he said. ‘It’s part of how you prepare yourself, how you’re ready to play.”
Nicklaus was better prepared to win than any golfer not named Woods, and if in the end the preparation resulted in finishing second, so be it.
Just don’t bring up the silver medals too often, because as gracious as the Golden Bear was in defeat, he also doesn’t like to lose.
After agreeing that his 18 major titles “might be” hard to beat, Nicklaus listened as a reporter offered that those 19 runner-up finishes might be as impressive as the wins.
“Not in my mind, but that’s OK,” he said.
That’s Nicklaus, golf’s greatest champion and most gracious non-winner.
Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at roller@dispatch.com and on X.com at @rollerCD.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Memorial Tournament host Jack Nicklaus is golf’s greatest ‘non-winner’
Reporting by Rob Oller, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Rob Oller, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
