Nicklaus Going Strong at 74

By: Rob Duca

During my nearly 35 years as a journalist I've have had the opportunity to interview all sorts of sports celebrities, from Ted Williams and Bjorn Borg to Rod Laver and Muhammad Ali. But no interview with a famous person had ever led to being part of a police escort - until I had the opportunity to hang out with Jack Nicklaus for two days.

Nicklaus came to Cape Cod in September 2014 to be honored at the Willowbend Club in Mashpee for his contributions to golf and his commitment to philanthropy. He flew in on a Sunday morning from his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., was feted at a luncheon attended by club members, sat down for a "fireside chat" that stretched 90 minutes, and then headed via police escort for Barnstable Airport, where he boarded his Gulfstream IV-SP and departed for Creighton Farms outside Washington, D.C. and a charity golf tournament the following day.

Thanks to Willowbend owner David Southworth, I was invited to fly to Washington with the Nicklaus entourage, which included his wife, Barbara. (Southworth also owns Creighton Farms, a course Nicklaus designed.) When it was mentioned to Southworth that New England Golf & Leisure magazine, for which I am the editor, wanted to place Nicklaus on its next cover, he said, "How would you like to get on his plane and spend a couple of days with him?"

I wasn't turning down that offer. This was a chance to see Nicklaus unfiltered. Relaxing on his plane. At his home in Creighton Farms. On the golf course wearing shorts and playing in a scramble with amateurs. Talking about anything and everything.

Nicklaus has been in the public eye for more than a half-century, but what do we really know about him besides the obvious? He has often been portrayed as cool, aloof and detached, famous for steely blue eyes that could intimidate all those in his path. But I saw a different Nicklaus, someone who was warm, forthcoming and outgoing, still smiling even when foolish amateur partners read his putts on a golf course that he designed.

Any notion that Nicklaus would keep to himself on the flight was dispelled as soon as the plane was in the air. Almost immediately he appeared in front of me and said, "So I understand you're writing a story." With that, a conversation began that lasted the entire flight.

It covered a wide range of topics. I mentioned how Ted Williams once said he would dream later in his life about standing at the plate staring down a fastball, and I asked Nicklaus if he ever dreamed about playing golf. "Not like that," he said, "But I have a dream where I can't get to the first tee no matter what I do. Crazy stuff like that."

At one point, the conversation shifted to the return of last year's long-driving competition at the PGA Championship. Nicklaus reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold money clip and handed it to me. He was given the clip for winning the long-driving competition at the 1963 PGA Championship, a prodigious effort of 341 yards. "I've been carrying it ever since," he said.

He predicted that Tiger Woods would win more majors. "He's too talented not to come back, and I think he's too focused on my record," he said. "I still think he'll pass my record [of 18 majors] . . . but maybe not."

I asked what qualities from his playing career translated into designing golf courses. "The ability to visualize more than anything," he said. "The way I could visualize shots helps when I'm creating a golf course."

What did I learn about the Golden Bear? He rarely turns on his cell phone and refuses to text unless it's absolutely necessary. "I've got plenty of people on the payroll with cell phones who can get a message to me," he said. He loves Florida State football, where his grandson, Nick O'Leary, is the starting tight end. He is forever dieting. He dropped 27 pounds in the past year, prompting Barbara to joke that "It's only the 287th diet he's tried."

He rarely plays golf anymore. "I don't miss it at all," he said. "Golf was my vehicle for competition. When I couldn't compete at it anymore, I stopped playing."

But he'll probably never slow down in his other pursuits. Last year he traveled to 28 countries designing and building golf courses and expanding a global brand that includes golf equipment, a clothing line, sunglasses, shoes and even pens. "I don't mind the travel and I don't like to be bored," he said.

The man never seems to rest, which is probably why his employees call him the Energizer bunny. "He always went at everything 110 percent," says Barbara, who has been married to him for 54 years.

After the plane landed, Nicklaus offered a handshake and a wink, and then we were off to a VIP reception at his home at Creighton Farms, where guests sipped Nicklaus wine in his kitchen and the golf legend charmed wealthy donors to his Nicklaus Children's Benefit Foundation who paid six figures to rub elbows with their hero.

A dinner at the club followed, with another "fireside chat" that didn't end until nearly midnight. Many of the guests were bleary eyed, but Nicklaus appeared as though the day had just begun. The next morning, he was back at it, bright and early, warming up at the practice range before a celebrity charity tournament, posing for photographs and bending Joe Theismann's ear about football.

"All I want to do is talk golf with him, because hey, he's Jack Nicklaus, the greatest golfer who ever lived, and all he wants is to talk football," Theismann said.

On the course, Nicklaus was still grinding over each shot as though it was the final round of the U.S. Open. At 74, he still hit his drives respectfully long, but there were wayward irons that had him muttering to himself, "What was that, Jack?"

Asked how he was hitting the ball, he disgustedly pointed in different directions to indicate his shots were going all over the place. Reminded that he rarely plays, he scoffed, "But I shouldn't forget how!"

But there were moments that brought his glorious past back to life. He drained a 40-foot eagle putt. When his partners panicked because the team had to play out of a fairway bunker, Nicklaus surveyed the shot and said calmly, "Don't worry, I've got this."

And on the 18th green, after all his partners had missed an eight-foot birdie putt in the scramble format and one of the amateurs actually said, "Come on Jack, the pressure is on," he poured it into the middle of the cup.

Naturally.

Rob Duca is an award-winning sports columnist who wrote for the Cape Cod Times for 25 years, covering golf, the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Celtics and the Boston Bruins. He is now managing editor of New England Golf & Leisure magazine and has written for a variety of other publications, including Sports Illustrated, the Boston Globe, Yankee magazine and Cape Cod Life.

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