Athletes - Jack Nicklaus

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	Athletes - Jack Nicklaus

Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940 in Columbus, Ohio), also known as "The Golden Bear", was a major force in professional golf from the 1960s to the late 1990s, and is widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time.

Together with Arnold Palmer, he is credited with turning golf into the major spectator sport it has become. While Palmer brought golf into the TV era, it was the developing Nicklaus-Palmer rivalry that drove subsequent interest.

Career highlights

Nicklaus attended public school in Upper Arlington, a suburb of Columbus. He took up golf at the age of ten, shooting 51 for his first nine holes. He won the first of six Ohio State Junior titles at the age of twelve. While attending Ohio State University, he won the U.S. Amateur title twice (1959, 1961), and an NCAA Championship (1961).

Nicklaus began his professional career in 1962, and his record of eighteen wins in major tournaments (three Open Championships, four U.S. Opens, five PGA Championships, and six Masters) is as yet unmatched. He is one of only five golfers to win all four current majors in a career (the "Career Grand Slam"), the first of only two (the other being Tiger Woods) to have won all four majors more than once, and the only golfer to win all four majors at least three times. In 1986, he became the oldest player to ever win The Masters. In all, Nicklaus racked up 48 top-3 finishes in majors (including 19 second-place finishes and nine third-places), 56 top-5 finishes, and 73 top-10 finishes.

Nicklaus's six wins at the Masters came in 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975 and 1986. Not only is his win tally a record, but he also finished as runner-up a record four times. In the decade of the 1970s, Jack finished in the top ten at Augusta every year. Over his career, he appeared in the event 45 times and made the cut 37 times. In 1998, at the age of 58, he finished an impressive sixth.

Nicklaus won the U.S. Open in 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1980, and is tied with Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, and Willie Anderson for most wins. He is the only player to win the title in three different decades, and also had four runner-up finishes in his 42 appearances. He made the cut 35 times.

Nicklaus won the Open Championship (British Open) in 1966, 1970, 1978, and was runner-up seven times. He made the cut in 32 out of 38 appearances, and from 1966 to 1980 he never finished worse than sixth. So revered is Nicklaus in the United Kingdom for his British Open exploits that in July 2005, the Royal Bank of Scotland announced that Nicklaus's image would be printed on a special issue of two million £5 notes. Apart from HM The Queen, he is the only living person to be featured on a Scottish banknote .

His five wins at the PGA Championship came in 1963, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1980. He is tied with Walter Hagen for most wins. He made the cut 27 times in 37 finishes and was runner-up four times. His 1971 victory made him the first player to win the career Grand Slam twice, an achievement which was matched by Tiger Woods at the 2005 British Open.

Nicklaus also won the prestigious PLAYERS Championship three times (though never at the TPC at Sawgrass, which is the current PLAYERS site and a course he harshly criticized the setup of, likening some of its approach shots to "stopping a 5-iron on the hood of a car"). He won various events around the globe as well, including six Australian Opens (1964, 1968, 1971, 1975, 1976 and 1978).

He is second to Sam Snead on the all-time list of players with most PGA Tour wins, having accumulated seventy-three titles. In seventeen consecutive seasons from 1962 to 1978 he always won at least one PGA Tour title and always finished in the top ten on the money list. He topped the PGA Tour money list eight times: 1964, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976.

In 1996, Nicklaus was the first person in the history of the PGA to win the same Senior PGA Tour (now the Champions Tour) event four times. He is the only person in the history of the PGA to win all of the major championships on both the PGA TOUR and Champions Tour. (Although he never won the Senior British Open, it was not recognized as a major in the United States until 2003, after he had stopped playing the Champions Tour.) He never played a full schedule on the Champions Tour, but he won ten Champions Tour events, including eight majors.

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Athletes - Jack Nicklaus

Career highlights

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