Memorial reminds us who the world's greatest golfer is
By John Maginnes, PGATOUR.COM Contributor
No one ever asks Jack Nicklaus about 1979. In many ways, though, it was that year -- the worst of his career -- that defines him as a player.
Some have said that Jack never set out to become the best golfer in the world. I don't know whether I agree, but only the man himself is qualified to address such things, and he deflects such speculation deftly. But certainly, by 1979, Jack had become comfortable in his role as the most dominant player the game had ever seen.
At that point in his career, he had won 15 majors -- more than any other man in history. However, from 1976 to 1980, he won only one of golf's crown jewels -- the 1978 British Open. Then the bottom seemed to fall out in 1979 when he failed to win a golf tournament anywhere in the world for the first time since breaking onto the scene at the 1962 U.S. Open.
So, following his first winless season, Jack went back to the drawing board. Working with his longtime coach, Jack Grout, Nicklaus tweaked a swing that had become too upright through the years. Furthermore, he addressed his short game with the help of fellow TOUR player Phil Rodgers. Phil actually moved in with Nicklaus for a time while they were working together.
All Jack did in 1980 was go out and win the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship at the age of 40. Jack would add the final major to his legacy six years later at the Masters with a win that will be remembered by golf fans forever. But that U.S. Open win at Baltusrol could have been Jack's best when you consider that he very easily could have called it a Hall of Fame career in his late 30s. No one had ever accomplished the things that he had achieved, and yet the fire still needed to be stoked.
Perhaps that fire is never fully extinguished in great champions. Maybe even now, as he rapidly approaches 70, Jack dreams of high noon as he enters his twilight. This week honors the man who still holds many of the game's most prestigious records even as his generational rival takes aim at those marks. A struggling Tiger Woods, not fully recovered in a golf sense from knee surgery, returns to the game this week at Jack's Memorial Tournament.
There has been a lot of speculation about Tiger recently. His lone win since returning came in March at another tournament honoring a legend, the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. Suggestions that he might be in search of a new swing coach seem to have been rebuffed when he and Hank Haney were spotted courtside at an Orlando Magic game last week. Hank tells us Tiger's swing is still a work in progress since the surgery. He also says the world No. 1 is swinging at it better on the driving range than he ever has before -- which is a frightening thought for the rest of the game's best. Yet Tiger has been unable to take that swing inside the ropes.
The game can be so humbling -- even when you are the best in the world. Golf history remembers triumphs almost exclusively, and that is how it should be. Images like Ben Hogan ripping a 1-iron into the center of the 18th green at Merion and limping to victory are etched in our minds. You can conjure similar images of all the game's greats. For Jack, among the many, it is the rising putter as the ball falls into the 17th hole that spring day in Georgia when he claimed his final major.
We forget the struggles of our heroes quickly. No one talks about what Jack went through in 1979, but perhaps we should, if only as a reference to what he accomplished by overcoming those struggles. Not only does it take talent, drive and patience to become the game's best -- as Jack showed us 30 years ago, and Tiger continues to show us today -- it takes character.
These two players, separated by generations but linked by greatness, will continue to spark the debate of who is the greatest player of all time. Time is likely to end those discussions one way or another. But if Tiger is to overtake Jack in the records that are left, he will undoubtedly have to overcome adversity of his own beyond his surgically repaired knee. It could be suggested that Tiger has already had his 1979, but I doubt it.
Even the game's very best are not anchored against the ebb and flow of success in a long career in this game. No one knows that better than Jack. As we marvel at the comeback-in-progress of today's greatest player, it is essential to remember that Jack is still the greatest player of all time.
John Maginnes is a columnist for PGATOUR.COM. His views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.
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