Nicklaus and Player: Friendly foes

Sep. 14, 2005

By Chris Millard
Special to PGATOUR.com

Traditionally, golf’s great rivals have maintained a mutual respect but only a proper -- and often at arm’s length -- friendship.

One notable exception, however, are Presidents Cup captains Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player. After nearly half a century of competing, cajoling, cavorting and occasionally consoling one another, they remain dearly close friends.

One was a beefy Midwesterner, the corn-fed son of an Ohio pharmacist. The other, a sliver of a young man, was raised on the opposite side of the world in modest circumstances. The pharmacist’s son was an all-around athlete, afforded the best lessons and access by his sports-crazed father. The South African, whose father toiled in the dismal depths of Johannesburg’s diamond mines, struggled to learn the game.

The Ohioan made his initial mark on the game through brute force and raw power; the South African through a trademark blend of persistence and accuracy. In a testament to the big-tent nature of global golf they met at the pinnacle of their sport, and in a tribute to their shared priorities, they have become the closest of friends.

Plato said that friends have all things in common, but different as they are, Nicklaus and Player are similar in at least two respects: They are competitive animals. Together they have amassed nearly 300 tournament wins worldwide, including 27 professional majors. And while they relish their roles this week as opposing captains of their respective Presidents Cup teams, even that can’t get in the way of one of the game’s most enduring friendships.

It’s hard to imagine Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson spending their golden years reminiscing together. Can you see Vijay Singh and Ernie Els naming their children after one another? Yet that is precisely where captains Nicklaus and Player stand on the eve of the 2005 Presidents Cup.

As Nicklaus recalls it, the first time he ever saw Player was in the 1958 U.S. Open at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla.

“I still kid him about it all the time,” said Nicklaus. “At the top of his swing he had the club like this (left wrist in a dramatic reverse-cup, closed-face position). I remember thinking, ‘We don’t have to worry about him; he’ll never make it. He has no chance from there.’ Of course, he finished second in that Open at age 22.”

Nicklaus, then an 18-year-old amateur, finished tied for 41st.

“The next time I saw Gary,” said Nicklaus, “he had gone from here (reverse cup) to here (flat left wrist) on his backswing and I thought, ‘Now, that young man is going to be a very good player.’ Here was a guy who was willing to take chances and change his game to try to improve. I knew he was going to be a great player when I started seeing that kind of stuff.”

Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player agreed to let the 2003 Presidents Cup end in a tie. (Pickard/PGA TOUR/WireImage)

Player’s earliest recollection of Nicklaus was two years later.

“One of the first times I ever saw Jack play was in the 1960 U.S. Open at Cherry Hills Country Club in Denver, when he was an amateur and should have won,” says Player, “but our friendship started at Augusta a few years later. I said to him, ‘I am so impressed with the way you play,’ and told him, ‘You are going to win this tournament many times.’ Little did I know he’d win it six times.”

It may have begun on the verdant expanses of Augusta, the rolling hills of Colorado or on the parched fairways of Southern Hills, but the Nicklaus-Player friendship has since logged thousands of miles in search of both competition and comradeship.

Nicklaus was there to support Player in 1965 when, en route to his U.S. Open title at Bellerive, Player was harassed by spectators who opposed South Africa’s apartheid government. Nicklaus marveled at Player’s ability to compete under “greater psychological duress than any athlete I could think of.”

In early 1966, after a growing sense of burnout, Nicklaus received some potentially career-saving assistance from Player. He and his wife, Vivienne, had long been trying to persuade Jack and Barbara Nicklaus to visit South Africa. Barbara persuaded her frazzled husband to take them up on the offer. The Nicklauses spent the better part of February at the Players’ ranch.

Certainly there was golf to be played, but the bulk of the time was dedicated to sightseeing, fishing and hunting. Purged of his ennui, Nicklaus returned to the United States and promptly won his second straight Masters, making him the first player to successfully defend a title at Augusta National. Later that year Nicklaus would also win the British Open, completing the career professional Grand Slam.

Jack and Barbara repaid the Players’ hospitality in 1971 when, having just completed a renovation of their Florida home, they invited the Players to be their guests during the week of the 1971 PGA Championship, which was being contested at nearby PGA National, a 10-minute drive from the Nicklaus household.

The odd couple’s visits to the pressroom fueled a week-long routine that was Hope-Crosby in its humor and Ali-Frazier in its competitive zeal. After Saturday’s penultimate round, Nicklaus led the championship -- and Player -- by four strokes. That afternoon back at the house, Gary informed Jack and Barbara that the Players would be having dinner in Miami with some business associates that night.

“Not taking any chances, huh?” teased Mrs. Nicklaus.

Upon entering the clubhouse Sunday morning Player was asked by reporters what he had enjoyed for breakfast in Jack and Barbara’s kitchen. Nicklaus interjected: “It doesn’t matter. He puts ketchup on everything anyhow. Barbara is getting a complex. She gives him a cheese omelet and he pours ketchup all over it. A couple of fried eggs, ketchup all over it.”

Player jumped in. “You would too if you had a ketchup contract.”

“I didn’t know you had a ketchup contract,” said Nicklaus.

“I will when these fellows get through writing it,” said Player.

To this day Player jokes about that memorable week.

Nicklaus went on to win by two shots over Billy Casper. Player’s final-round 73 left him in a tie for fourth, but the week was a microcosm of their relationship. Foes? Yes. Friends? Always.

“When Jack Nicklaus and I played a friendly round, we’d play for $10 and we’d try to beat the hell out of each other,” recalled Player. “We love to beat each other. We’ve won and we’ve beaten each other and we’ve lost. All with great affection.”

Player then breaks into his familiar riff about Nicklaus’ graciousness in defeat by quoting the late Woody Hayes.

“‘Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.’ That doesn’t apply to us,” he says. “I have always said that Jack Nicklaus was the best loser in golf,” he adds with a twinkle in his elfin eye. Even that seemingly warm sentiment is a friendly jab at his longtime rival.

“The ‘best loser’ part of that bugs me,” said a smiling Nicklaus in a recent Golf Digest interview. “I’ve asked Gary to substitute the word ‘gracious’ for ‘best,’ or just say ‘Jack is a good sport,’ but he won’t do it. He gets too big a kick out of complimenting and teasing me at the same time.”

The depth of their friendship is largely unknown to casual fans. For instance, even serious golfers aren’t aware of the fact that Jack’s third son, Gary, is named in honor of Player. But the true nature of that friendship was on display to the world in 2003 when the sun set on the Presidents Cup matches. After an epic playoff between Tiger Woods and Ernie Els became deadlocked in the dusk, Player and Nicklaus -- reprising their roles as friends and rivals -- settled the matter. After walking the fairways together and engaging in a brief discussion on the second playoff green they made a decision as friends, as competitors and as men who simply love the game: The matches would end in a tie, with each team keeping the Cup for one year.

Nicklaus recalls what went into the decision. “Gary and I have been friends from the first day we met. We’ve respected each other’s opinions. Our families have spent time together. We both have felt the same way about The Presidents Cup and the spirit of sportsmanship in which it should be played. Not many teams in history have been in the midst of a playoff and seen their opposing captains walking down the fairway together,” said Nicklaus.

“I don’t think either one of us felt those matches should have gone to extra holes. However, that was the Captains’ Agreement. As we kept going, we discussed how neither team deserved to lose. We both felt that. We discussed how neither team deserved to lose and that both teams had played so well and worked so hard. Ernie and Tiger tied the first hole and then they tied the second hole, and it was starting to get a little dark and Gary and I both looked at each other and said, ‘I hope they tie this hole also because if it goes beyond here we can’t play.’ We together thought that was what should happen. We both felt so strongly about it.”

In an age when sports are infused and often overrun with jingoism and gamesmanship, Nicklaus and Player injected a rare degree of sportsmanship. As they settled matters on that November night they saw each other as they always have, as both friends and competitors. In a moment that might have gotten away from two other captains, they emerged as statesmen.

“Whether I could have done that with somebody else, or whether Gary could have done that with somebody else, I don’t know,” says Nicklaus. “But we have the same feeling for the game and the same feeling for what this event meant for South Africa and for golf around the world.

“Maybe Gary and I were just in the right place at the right time.”

Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of articles from the program for The Presidents Cup reprinted courtesy of Boston Hannah.