On January 21, Jack Nicklaus
turned 60 years old. Time to slow down a bit, perhaps? Hardly. Instead, Nicklaus
is gearing up for his busiest campaign in years.
The year 2000 shapes up
as a big one for Nicklaus, largely because of the lineup of sites for the major
championships -- the U.S. Open is at Pebble Beach, the Open at St. Andrews, and
the PGA Championship at Nicklaus-designed Valhalla. "We're playing at my two
favourite places in the game [Augusta National for The Masters and St. Andrews]
and my favourite course [Pebble Beach]," says Nicklaus. "And Valhalla finishes
it off pretty well, playing a course I designed."
Nicklaus stops short of
calling it a farewell tour, though it certainly will be an emotional journey.
There's a very good chance it will be his last US Open -- the USGA may well be
ready to stop giving him special exemptions, which means he probably needs to
win a US Senior Open to get in after this year. There's an even better chance
it will be his final Open, unless he makes another St. Andrews appearance later
on. He stopped playing the Open regularly in 1998 after struggling for a number
of years with the weather conditions. Nicklaus has a lifetime exemption in the
PGA Championship but is uncertain if he will continue to play it past 2000. The
one major he's likely to continue in is The Masters.
"People have been writing
that this is my last year of playing the majors. My only answer to that is, if
I win one, when am I going to defend?" says Nicklaus, with an impish grin.
Same old Jack. He's never
been one for purely ceremonial appearances. "Realistically, do I think I can
win one? Probably not," he says. "In the back of my mind, do I think I can compete?
Yes. That's my goal. If I made the cut in all four and competed in them reasonably
well -- I don't call finishing 25th reasonably well -- I would be pleased."
There's the rub. In order
to compete in the majors the way he'd like, Nicklaus is going to have to play
enough tournaments to get his game in shape. In addition to the four majors,
he'll play the four Senior majors and a smattering of other events on the PGA
and Senior Tours. He's even entering the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf for only
the second time in his 11th year of eligibility, teaming with Ray Floyd.
All of this will come after
a two-year stretch during which Nicklaus was slowed by injuries, particularly
a bad hip. In 1998, he broke his string of consecutive majors, which stretched
back to his rookie season of 1962, and played little in the second half of the
year. He finally had hip replacement surgery last January and made it back to
competitive golf in May after missing The Masters during his rehabilitation.
Just when things seemed to be going well, he started feeling pain again in the
summer.
"When I started playing
again [after the hip surgery], I eased off on the strength exercises I was doing
because I thought golf would carry me, though I was still doing the functional
exercises," Nicklaus says. "After about six weeks, I started hurting at the US
Open, and I couldn't understand why. By the time I got to Detroit [for the Senior
Players Championship the last week of June], I couldn't do anything."
He withdrew from that event
and also from the US Senior Open a couple of weeks later. The next month, Nicklaus
had a chance conversation with physical therapist Doug Weary and decided to see
him for an evaluation. "He told me, "You're so weak in the hip it's unbelievable.
You need to do strength exercises more than the other ones.' So I started working
with him, and the hip stopped hurting in about three days. It hasn't hurt since."
Still, Nicklaus has some
physical uncertainty heading into 2000. He broke a small bone in his right foot
during the 1998 Senior Open and, combined with arthritis, it continues to bother
him. "I'm probably going to have to fiddle around and have some shoes made to
find some way to be able to walk," he says. "I can walk in my sneakers, I can
walk hunting, but I put on my golf shoes and I can't walk. Maybe it's the twisting
of playing golf."
That's one reason Nicklaus
delayed his return to competition until last November, when he played the first
of several off-season events to warm up for his big push in 2000. He thinks he'll
find an answer to his foot woes, whether it's special shoes or just playing more.
"If I walk for a while, the problem sort of dissipates, but when I go out and
play after I haven't been playing, it bothers me," he says. "So I need to play
more continually."
While he's increasing his
playing schedule this year, Nicklaus won't be cutting back on his business activities,
particularly not his thriving golf architecture work, even though he already
says he's on the road too much.
"I don't like to go as
hard as I'm going, but with some of the things I'm doing and the things I want
to accomplish, I don't have a lot of choice," he says. "I certainly haven't made
a living playing golf in many years. So, if I'm going to play golf, I have to
do both.
"My life would be totally
different if I didn't have five kids. I have four boys and a son-in-law who are
part of the business. If it was just me, I'd do a lot of other things. But when
you're trying to make sure you're creating a legacy in the business and also
bringing along your kids at the same time, you do work."
Nonetheless, when asked
if he ever thought in his 20s or 30s that he'd be working this hard at 60, Nicklaus
breaks into a smile. "I sort of think I'm hardly working, because I enjoy what
I do. There are times when I wish I was doing other things. But then I get home
and I get bored. I just enjoy being in the middle of things."
Even during his hectic
schedule, Nicklaus finds time to work out for about an hour-and-a-half nearly
every day, a regimen he's followed more strictly in preparation for 2000.
"I'm going to be in shape
to play," he says. "Certainly, I don't have any problems with my nerves. I'm
going to be stronger than I've been. Whether I'll have a golf game that's fairly
decent will remain to be seen. That's usually been the least of my problems.
"You know what I think
it will boil down to? Whether I can putt or not. I haven't putted very well for
the last several years. I haven't lost the ability to make the four-foot putt.
The one I never seem to make now is the 15-footer."
Nicklaus says his legendary
powers of concentration haven't diminished. One thing that has changed, though,
is his preparation for the majors, which he considers to be the key to his outstanding
record in them.
"Twenty years ago I used
to start preparing for Augusta in January," he says. "I still think about Augusta
in January‹but I start preparing the first week of April. That's a big difference.
Before, it would mean nothing to me to play 15 practice rounds for the Open.
I couldn't think about doing that today. I don't think age has a heck of a lot
to do with not being able to compete. I think as you get older, you just don't
do the things you used to."
But for Jack Nicklaus at
60, there's more than enough to keep him occupied.
