Nicklaus Plays First 18 At Pronghorn

By Barney Lerten
Courtesy of Bend.com

After all those tournaments - and all those championships - Jack Nicklaus, at age 64, with 16 grandkids (and future golf partners), doesn't pretend he can outduel today's hotshots on the PGA Tour. But when it comes to designing a fun, striking yet accessible golf course, he's not about to play second fiddle to anyone.

Nicklaus returned to Central Oregon for at least the eighth time in the past couple of years on Monday, this time to christen (with golf clubs, not champagne) the latest "Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course," at the new Pronghorn Resort emerging from the High Desert scrub brush between Bend and Redmond, a winding five miles (and gate house) west of the Powell Butte Highway.

Before heading out in perfect blue-sky weather to both instruct and entertain about 1,200 guests during Monday's inaugural round, preceded by a fun, insightful exhibition, Nicklaus (www.nicklaus.com) once more sat down with resort partners Tom Hix and Scott Denney to answer reporters' questions. And when one asked about the resort's second course, to be designed by fellow pro Tom Fazio, the "Golden Bear" joked - sort of - about it.

Jack Nicklaus watches the ball fly during Monday's clinic at Pronghorn. (Photo by: Simone Paddock, Emerald Bay Photography)

Nicklaus said he and Fazio are old friends, "but he's going to have to work awful hard to beat this one," drawing a laugh. He went on to explain their long friendship and how they have never really talked about this first-ever pairing of their golf course designs. "Our jobs are totally separate," he said. "It'll be a nice complement to what we do here."

Nicklaus said his firm did the master-plan routing for both courses, "but Tom has the freedom to change that, but basically, we gave him a general area to work with and where to go."

"We've had a good time out here, we've had a lot of fun," Nicklaus said. "It's a nice piece of property." And like a storyteller who doesn't get in the way of the story, Nicklaus talked of how the key to golf course design, in a desert or more lush setting, is not to fight the land, but go with the flow, so to speak.

"The land itself basically has got great movement to it. It's just pure lava, is all it is. It's hard as a rock - it is a rock."

He recalled saying at first, "I looked at the land and I saw what was here and I said, "We've got to find this golf course here. You're not going to 'construct' a golf course. If you do, I think you're doing a disservice to the land. So we found a golf course, and moved very little dirt doing this golf course, very little rock. The major part of the rock that was moved to create an irrigation lake on the 13th hole. That probably was two-thirds of the rock that was moved."

'Basically, we put the course on top of what was here," he said. "It's got some great views. ... It's been great weather every time I've been here."

Desert Feel Doesn't Change Game's Basics

The awards keep coming for Nicklaus, the latest being the 2005 Old Tom Morris Award from the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. It'll

be presented next February in Orlando. "It's nice to be honored by the people who think you've done a good job in their area," Nicklaus said.

Less than 85 acres of grass cover the par-72, 7,381-yard course, befitting the desert setting. But that setting "doesn't change anything. You've still got it put it on a tee and pop it down the fairway. ... It's just a different look, a different feel from what you're used to."

"My half was less than what they had budgeted, if I'm not mistaken, so Fazio gets to spend the rest of it," Nicklaus joked.

The 543-yard 15th hole is a favorite for Nicklaus, with a lot of "some really neat little knobs and outcroppings we just played through and around and over. ... This is basically a Pine Valley West, is what the golf course is," referring to Pine Valley Golf Club in New Jersey, one of the top-ranked courses in the country, though he acknowledged he hasn't been there since 1961.

Back-to-back par-5s on 15 and 16 is a bit unusual, but "it just happened to fall on the land that way," Nicklaus said. "I've done back-to-back par 5s, back-to-back par 3s. I've done a lot of those things. I don't really let tradition stand in the way of what I think is the right thing to do for that golf course."

The resort's developers already have sold 140 of the 289 lots, equaling about $70 million worth of real estate. But there's a lot of work left to do, and Nicklaus knows that his course is simply the magnet that attracts the interest: "It's only an amenity for development, is all this place is. The golf course isn't going to make any money. It's going to allow the rest of the project to be financially viable."

There's room for the back tees - what he calls the "gorilla tees" - for the powerful pros and top-flight amateurs, but Nicklaus said that's less than 2 percent of the play on a golf course, so he designs it for the membership.

"Every golf course we design today is obsolete from the back tees," Nicklaus said, because designs keep changing and the balls are hit farther.

'Golden Bear' Competes With Self, To Improve

With 400 of the 640 acres devoted to the golf course, Hix said there's surely not enough parking for the thousands who would attend a PGA Tour event. But Nicklaus said there still could be top NCAA and state amateur tournaments at Prognhorn. He's designed 230 courses now open for play, but 75 percent of those in the last decade have been mostly for residential resorts and the everyday golfer.

According to an article in Nicklaus's own magazine, the signature course is open, for now, only to Pronghorn members, until the Fazio course is built and opens, hopefully next

year. After that, it's expected to be accessible to guests staying at villas on the resort. Construction of various facilities, including a multi-purpose building with pool and tennis courts, is expected to begin later this year.

"I enjoy competition," Nicklaus said - and since "I'm not good enough to do that anymore," he's instead focusing on golf course design, on "a piece of ground that's going to be here long after I'm gone. ... You should get better with each golf course you do. You should learn something every day."

With courses he designed in 27 countries, from Russia and China to South Africa, a logical question emerged: Does Nicklaus think golf should again be an Olympic sport?

"I can't see any reason why it shouldn't be," he said. It's clearly (bigger) than three-ring tiddlywinks. There's so many sports in the Olympics no one's ever heard of."

And Nicklaus follows the young up-and-comers, the potential next Tiger Woods, such as 15-year-old Arizonan Phillip Francis. "I'm a sports junkie, like everybody," he said.

Nicklaus first did some stretching exercises before joining the appreciative crowd that sat in the bleachers surrounding the practice tee. He told the audience that he played against his 9-year-old grandson Sunday, "from his tees. I won, but not by much."

"The first few shots, I try not to hurt myself," he said, explaining that it's warm-up, not practice. "If I want to practice, I do it after the game," he said, focusing on what didn't go well.

As Nicklaus hit some practice shots at varying distances, the crowd whispered and murmured in appreciative awe at his obvious talent. But not every shot went where he wanted: "Sometimes, we need to practice our high-pull hooks, too," he said, sparking another round of laughter. But every not-so-great shot was followed by one that brought soft comments such as, "Beautiful."

The commemorative club he uses for the first shots on a new golf course, then signs and turns over for display, is of the steel-shaft variety used 30 or more years ago, "to remind myself how bad they were," he joked, and how much shorter they hit than today's graphite-shaft clubs.

Nicklaus showed off his own firm's latest multi-layer driver, talking of the "coefficient of resolution" and the "trampoline effect." He said they're every bit as good as other brands, but cost half as much, because he doesn't pour tens of millions into advertising.

Then, over at the first tee, there was the traditional ceremony, including a ribbon-cutting and signed golf bags Nicklaus provided to the Pronghorn partners. "Jack, what you've done here is very special, and I thank you," Denney said.