Utah golfer gets hole-in-one at Red Ledges for $1 million From staff and wire reports From No. 1 on ESPN’s plays of the day to $1 million, Jason Hargett made the most of his first hole-in-one. Eaton, a resident of Springville, Utah, became an instant millionaire Tuesday after he made an amazing hole-in-one shot during a charity tournament at Red Ledges, the new Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course in Heber City, just outside Park City. The 34-year-old Hargett was playing in the Mark Eaton Celebrity Golf Classic, when he stepped up to the 150-yard shot, took out the 9-iron from a borrowed set of clubs, and put the ball right into the hole with no practice swing. "It's just, oh it's hard to take in. I can't even comprehend it," said a speechless Jason during a press conference about his shot. "I just told myself to make a good swing and then I thought it needed to go left a little bit more...It hit above and to the right of the pin and it spun a little diagonal coming straight down into the hole." Continue... Davis Cup tennis plays through at Spain’s La Torre Nicklaus Design prides itself on the fact that no fewer than 90 of its courses have hosted a combined total of more than 600 professional tournaments worldwide. But now Nicklaus can boast 600 golf tournaments and 1 Davis Cup tennis match. La Torre, the first course Nicklaus Design created for Spain’s Polaris World, is hosting a Davis Cup tennis semifinal this weekend between Spain and Israel. Located in Murcia, Spain, La Torre reportedly bulldozed a portion of the driving range and constructed the tennis facility in a month’s time. As of Friday’s competition, Spain led 2-0 in the best-of-five Davis Cup series. The event, officials said, will help the profile of La Torre and the other five Polaris World resorts in the region, which will see a new airport built at Corvera in 2010. La Torre golf resort is the center for many facilities at Polaris World, such as the King's College school, conference centre and a five-star Intercontinental Hotel completed in February 2009. The resort is built around the Nicklaus Design 18-hole golf course, which opened in October 2006.. Facilities at La Torre resort include a stunning clubhouse, tennis courts, spa and fitness center, a supermarket and an excellent range of bars and restaurants to enjoy. 50 years ago tomorrow Jack Nicklaus won the first of his two US Amateurs to ignite a legendary career By David Shedloski Jack Nicklaus always seemed mature beyond his years, whether as a 10-year-old kid blasting balls at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, or impressing Bob Jones during a practice round in his first U.S. Amateur appearance at age 15 in 1955, or winning the 1956 Ohio State Open at age 16, competing against professionals, or finishing 12th in his first PGA Tour event, the 1958 Rubber City Open in Akron. So perhaps it should have been no surprise to anyone when Nicklaus, at age 19, won his first major title at the 1959 U.S. Amateur Championship by defeating defending champion Charles R. Coe, 1 up, at the Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs, Colo. The stocky, confident youngster already had established his big-time credentials, earlier that season being named to represent the USA in the Walker Cup Match in Muirfield, Scotland, winning the North and South Amateur and successfully defending his title in the Trans-Mississippi Amateur. Club used by Jack at ’59 Amateur to hang in his Florida home club In recent months, collector Bob Brandt was made aware of an item in the personal collection of a former high-ranking official of the USGA. This gentleman was a rules official and well thought of by Jack Nicklaus. Decades ago, this official had asked Jack, and other golf greats, such as Arnold Palmer and Ben Hogan, for an event-used club for his collection, and Jack gave him a 2-iron used to win at The Broadmoor in 1959. The USGA official passed away and now the club will soon hang on the walls of The Bear’s Club, Jack’s home club in Jupiter, Fla. "Those of us in his hometown had known for years how good Jack was. I saw that kid when he was 10 years old, and a lot of us were very high on Jack at the time," said Kaye Kessler, a sports columnist for two Columbus newspapers for 40 years. "It was no surprise to us when he won the U.S. Amateur. But now everyone else knew how good he was, too. That year he really came of age, and then, of course, he nearly won the U.S. Open the next year." Nicklaus, indeed, came of age, going through what he called "a sort of finishing school," in the summer of '59. The lessons began in Scotland, where Nicklaus played beautifully for two days in his first taste of golf abroad, winning both of his matches in the USA's 9-and-3 win over Great Britain and Ireland. The following week in Sandwich, England, he won the Royal St. George's Challenge Cup. Though he missed the cut at the 1959 Masters and the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, he actually furthered his education in the latter major by carefully watching his fellow competitors, Doug Ford and Gene Littler. The two pros scrambled to scores that made the cut while Nicklaus shot two 77s, and it struck the youngster that he had not yet figured out how to manage his game on days his ball-striking was substandard. In assessing how to grasp the intricacies of such management - or both his game and the course - Nicklaus became a devoted student of golf course design. He put all of these newfound enhancements to his competitive arsenal on display on the East Course at the Broadmoor, where he engaged Coe, his Walker Cup captain, in one of the most exciting finals in the history of the amateur national championship - one Nicklaus still ranks among the toughest challenges he's ever encountered. Nicklaus had not advanced past the fourth round in his four previous U.S. Amateur appearances dating back to the 1955 championship at Country Club of Virginia. But in the 65th U.S. Amateur, the young golfer trumpeted his emerging growth into a champion when he dismantled a kindred spirit of sorts in the first round. His name was Robert Tyre Jones III, son of the celebrated Grand Slam winner. Playing in the championship his father won on five occasions, including the 1930 edition at Merion Cricket Club that wrapped up the Grand Slam, the younger Jones, 32, had little chance against the Golden Bear. Continue... A remarkable career began unpretentiously in 1959 among the mountains of Colorado when Jack Nicklaus met the wily veteran Charley Coe in a taut match Reprint of a Ken Bowden story authored in 1989 It is common wisdom that match play is a better spectacle than stroke play. In the broad sense, this is probably true; in the particular, it often isn’t, as exemplified by the U.S. Amateur. That this oldest of American championships is also the pre-eminent survivor of the original man-to-man form of golf doesn’t stop it from sometimes becoming an awful bore for everyone except the two protagonists and their immediate families and friends. That, of course, is almost always the case when a match becomes terribly lopsided. It can also happen when the play is persistently inferior as a result of both men having exhausted themselves in playing their way to the final. Either way, everyone is wonderfully polite and sympathetic, while they stifle an urge to yawn. Continue... Nicklaus scores 12 spots in Golf Digest’s “75 Best Golf Resorts in North America” Perhaps the new mantra for Nicklaus Design should be: Resort to the Best. In the recent ranking by Golf Digest of the “75 Best Golf Resorts in North America” for 2009, 12 resorts were anchored by a Nicklaus Design golf course, including seven of the top 13. The Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, a popular destination in Hawaii for tourists and a perennial early season stop for the Champions Tour, made the No. 4 spot for the second ranking in a row. Kiawah Island Golf Resort in South Carolina, which has hosted the Ryder Cup and is home to the 2012 PGA Championship, jumped up seven spots to No. 7. Continue... Two continents, two tournaments, two more Tour victories for Jack Nicklaus Apparel As two of Korea’s fastest-rising stars continue to make a name for themselves, they are doing so with the greatest name in golf on their sleeves. Jiyai Shin and Jina Lim, two Korean stars part of the Jack Nicklaus team sponsored by FnC Kolon, won their respective events last week on two different continents. Jiyai Shin recorded her third LPGA victory of the year with a two-hole, sudden-death playoff win at the P&G beauty NW Arkansas Championship. Meanwhile, on the same day in South Korea, Jina Lim won the LG Electronics Women's Open. Shin is a front-runner for “Rookie of the Year” and perhaps “Player of the Year” after taking her third victory of 2009, less than a year after becoming the first non-LPGA member to win three times on Tour. The last player to win both awards in the same year was Nancy Lopez in 1978.