A Win for the Ages

Twenty years after Jack Nicklaus' historic Masters' victory, the legend of '86 lives on.

By Dave Shedloski

Son-turned-caddie Jack Nicklaus II leaps in celebration as the Golden bear rolls in an eagle putt on the 15th hole. (Photo courtesy Getty Images/Brian Morgan)

One of the top-grossing movies of 1986 was titled, The Golden Child. Call it a quirk of fate or an omen or simply divine inspiration, but any golf fan with a goose bump meter can tell you that one of the top engrossing stories of that year was authored by The Golden Bear.

Few sports events live and breathe on their own long after the spotlight dims. Few carry on in the sporting public's collective memory and provide chills every time they're thought of, every time the highlight reel flips through the sequence of events that seem like a fictional drama. What happened that April day in 1986 was almost too magical to be believed. It was passion play writ on a green landscape, under blue skies, awash in a golden hue.

Jack Nicklaus was no golden child at the 1986 Masters Tournament. He was 46 years old, dismissively labeled "the Olden Bear," by some, two years removed from his last PGA Tour victory and approaching his sixth year without a major championship conquest. Such a drought was twice as long as any he had previously encountered since registering what he considers the most important win of his life, the 1959 U.S. Amateur. The 18-year span in which he had won his 17 professional major titles starting with the '62 U.S. Open already was the longest stretch of sustained competitiveness in championship golf.

How Nicklaus won the 50th Masters - yes, the tournament's golden anniversary - is a study in determination and dutiful execution of skills accrued throughout his magnificent career crammed into a thimble of time. "He did it the way he always did it - with his mind," says Tom Watson, who won eight majors and bested his idol and friend down the stretch for a few of those, including the memorable "Duel in the Sun" at the 1977 British Open. "Jack could always find a way to bring his game to the table when he had to."

But Nicklaus' mind was clouded, perhaps the first time ever, by some doubts. When he arrived at Augusta National Golf Club that year, the forces of nature and history had long ago begun to conspire against him, just as they had against Harry Vardon, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan before him - golfing greats who challenged for a major title after the age of 45 but came up short. He suffered wrenching setbacks to Watson at the 1981 Masters and '82 U.S. Open and to Hal Sutton at the '83 PGA Championship.

"I had some close calls, and, of course, you're going to question yourself. No matter who you are you're going to question yourself," the Nicklaus says. "Now, I didn't question my methods, but I was 46 years old. I still had something to prove to myself as far as having the ability to do the things necessary to win the tournament."

By the end of a winless 1985 season, one that included just three top-10 finishes and missed cuts at the U.S. Open and British Open (the latter his first in the Open Championship since he began competing there in 1962), Nicklaus wasn't certain he should still be playing. In seven starts prior to the Masters Nicklaus finished no better than 39th and missed three cuts - after never missing more than two cuts in any one of his previous 24 pro seasons. His earnings of $4,404 placed him 160th on the money list.

Little wonder that the late Tom McCollister of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was inclined to write that the Golden Bear no longer represented a threat to the other competitors. What neither McCollister nor nearly anyone knew was that a few weeks prior Nicklaus had huddled with his longtime teacher Jack Grout and worked a "handsy" flaw out of his golf swing. His swing in emotion from trepidation to determination was ignited by McCollister's story.

Did he still have the ability for domination? Rounds of 74, 71 and 69 indicated the negative. At 2 under par Nicklaus trailed leader Greg Norman by four strokes, but the Golden Bear suspected that a charge was possible if he could somehow get untracked on Augusta's pernicious greens. After all, contenders between him and Norman counted only seven. If he could shoot something in the mid-60s - he predicted to his son Steve that he'd need 65 to win - should be good enough to win outright. The problem was he hadn't posted a score that low since the 1983 World Series of Golf.

Standing in the ninth fairway, Nicklaus, paired with Sandy Lyle, remained 2 under par but was now in pursuit of Seve Ballesteros and Tom Kite, playing together two groups behind. Necessity demanded he do the improbable, what one might be inclined to call, "catching lightning in a bottle." On the contrary, says Nicklaus, "I had to let the lightning out of the bottle, and I hadn't been able to do that for a long time."

Wouldn't you know it; lightning struck in the same place... for a sixth time.

Frank Deford, the talented Sports Illustrated writer, once wrote: "How many other champions have become so identified with their sport, with every aspect of it, with the very essence of it, that it's impossible to think of one without the other? Babe Ruth, for sure, Muhammad Ali ... Nicklaus has achieved that preeminence as much as anyone." So true, yet more than that, Nicklaus also had become identified with a place, this place, Augusta National Golf Club, one of his two favorite places in golf along with the Old Course at St. Andrews, where he won two British Opens.

Knowing he needed to make a run, Nicklaus began his charge with a birdie from 11 feet at nine then twisted in a pair of 25-footers at 10 and 11. Though he bogeyed the 12th, he offset the error with another birdie at 13. But he was merely treading water, and his hopes for winning a 20th major rested on the 15th hole, something that had rattled in the back of his mind all day.

A mighty drive of 298 yards - this when metal heads and balata balls were still in vogue - left him 202 yards to the green and presented him with a make-or-break proposition. He turned to Jackie, who was caddying in his first Masters for his father, and asked him, "How far do you think a three would go here?" Jackie's response:

"Let's see it." When his 4-iron settled 12 feet from the hole, recognition kicked in. The gallery recognized that without a doubt that they were again watching the Nicklaus who had won 17 professional majors and 72 PGA Tour titles. Nicklaus recognized opportunity as well as a familiar feeling. Cheers and applause shook the grounds Jack cut his four-shot deficit in half when he converted the eagle. "I've never heard that noise level, not even at a concert. I remember my ears were just ringing," Jackie says.

"It was so noisy Seve and I couldn't even hear each other," Kite recalls. "It was just an amazing day, for sure."

It would only get louder, much to the approval of Nellie Helen Nicklaus. Jack's mother had attended her son's first Masters in 1959, but she had not returned until '86. "She wanted to go back one more time. She picked a pretty good one to come back for," Jack's wife, Barbara, said. "We should have known something good was going to happen." At the par-3 16th, a hole that through the decades proved pivotal to the Bear's fortunes, Nicklaus blew the lid off the joint. His 5-iron shot found the fat of the green, tracked backwards, and nearly became an ace. He sank the 2 1/2-footer for birdie. Now he was tied as Kite and Ballesteros began to stumble in the tide of a Nicklaus crest. Finally, he earned the outright lead when his 10- foot birdie at the 17th tracked in. Two putts at 18 and the Golden Child ... er, the Golden Bear had completed his coveted, clutch, almost inconceivable 65.

Considered washed up only a few days earlier, the Golden Bear played the final 10 holes in 33 strokes, including a record 30 on the inward nine, for a 9-under-par 279 total. But he was not in the clear, not until Norman, who rallied with birdies on 14-17 for a momentary tie, and Kite couldn't get crucial putts to fall on the home hole.

Nicklaus' sixth Masters victory made him the oldest Masters champion and oldest major championship winner, and it tied him with Vardon as the only professionals to win one major a half-dozen times. Nicklaus, who won his other Green Jackets in 1963, '65, '66, '72 and '75, also became the first player to win three major titles after turning 40.

"It was the most gratifying win of my career," says Nicklaus, who was pleased to prove his critics wrong and also pleased to prove to himself that his methods were as time-tested as any in his sport. "In my later years I always believed in two things: that on some days I could be as good as I ever was, and that if I got in contention in a major I would remember how to win. I might not win, but I would remember how."