'Tuesdays With Jack' Nicklaus Always Full of Quips, Sharp Observations

Every year at his Memorial Tournament, Jack Nicklaus holds court with the media and has plenty to say. Gary Van Sickle wouldn't miss it for the world.

DUBLIN, Ohio—Even though Jack Nicklaus is getting older, and so is this Medicare card-carrying typist, "Tuesdays with Jack" never get old.

This is the day Nicklaus annually visits with the media before the Memorial Tournament to discuss things he believes are of vital importance — the conditions of the greens and fairways and changes to the golf course. One predictable thing about Jack (let’s dispense with the last name; he’s just “Jack” to the media and always has been) is that as tournament host and a golf course designer, he is unwaveringly all about the actual golf and the playing surface. Respect for that.

Once he’s got the ins and outs of the Muirfield Village Golf Club covered, Jack gladly fields questions on any and all topics. That leads to old stories and sometimes new ones, the occasional revelation and a general feeling of revelry. In short, you don’t miss Tuesdays with Jack if you can help it. This event, like everything in life, has an expiration date.

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Jack walked into the theater-like interview room with a slight limp but full of energy and with a big smile. As he pulled out his chair to sit down on the stage, he grinned at the room and said, “Hi, kids. How’re ya doing?” Once seated, he turned to PGA Tour official Doug Milne and asked, “You want me to just start talking?”

Milne chuckled and said he was planning to give him an introduction. Well, then, Jack said brightly, go ahead and do your job. Jack’s hair is thinner and long past the gray-into-silver stage. The lines beneath his eyes are a little more apparent but he was so animated that it was obvious the reports from late last year that he wasn’t doing so great, health-wise, were no longer accurate.

That turned out to be the biggest and best (best-est if you’re not a stickler for actual words) news of the day. Jack feels better than he has in months. So much better, in fact, that he’s playing golf again. Saturday and Sunday, he played Muirfield Village for the first time since the course changes after the 2020 Memorial Tournament. “I didn’t play golf last year,” Jack said. “Anyway, I cruised it around Sunday in 84. That was pretty good for me. Wow, that’s pretty good, right? Without making a putt, without making a birdie.”

A Sunday stroll on the eve of #theMemorial pic.twitter.com/E4QkS2Ybi5

— the Memorial (@MemorialGolf) May 29, 2022

Asked why he was suddenly playing more golf at 82, he laughed. “That’s probably the most important question I’ve had today.”

Jack said he’s been suffering from inflammation, arthritic in nature, which has led to other problems. “My ankles get all swollen up and I’ve gotten the swelling out, which has probably taken 20 pounds of water out of me,” he said. “When you’ve got inflammation everywhere, you just can’t move. I’m doing very well. I feel better than I’ve felt for a long time.”

He felt so much better that he took Jackie Nicklaus and his son, Jack Nicklaus III — Jack called him simply “J3” and his other son, Charlie (named after Jack’s father) to Augusta National a few weeks ago. The inflammation was down and Jack surprised them upon arrival by saying he was going to play along, too. Really, they asked, stunned? “So I played nine holes,” Jack said. “Jackie said, ‘We’ll see you after.’ I said, What do you mean? I’m going to play the back nine. I whizzed it around and shot a slick 88 without a birdie., I haven’t made a birdie yet this year, incidentally.”

The delight in Jack’s voice was palpable as he retold the story. “I played again the next day,” Jack said. “Why am I playing? I’m tired of not playing, I think. I really love to play golf. I don’t enjoy playing golf the way I’ve been playing but when you start to feel a little better — I even hit a few shots that were pretty good. I knocked a tee shot at 17, what, 30 yards past those bunkers? From the ladies tees — excuse me, the forward tees.

“I had a chance to shoot my age both days and I choked. I don’t know why I’m playing. I’m going to continue to play. You’ve got to do something, for crying out loud. It’s time to get out and do something.”

The Augusta National story still wasn’t over. At the par-5 15th hole, J3 hit a big drive and an 8-iron that landed on the green. “It hit just right of the pin, the ball trickled down — boom! — into the hole,” he said. “Everybody was cheering and yelling. We went down and took our picture by the Sarazen Bridge.”

Jack wondered if anyone since Sarazen in that 1935 Masters has made an albatross on that hole. I told him that someone playing in the post-Masters media outing Monday did in 1993 but remained unidentified and didn’t report it probably because he wasn’t supposed to be playing or was impersonating the media member who was supposed to be playing. Getting caught sneaking into the Monday event, which then had a one-and-done-for-life limit, might have resulted in tournament credentials getting yanked.

“Nobody else you know of?” Jack looked toward the back of the room where his son was listening. “OK, J3’s got it, Jackie,” he said.

A suspect media albatross? Yeah, that doesn’t count. Agreed.

Jack fielded questions on a variety of topics. Let’s take out the middleman and get right to the key part — Jack’s comments:

On Justin Thomas calling to say he wasn’t going to play this week’s Memorial Tournament: “He called Barbara, then called me. He called the boss first because he knew if he could get by her, he could get by me. He said, 'I hate making this call. You know how much I love Muirfield and your tournament. But I played the week before the PGA and I won the tournament. I think I should do that again.' I said, well, I don’t want to wish you bad luck but I hope it’s an unsuccessful experiment. I said, No, no, I’m just kidding. I said, I understand, I had the same situation when I was your age. Everybody wanted us to play everywhere and you can’t play everywhere.”

On sports betting becoming legal in Ohio and whether Jack would wager on golf: “I placed my one and only bet on golf. I was 20 years old, I was playing the U.S. Open at Cherry Hills, I was an amateur, this is June, I’m getting married in July, and my dad came to me and he said, ‘Jack, you're 35 to 1. Do you want some of that?’ Dad, I'll take $20 of that. He said, ‘Do you want win, place or show?’ I said I’m not here for place or show.

“So I’m coming down the stretch at the U.S. Open and I’m thinking about the $700 I might make to start our marriage. Well, I didn’t win so I didn’t get the $700. And I lost my $20, my one and only bet in golf.”

So that’s a Hard No on Jack placing bets.

On when he began his practice of visiting a major championship site the week before to prepare: “I go back to 1962, I played Greensboro the week before the Masters and didn’t win the Masters. I skipped Greensboro in ’63 and won the Masters because I went in the week before and practiced at Augusta. I liked Greensboro so I went back in ’64. I didn’t win the Masters. In ’65, I didn’t go to Greensboro, I went to Augusta and prepared and I won. I did the same in ’66. Huh, how about that?

“So the light sort of goes on. A little bit like Justin Thomas. He wanted to play the week before the U.S. Open. I don’t think that’s the proper preparation. In 1965, Gary Player was at our house and we were talking about the Open coming up at Bellerive. I said, Gary, give yourself a chance, go with me the week before and we’ll practice. He says, ‘Jack, I’m over here for just a few weeks, I can’t afford to give up a week to practice.' I said, If you win the U.S. Open, you can. So Gary went with me to Bellerive and, sadly for me, he won. But Gary never did that again. He was still a young guy then who wanted to get back home to his family and I understand that.”

On golf’s governing bodies addressing the distance issue: “I have talked with the R&A and the USGA and I said, This is the first time I've seen you moving forward in the right direction. I think your plan is sensible, and I think it'll work. I’m referring to the golf ball, essentially. They’re finally actually doing something. The problem is, it’s going to take until about 2026 to implement. I hope I’m still above ground to look at it when it happens.”

On whether he will alert the media if and when and makes his first birdie of 2022: (Laughing) “You’ll be the first to know.”

Best Tuesday of the year.