Four-Foot Putts
Every once in a rare while you get to meet someone you respect and admire from afar only to discover that they are even better in reality than you could have imagined they might be.
I met Jack Nicklaus today.
A young Jack Nicklaus by Richard Bartlaga, CC BY-ND 2.0
The Golden Bear is shorter than I thought -- toe to toe, I (a former point guard) looked at him eye to eye. But everything else appeared like a projection of the movie I’ve carried of him in my mind since I was a kid. His eyes were as blue as the sky behind him, his somewhat disheveled hair a slightly faded version of the blonde from which his nickname came. He was kind, sincerely interested in others, patient beyond reprieve. He was more than I'd imagined, all I’d hoped that he might be.
The winner of the most major championship victories in golf history was the celebrity host at the Korn Ferry Tournament held in Norman over the weekend. Despite the pristine course and the level of golf that was played, Jack and his wife of 64 years, Barbara, stole the show. A feat they seemed to accomplish without trying. The modus operandi that has long set them apart.
In the common casual format of a friendly Q&A, Jack rattled off anecdotes peppered with explicit details regarding scores, hole lay-outs, clubs used, and purses won--specifically those from the early days. The stories rolled as if freshly plucked from a field he visited yesterday--despite the fact that he is called to share them constantly. This, too, is part of the gift of him. His spirit seems to fight to not let people down.
Nicklaus told tales about how he grew up as an athlete who loved to play all sports. He talked about his golf coach who taught him how to fish, his friend and rival, Arnold Palmer, who modeled class and grace, and the reason why on Sundays he wore a yellow shirt. He talked about the importance of staying fresh for competition, the necessity of preparation regardless of the course, and the famed “concession” putt that grew epic wings from the green at Royal Birkdale at the 1969 Ryder Cup. (A moment he says made him seem like a bigger person than he is.) He talked freely about the home where he and his soulmate have lived for 54 years. About playing bridge, playing tennis on a grass court with Ivan Lendl, and his philosophy on staying in shape.
The sports icon made us laugh, sharing things we didn't know in regard to championship rounds of golf, the peers he competed against, the evolution of the game.
Jack Nicklaus at the Masters by Torrey Wiley, CC BY 2.0
And then he said, in passing, as if the thought was so fundamentally evident it didn't really need to be said, “I was fortunate enough to make a few four-foot putts without which I'd be just another golfer.”
Clearly, he believed it to be true.
A four-foot putt is easy but it’s not. No two are ever quite the same and all depend on a laundry list of oscillating factors that emerge from the slope and speed of the green. Still, most golfers—from weekend hacks to pros—believe a four-foot putt almost always provides a fighting chance. Opportunity to be seized or to be left uncaptured.
Can you close your fist around what’s in your hand?
The king of fairway consistency obviously knows that getting a four-foot putt is where the greater challenge lies. But he also knows that putting yourself in a position to have a chance to win hardly ever matters if you never do.
That seemed to be, from my seat in the corner, the thing he’s built his life upon. He rarely lets a good thing get away.