Column: Nicklaus the best there ever was

Published 10:46 am Tuesday, July 19, 2005

By Staff
Last Friday afternoon across the pond we bid farewell to the greatest player that golf has ever seen.
Jack Nicklaus is and will alway be the greatest golfer of all time.
That's right. Not Tiger Woods.
Tiger has done some incredible things in his career, but to reach the level that Nicklaus did would take many more years of playing great golf.
We have already seen that the field is beginning to catch up with Tiger making it tougher for him to dominate the major championships as he did earlier in his career.
The Golden Bear golfed in an era where the field was filled with outstanding golfers, many of which have been or will be inducted into golf's version of the hall of fame.
Tiger has not had to wade through such a field tournament after tournament.
The field is getting stronger, but I firmly believe there is no comparison to the golfers of Nicklaus' era and those in Tigers'.
Both have said out of mutual respect that the other is the greatest the game has seen.
I am not knocking Tiger, because he is a great golfer. But I think before we hand him the crown we ought to see if he can attain as many or more major championship titles as Nicklaus did with 18.
I foresee a problem with today's golfer that just didn't exist when Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson and Johnny Miller, to name a few, strolled the fairways.
And that is, that with all the money golfers make now days at tournaments and through endorsements, they no longer need to play as long as those golf greats did.
There perhaps was no better stage than the British Open to bid farewell to Jack.
He had some tremendous moments across the pond and capped his brilliant career with a birdie at St. Andrew's.
It also seems fitting that "the man who would be king" ran away with another British Open championship.
It may be fitting that the torch was officially passed last week from Nicklaus to Woods.
I had the pleasure of meeting both Nicklaus and Woods at the Point O'Woods near Benton Harbor.
Nicklaus was there to watch his son play in the Western Amateur, while Woods was a competitor in the tournament a few years later.
Despite his efforts to say out of the lime light and enjoy watching his son compete, Nicklaus was gracious with the fans who did approach him.
Woods, like a lot of young sports superstars, does not interact as well with the fans when they are off the camera. They seem much more hospitable when the lights are on, however.
That is not the case with "old-school" professional sports stars like Nicklaus and the late Dale Earnhardt Sr. They always seemed to find time to give out an autograph or shake a hand.
In the end we will all remember Nicklaus differently.
Some of us will remember his victories at the British Open, while others will remember the record six Green Jackets he won at Augusta.
Some of us will particularly remember him charging through the field two win his final jacket and become the oldest Master's champion of all time.
However you remember the Golden Bear, you can look back on Friday, July 15 and say we saw the greatest of all time birdie his final hole.
With the familiar putter raised up in his left hand, Nicklaus bid the crowd at St. Andrew's goodbye.
Thanks for the memories Jack.