Q&A
You didn’t seem to ever let the pressure get to you. How did you handle the pres- sure of tournament golf? Well my wife actually uses a phrase,“There is no excuse for not being properly prepared.” The genesis came from a tournament where I missed the cut in the 1980s. The night after I missed the cut we went to McDonald’s. I didn’t play well enough to get a hamburger. But there was a little cup and on that cup it said, “There is no excuse for not being properly prepared.” Barbara just loved that. So she took that cup. The
next morning I had a cup of coffee, and that cup was sitting there staring me in the face. Barbara said, “You didn’t pre- pare properly, did you?” I said, “No, I guess I didn’t. Other- wise I would have never played this week.” She didn’t mean it nastily. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. But she understood that I really didn’t care for the golf course. So I never really prepared for it. I didn’t go in the week before like I usually do.
lot of people think my best
event was at 46. But I don’t know how you would say what year I should bring. Hopefully I brought a lot of years.
You seemed to prepare well for majors. That is why I always went in early at a major championship particularly. I made sure I played the tourna- ments and courses I thought were necessary to prepare me for majors. I always went in to that course a week ahead of time and made sure that I understood the height of the rough, the narrowness of the fairways, the speed of the greens, the firmness of the greens, all the nuances that were going to be on that golf course. When I got done with it, and I was prepared, all I had to do was go play golf. When I had a tough shot, I was pre- pared to make it.
You seemed to especially enjoy those tough shots, and crunch time in tournaments. I loved being in the position to have to make a shot. A lot of times playing in a tournament I’d get down to the 15th, 16th hole and be in contention. I’d just stop and take it all in. I’d look around me and look at all the people that were having so much fun watching some guy hacking around a golf course. And I just said, “Hey, this is what I’m out here for. This is what’s fun. This is what’s really neat. Let’s go get the rest of this.” That’s what I did a lot to myself. It sort of relaxed me. It also told me they weren’t out there watching me because they could do what I could do. They were out there watching me because they couldn’t do what I could do, and wished they could do what I could do. So I was there to show them what I could do. So I shouldn’t be nervous.
You probably get asked for advice a lot. What do you say? I get a lot of young pros that come to me and ask, “What do I have to under- stand? What do I have to do
with my game?” And I say, “Well, the first thing you have to understand is who you are and what you can do. What are your abilities?” I never tried to make a shot
where I didn’t think the odds were highly in my favor—un- less the tournament was right at the end and I had to go ahead and make a strange gamble. But if I’m at the 15th hole
at Augusta and I’m tied for the lead and I’m sitting back 250 yards from the green, I don’t have to try and hit that green. So if I thought there was a 50% chance, I would never take that chance. But if I could drive 20- 25 yards farther and I’m sitting there with a 3- or 4-iron to the green, I think my chances are 19 out of 20 that I’m probably going to hit the ball on the green or somewhere near it. That’s worth the gamble. People called me a conservative player. That’s not conservative. I think that’s smart. I think it’s using your head and knowing what you can do. I think you play within
yourself, and you understand what you can do. If you think
I think you play within yourself, and you understand what you can do. If you think you can make a shot, and you know
that the odds are such that you will, and you won’t make a lot of mistakes, that’s what you should try to do.–JACK NICKLAUS
60 /
NCGA.ORG / SPRING 2014
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