Chasing Greatness: Johnny Miller, Arnold Palmer, and the Miracle at Oakmont by Adam Lazarus Read Free Book Online Page A

Muirfield Village, the bold new golf course and housing development that broke ground months earlier in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio). To the chagrin of PGA Tournament sponsors, who knew that Nicklaus’s presence boosted gate and TV revenues, he played in only two events during the next eight weeks: He won both of them, each with a stellar field.
    First, at the Tournament of Champions the week following the Masters, Nicklaus outlasted his rival Lee Trevino by a shot. Then, in another single-stroke win, he defeated his heir apparent, Tom Weiskopf, in May’s Atlanta Golf Classic for his fourth victory of the season (he also won in January in the Bing Crosby Pro-Am National Golf Tournament and in late March in the Greater New Orleans Open).
    With the U.S. Open at Oakmont only two weeks away, Nicklaus’s game showed no signs of rust. Since he’d already demonstrated that he did not need as much practice or tournament hardening as other top professionals to remain at peak readiness, everyone assumed Nicklaus would, as usual, spend time before the Open preparing on-site for another major. And, predictably, in the two weeks leading up to the 1973 U.S. Open, he visited Oakmont to relearn the course that had jump-started his professional career.
    In early June, from his base in Columbus (the Muirfield Village project had entered a key financial stage), Nicklaus awoke early in the morning and flew in his private jet to nearby Greater Pittsburgh International Airport. He then rented a helicopter that, ten minutes later, dropped him off adjacent to Oakmont’s first tee. Even Jack Nicklaus couldn’t switch on his game instantaneously: He cold-topped his opening drive.
    Nicklaus shook off the faux pas and played the course at a leisurely pace, with several balls. He also putted from various locations on each green to begin the mental and physical process of adapting to their exceptional speed and mystifying contours. Then the multimillion-dollar entrepreneur jumped back into the helicopter and flew home for a business meeting in Columbus later in the afternoon. Arnold Palmer and Mark McCormack, the founder of IMG, had invented this frantic blend of golf/business multitasking. But Nicklaus practiced it at least as avidly as Palmer, and added several novel twists so that he could remain intimately involved in the daily lives of his children.
    Curiously, even though he had just won at Atlanta and felt confident about his practice session at Oakmont, Nicklaus concluded that for him to successfully defend his U.S. Open crown, his game required additional work under the strain of tournament competition.
    He broke his long-standing practice of foregoing the PGA event the week before a major championship. To the delight of its sponsors, Nicklaus registered at the last second to play in the IVB Philadelphia Golf Classic at Whitemarsh Valley, a classic course built in 1907, just four years after Oakmont.
    “The Whitemarsh course has small greens and narrow fairways and is similar to Oakmont,” Nicklaus told the press in explaining his surprise decision.
    Nicklaus’s observation set off a minor war of words between him and Palmer.
    The sharply contrasting personalities of the two giants of modern golf created a gnawing friction between them, defining their relationship for decades. The discord even extended to an arcane disagreement about whether playing Whitemarsh was good preparation for playing a U.S. Open at Oakmont.
    “There’s no similarity,” Palmer stated. “I won’t be at Whitemarsh.... Whitemarsh is a good course, but Oakmont was designed as a links similar to a Scottish course. It has few trees compared with Whitemarsh. Its bunkers are famous, although they are no longer furrowed. It has magnificent greens and it has no water holes, while Whitemarsh has creeks and ditches. I just don’t agree with Jack at all.”
    Nicklaus played erratically at Whitemarsh, especially from tee to green. Still, after three mediocre rounds, he