Nicklaus likes what he sees at Newport

RICHARD DUNN

Jack Nicklaus showed up with a bang and will no doubt give Toshiba

Senior Classic organizers plenty for their buck this week.

And that’s just for playing.

Imagine if he wins.

He’s 64, but the greatest golfer of all time played Newport Beach

Country Club for the first time Wednesday in the Toshiba Senior

Classic Pro-Am, carding five birdies and two bogeys on the

6,584-yard, par-71 old-style layout, which suits most of these senior

golfers just fine, thank you.

“I enjoyed it for the first time,” Nicklaus said after his pro-am

round. “That’s the type of golf course I grew up with playing. There

are a lot of good circle greens; greens that are firm. It’s very

similar to the ones I grew up with, but I haven’t played them in 40

years.”

Nicklaus, one of the world’s leading golf-course designers, is a

tough critic of golf courses. Praise for golf courses other than the

ones he has been involved with is not common.

But Newport Beach is different. Different in that it’s old. Been

around since the early ‘50s.

“This is a great golf course,” Nicklaus said. “It’s my kind of

course. If anyone built one like this today, they’d run you out of

town.”

Nicklaus, who played before an intimate gallery that peaked at

about 80 people early in the afternoon and dwindled to a couple of

dozen by day’s end as the fog rolled in, said he was looking for a

golf course on the PGA Champions Tour schedule similar to Newport

Beach’s layout.

“I was thinking about coming [to the Toshiba Senior Classic] last

year, but things didn’t work out,” Nicklaus said. “I’d heard of this

course and was told you’ve got to keep it straight here, and that all

the guys like it here.”

The winner of 18 major championships, Nicklaus still has a lot of

game in his bag and plans to bring it Friday in the opening round of

the Toshiba Classic championship play.

Does he have a chance to win?

“I hope so,” Nicklaus said. “I didn’t come out here not to play

the golf course well enough to win.

“I enjoyed it [Wednesday]. It’s a nice little golf course. I had a

case of the lefts in the last four holes, but we’ll figure that out

[today].”

Nicklaus, who rarely plays on the Champions Tour and usually

limits his playing schedule to less than 10 events a year, is

unleashing a wave of local influence that Arnold Palmer had in this

community four years ago when he played in the event for the first

(and only) time.

“It’s too bad Arnie’s not here playing with Jack. Wouldn’t that

have been cool?” said Newport Beach police officer Bill Beverly, who

was assigned the tough duty of following Nicklaus on his bike for 18

holes.

Another member of the pro-am gallery, Jon King of Newport Beach

Country Club, watched Nicklaus closely for 18 holes.

“It’s great to be able to watch Jack,” said King, a Balboa Island

resident and 12-handicap golfer. “He’s signing a ton of autographs

and there’s a lot of color and excitement. He’d always kind of been

Arnold Palmer’s nemesis and [Nicklaus] was always the villain. But he

never said a negative thing about it and overcame it, and became the

hero that he is.”

Cited as Golfer of the Millennium or Golfer of the Century by

myriad publications and media outlets, Nicklaus will forever be

linked to Palmer.

“Arnie and Jack. There will never be two guys like that again,”

said Newport Beach’s Julius Rizzotti, another member of Wednesday’s

gallery for 18 holes.

With the Golden Bear in the field this weekend, the Toshiba Senior

Classic is ready to reach another career milestone in its 10th

anniversary.