OAKMONT, PA (93.7 The Fan) – While Jack Nicklaus won more majors than anyone in the history of the sport, he credits Arnold Palmer for taking the sport to the masses.
“Arnold in many ways popularized the game of golf,” Nicklaus said Saturday at a news conference with Johnny Miller at Oakmont Country Club.
Nicklaus said when he won his first major, the 1962 US Open at Oakmont, he didn’t realize that he was in Arnold Palmer’s backyard. Miller did when he won in 1973.
“I had played with Arnold Palmer the first two rounds, which was, back in those days, was a crazy experience with his gallery,” Miller said Saturday. “His gallery was -- they were crazy. Crazy good. But to get through the gauntlet of playing with Arnold on the first two rounds was pretty good.”
Palmer won 62 times on the PGA Tour, fifth all-time, with seven major championships and 10 times was runner-up in a major. But it was more than just his winning.
“He came along basically when television came along, and maybe television was great for Arnold, but Arnold was great for television and great for the game,” Nicklaus said. “He had a flair about him that nobody else had, and people loved him. And rightfully so. He earned what he got. He did a great job.”
“Arnie was a man's man, big-time man's man,” Miller said. “He could have been with John Wayne as two leading guys in a movie. Yeah, it's nice to have a guy like that that can help push the game along, like Tiger Woods did.”
Nicklaus said he didn’t realize the rooting section for Palmer when he beat him in a playoff in ‘62 because he was able to have that type of focus to block it all out. He recognized that Palmer was the top player in the game at that time, but Arnie didn’t treat Jack any differently. Maybe that was part of Palmer’s magic, he tried to treat everyone the same as well, including the man who he would battle for decades.
“Arnold took me under his wing when I turned pro,” Nicklaus said, “and he never treated me anything other than as an equal, and became one of the closest friends I've ever had in the game.”