Arnold Palmer had just missed a short birdie putt on the 18th hole of the playoff against Jack Nicklaus at the 1962 US Open at Oakmont Country Club. The King waved the white flag, symbolised by bending down to pick up Nicklaus’s marker, who still had a short putt to finish. He conceded it. He could no longer win. It was his way of acknowledging the young champion.
Nicklaus, somewhat dazed and surprised by the gesture, didn’t quite know how to react until a USGA official approached the pair and told them that it couldn’t be done. Putts are only conceded in match play format, and the US Open playoff was played over 18 holes stroke play. As it was, Nicklaus had to replace the ball approximately where it was and holed the putt to finish winning the US Open. He was 22 years old. It was his first professional victory. His first Major of the 18 he would capture during his career.
The anecdote of the putt Palmer tried to concede but couldn’t didn’t go any further, but it symbolised the change of an era in golf. It happened at Oakmont, right where the US Open is being played again this week.
Palmer arrived at that US Open at the peak of his career. He was 32 years old and had already won six tournaments that season, including the Masters. Some even speculated about the possibility of the King achieving the Grand Slam. After all, since 1958 he had already accumulated five Majors in less than four years. We were in the Palmer era.
Many believe that this era could have lasted longer if it weren’t for that victory by Nicklaus. Palmer, known for his tremendous ability to close tournaments, began to show less reliability. He won the Open Championship that same year, in a brutal display of grit, and added another Masters in 1964. No one would have predicted at the dawn of that 1962 US Open that Palmer only had two more Majors left.
Palmer described that defeat as “the toughest of my entire career”. It’s important to note that he never won the US Open, losing three times in the 18-hole playoff, and Oakmont is located 40 miles from his birthplace. He had played more than a hundred times on that course before that week. All roads led to his victory. But Nicklaus appeared, and a new era was born… A brutal era. Unrepeatable.
Jack won that US Open and continued to win Majors until the 1980s. Three decades of winning majors. Palmer sensed what was coming. As early as 1958, when he first played with him, he detected that he was facing someone very special. What he didn’t expect was for him to rise to the challenge so soon. The King declared some time later that the key that week was the greens. He missed many short putts. “I was always a mediocre putter on very fast greens, and that week I didn’t prepare as I should have on the greens,” he explained.
Nicklaus achieved a victory that today can be considered legendary. He defeated the local idol, with all the crowd against him. In that sense, it’s worth noting that Jack always appreciated Palmer’s behaviour and generosity, not only during that playoff, where he always protected him from the crowd’s ire, but throughout his career. Bobby Jones said of Nicklaus at that time: “he plays a game with which I am not familiar”.
Palmer’s gesture of conceding the putt to Nicklaus was much more than an anecdote. It was a moment for the history of golf that couldn’t have been symbolised better. And it happened at Oakmont.
By the way, Nicklaus won that playoff with 71 strokes to Palmer’s 74.
