Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson have done it again. They have hit the honorary shot that marks the beginning of the Augusta Masters. From the 1st tee, with a huge crowd clapping their hands off, paying tribute to these legends and enjoying a unique moment. Each year is unique. Each year is exciting. You have to stand up and applaud. They are golf.
Almost as exciting as the tee shot, all on the fairway, by the way, and not short in the cases of Player and Watson, is to see them minutes before on the practice range preparing that single shot, some like Watson warming up his lady half an hour, others like Nicklaus stretching his shoulders a bit and loosening up just enough. Brilliant.
After the shot and the tribute, they sat down with the journalists to share impressions. Nicklaus confessed the most embarrassing moment he has suffered on a golf course. It was in Augusta, at the ’64 Masters. “I hit an iron on the 12th (par 3 heart of amen corner) and almost killed Bobby Jones and Cliff Roberts (the creators of the Masters and Augusta National. They came to see us, their buggy was about 20 or 25 meters away, on the right side, I shanked it and the ball went right over their heads… That said, I was about to make three. I haven’t hit too many shots like that in my career, one or two,” he explained laughing.
🌺 Así se ha vivido el arranque de honor del torneo 🌺pic.twitter.com/N8or2UXpk5
— Ten-Golf (@Tengolf) April 11, 2024
And how does one recover from a shot like that, Nicklaus’ recipe couldn’t be more obvious and, at the same time, unbeatable. “Go play the next shot. What can you do? You did it. You can’t do anything else. It’s a bit embarrassing. It was one of my most shameful moments in golf, but you have to keep going,” he concluded.
In this sense, Player also contributes his vision of how to recover from a particularly bad shot. “It’s impossible to play a round of golf without hitting bad shots. It’s part of the game and I almost taught myself to enjoy it. That’s why we practice the short game so much. By the way, I hear the new generations talking about hitting the ball to I don’t know where, almost 400 yards and you never hear how good their short game is. Hitting long is an advantage, but not a necessity. A great putt is worth as much as a 400-yard drive,” he points out.
Of course, all three talked about the future of golf and the situation with LIV Golf and the PGA Tour. All three agree that everything goes through sitting down, negotiating and reaching an agreement so that the best in the world always face each other in the same tournaments. In fact, Tom Watson revealed that he stood up at the champions’ dinner and said: Isn’t it good to be all together again? “I hope the players took it as a sign that something needs to be done to achieve that unity.”
Finally, to finish, Nicklaus shared the golf quote he likes the most. It was said by Winston Churchill: “Golf (clearing his throat) is a sport in which one plays with a very small ball and tries to put it in an even smaller hole with an instrument singularly more designed for it”. And he added: “I love that definition, I think it explains it perfectly.”
Geniuses and figures.
