{"id":57,"date":"2016-09-27T17:17:45","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T21:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/?p=57"},"modified":"2016-09-27T18:15:27","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T22:15:27","slug":"the-golden-bear-meets-the-king","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/the-golden-bear-meets-the-king\/","title":{"rendered":"The Golden Bear meets the King"},"content":{"rendered":"

The boy Jack Nicklaus met \u201cThe King\u201d Arnold Palmer Sept. 25, 1958, at Athens Country Club in southeast Ohio. They were paired together for an exhibition round on \u201cDow Finsterwald Day,\u201d celebrating the reigning winner of the PGA Championship. Their ferocious yet friendly rivalry began with a driving contest on the first hole. Nicklaus, the 18-year-old Ohioan amateur, prevailed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Palmer, the 1958 Masters champion, shot a 63 and defeated Nicklaus by four strokes. Palmer grinned and told Nicklaus, \u201cI got ya.\u201d But both scored a victory they would remember.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe loved beating each other,\u201d Nicklaus said on ESPN\u2019s \u201cSportsCenter\u201d earlier this week, reflecting on their relationship after Palmer died Sunday at 87. \u201cThat\u2019s what wound our watches, so to say.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nicklaus and Palmer. \u201cThe Golden Bear\u201d and \u201cThe King.\u201d They were the game\u2019s greatest golfer, and its most popular one. Nicklaus won a record 18 majors. Palmer won 62 PGA Tour events, including seven majors. Linked with Gary Player, the trailblazing triumvirate pushed the game to the fore in the 1960s, the early years of the television age that revolutionized and commercialized the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Palmer-Nicklaus rivalry lived long and never soured. Nicklaus, 76, phoned Palmer on his 87th birthday Sept. 10. Palmer was in declining health, that much was no secret. Palmer died two weeks later at UPMC Shadyside while awaiting surgery for a heart valve replacement.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nicklaus penned a lengthy tribute. He and the game of golf, he wrote, had lost a great friend.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy friend \u2014 many people\u2019s friend \u2014 just wore out,\u201d Nicklaus wrote in a note posted to Twitter. \u201cI know he was in Pittsburgh trying to find out how to make himself better. That\u2019s what Arnold has always tried to do. He has always been a fighter and he never gave up on anything. He didn\u2019t give up even now. Maybe his body did, but I know Arnold\u2019s will and spirit did not.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was one of my best friends, closest friends, and he was for a long, long time. I will miss him greatly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Nicklaus painted Palmer as an icon, a legend and a pioneer, one who \u201ctook the game from one level to a higher level, virtually by himself.\u201d Nicklaus wrote he counted himself a member of \u201cArnie\u2019s Army,\u201d a crush of Palmer supporters that for so long kept Nicklaus in its crosshairs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nicklaus has often joked he never had to fight Palmer; he only had to fight Palmer\u2019s fans. The enmity began, of course, with the 1962 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club. Crowds tramped the course behind Palmer, the pride of Latrobe, and rather disliked the hard-charging Nicklaus.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the 72nd hole, Palmer missed a 10-foot putt and settled for a 1-under 283, forcing an 18-hole playoff with Nicklaus. A green-coated marshal at the 18th green remarked to a Pittsburgh Press reporter, \u201cIt\u2019s Arnold\u2019s Open. Look at that gallery die.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The playoff, billed by Press reporter Bob Drum as \u201cthe king of the amateurs against the king of the pros,\u201d went Nicklaus\u2019 way from the start. He led by four strokes after six holes. Palmer\u2019s comeback effectively ended with a bogey at 13, his 10th three-putt of the tournament \u2014 Nicklaus had one. Drum\u2019s front-page story Monday was accompanied by this headline: \u201cJack the Giant Kills Off Arnie.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLike Mudville, there was no joy in Oakmont yesterday,\u201d Drum wrote after Nicklaus\u2019 three-stroke win. \u201cBut, this time the mighty Casey didn\u2019t strike out. The batter in front of him won the game.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Palmer seemed unshaken afterward, saying: \u201cI can\u2019t play better than I played here and I couldn\u2019t win. And that Nicklaus, he won\u2019t give anything. He played super.\u201d He also told reporters, \u201cNow that the big guy [Nicklaus] is out of the cage, everybody better run for cover.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

If the driving contest at Athens Country Club started the on-course rivalry, the U.S. Open kicked it into top gear. It also spurred a special, enduring friendship between two all-time golfing greats.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were great competitors, who loved competing against each other, but we were always great friends along the way,\u201d Nicklaus wrote late Sunday night. \u201cArnold always had my back, and I had his. We were always there for each other. That never changed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe was the king of our sport and always will be.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The boy Jack Nicklaus met \u201cThe King\u201d Arnold Palmer Sept. 25, 1958, at Athens Country Club in southeast Ohio. They were paired together \n [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":59,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"coauthors":[11],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2016\/09\/Nicklaus_Palmer2.jpg?fit=961%2C1194&ssl=1","wps_subtitle":"Theirs was a friendly rivalry, but Jack Nicklaus remembers Arnold Palmer as an icon, legend, and pioneer, but chiefly, a friend","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7WGNt-V","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/84"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/arnold-palmer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}