The Master

Whatever Arnie wants, Jack gets.

Last week, it was a pretty green jacket with brass buttons and an embroidered map of the U.S. on the breast pocket. The blazer and $20,000 go to the Masters champion, and Arnold Palmer got close enough last week to read the label--while he was helping Jack Nicklaus slip it on.

Indignities like that are getting to be par for Palmer's course. It all started last year, when Arnie won the Masters, and visions of a grand slam were dancing before his eyes. So off he went to the U.S. Open at Oakmont, Pa., a course he had played at least 200 times before--and what happened? Nicklaus beat him. Jack did it again in the World Series of Golf, that time for $50,000, the biggest prize in the game. But last week's blow was the hardest of all. Every duffer knows that the Masters is Arnie Palmer's private tournament: in five years, he has won it three times, lost the other two by a total of three strokes. This year he was a 4-1 favorite to become the only golfer ever to win the Masters four times, and the only one to win it twice in a row. So what happened? Jack Nicklaus won again.

Tough & Mean. "Gary Player says he's going to win," said Nicklaus on the eve of the Masters. "Arnie Palmer says he's going to win. I say I am." A scrambling opening-round 74, two over par, failed to shake his confidence. "How are you feeling?" asked a friend. "Big and strong?'' "Yeah." growled Nicklaus. "Big and strong--and tough and mean." On the second day, Jack Nicklaus gave the big (6,980-yd.), tough Augusta National Course one of the worst floggings in its history.

Only once in 18 marvelous holes did Nicklaus fail to hit a green in regulation figures. On the 520-yd.. par-five 15th, Nicklaus boomed his drive so far--about 320 yds.--that he was able to reach the green with a No. 5 iron. Two putts gave him an easy birdie. Five other birdies gave him a six-under-par 66 for the day, best round of the entire tournament, and just two strokes off Lloyd Mangrum's 23-year-old course record.

Suddenly, it was Jack's, not Arnie's, private tournament. Everybody tried to take it away, including one distraught Palmer fan who ran into a pine forest to retrieve his hero's errant ball and throw it back onto the fairway. But Palmer was unable to master his short game, on the third day added a second straight 73 to his opening round 74 and grumpily conceded that he was out of the running. "My putting stinks," he said. "I'll be glad when this is over." So would a lot of other golfers. The weather turned sour, and for five hours it poured rain. Cool and cautious, Nicklaus changed his leather glove five times in 18 holes, slashed a 74 that--bad as it was--was enough to give him the third round lead.

With a slender one-stroke edge to protect on the last day, Nicklaus played so slowly that he reminded fellow pros of "a turtle in leg irons." One after another, they took their shots at the big blond who had just turned 23. On the 15th hole, Sam Snead who, at 50, was playing in his 24th Masters, sank a birdie putt and learned that he had jumped into the lead. But on the next hole, Snead three-putted for a bogey and dropped back into the pack. Gary Player led Nicklaus briefly; but he bogeyed the last two holes, and that was all for him.

There was still one more challenger. To his fellow pros, Anthony David Lema, 29, was "Champagne Tony"--a playboy type who drove golf balls out of hotel windows, bought bubble water for sportswriters, and once had to be dragged out of a bar to compete in a tournament play-off (which he won). But now Champagne Tony was talking about getting married and settling down. And it wasn't all talk: he was rolling in birdie putts. Trailing Nicklaus by two strokes, Lema cut the gap to one with a 25-footer on the last hole that gave him a 72-hole total of 287, one under par. Then he hid out in the clubhouse to see what the pressure would do to Nicklaus.

"Those Last Three Feet." Needing a par four to win, Nicklaus belted his drive 270 yds. down the left side of the 18th fairway. The ball came to rest on muddy turf. Stroke one. A master of the rule book as well as the course, Nicklaus summoned an official, claimed "casual water"* and demanded a free lift to dry ground. He got it--his fifth free lift of the round. But when he dropped the ball over his shoulder, it fell back into the mud. Nicklaus pulled out a No. 6 iron, and cut deep into the turf. The ball landed on the fat part of the green, 30 ft. from the pin. Stroke two. The huge gallery tensed as Nicklaus marched onto the 18th green. "Keep it very, very quiet," pleaded a marshal. "Please don't anyone say anything." Jack rapped the ball, grimaced unhappily when it rolled 3 ft. past. Stroke three. He circled the cup three times, lining up the putt from every conceivable angle. "Those three feet looked like 86 to me," he said later. "I just hit it, closed my eyes, and waited for the sound." Plunk!

With a happy whoop, Nicklaus whipped off his white golf cap and sailed it high into the air. "It just proves that my winning the Open last year was no fluke," said Nicklaus, whose $20,000 winner's check made him pro golf's No. 1 moneymaker for the year (see box). "My aim is to win more tournaments than anybody who ever lived." Sighed ex-Champion Palmer: "Just think--Jack has ten more years to go before he's as old as I am today."

* Any temporary accumulation of water that is not an ordinary hazard. In borderline cases, the common test is to stamp hard on the ground. If the footprint fills with water, the ball can be moved without penalty.

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