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MIND / THE NEXT ONE'S GOOD
What Unites the Big Three
This year’s honorary starters share a unique kinship
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By Jerry Tarde
he best of the Masters traditions begins Thursday morning at about 8 when the honorary starters gather on the first tee. The patrons are still rushing up the hill from the gates, breathless and straining to see golf’s living Mount Rushmore. It reminds me of the Third Stage of Man: The first is Youth, impression on me. In his prime, he liked the second is Middle Age and the third to wake up on the morning of the last is “You’re looking well.” Gary Player, round of a major and look out the win86, Jack Nicklaus, 82, and Tom Watson, dow to see the wind blowing, the rain 72, are all looking well on this first full pelting down, the temperature dropweek in April. ping. He knew half the field would give My recurring Masters dream goes up under those conditions. Half of the back to when Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead rest didn’t know how to play in weather and Byron Nelson were the honorary like that. Most of the remaining were starters, who in those days not only hit mathematically out of contention. That the opening tee shot but played out the left fewer than a handful of players to first hole and then were carted back to beat, and Jack liked his chances. It sums the clubhouse for breakfast. In my noc- up Nicklaus’ Germanic view of competiturnal imagination, Byron hit a good tion—arrive early, take the high ground, drive, then a 4-wood onto the green and prepare better than everyone else. made the putt, whereupon Gary Player’s attitude was he decided he might as well different, the product of an Jerry Tarde play the second hole, the inner drive and intensity to once went to an downhill par 5. His third shot prove himself, maybe deamusement park clanged against the flagstick rived from his diminutive with Nicklaus but and dropped in the hole for size and remote homeland. has only played an eagle, and at three-under The ultimate Gary story golf with Player through two he was off and is the one his late teacher and Watson. running. How far he got dePhil Ritson told of rooming pended on when I woke up. together at a junior tournaIf such a thing were to ment in South Africa when happen in real life, today’s Player was 16 years old. Big Three have the chutzpah Ritson said he woke up to pull it off. They are men one morning to find Player of indomitable spirit, vastly standing in front of a mirror different in personality, but telling himself, “I’m going sharing that same character trait. to be the greatest golfer in the world. I give you Jack Nicklaus, first among I’m going to be the greatest golfer in the equals. I remember reading in my youth world.” Dozens of times he said it. Just something said about Jack that left an recently I heard Gary tell a similar story 16
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april 2022
ALL TOGETHER
Watson, Player and Nicklaus have won 35 pro majors combined.
about staring in the mirror, slapping himself and demonstrating: “Don’t feel sorry for yourself.” Slap. “You’re going to have bad holes.” Slap. “Take it like a man.” Slap. That’s the essence of Gary, even if you think it’s an act. He’s been doing this act his whole life. As Herbert Warren Wind once observed, “Underneath the fake tinsel lies the real tinsel.” Tom Watson was a choker who became a champion. He always brought exuberance to high-risk situations— those five-foot downhill putts that he rammed in sometimes ended up six feet past the hole. He knows success and failure and treats them equally as brothers. There was neither a greater high in U.S. Open history than his chipin on the 71st hole at Pebble Beach, nor a deeper low in the Open Championship than the bogey he took from the edge at Turnberry two months shy of turning 60. He came from behind as Ryder Cup captain to win heroically in 1993—and then lost embarrassingly in 2014. Occasionally unpopular, but never uncertain, he knows no fear. If you want to increase your success rate, Watson likes to say, double your failure rate. Nicklaus’ confidence, Player’s ambition, Watson’s resilience—no matter the age, these indomitable men are the Masters. And maybe, just maybe, one of them will birdie the first hole, eagle the second and keep going. PHOTOGRAPH BY DOM FURORE
