Memorial Tournament 2025: Jack Nicklaus honors Bob Baptist at ceremony
Jack Nicklaus Jr. and Jack Nicklaus honor retired Columbus Dispatch sports reporter Bob Baptist during 2025 Memorial Tournament May 28, 2025.
Jack Nicklaus’s personal Mount Rushmore of golf includes Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan, Tiger Woods and himself. Longtime friend and playing rival Arnold Palmer didn’t make the cut.Palmer ranks fifth all-time in PGA Tour wins and made many contributions to the sport prior to his death in 2016 at age 87.
Whose faces would be carved into gold’s Mount Rushmore if Jack Nicklaus made the final call?
Well, obviously, his own likeness would be among the four. The other three, according to a recently resurfaced video on Twitter, would belong to Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods.
Sorry, Arnie.
Arnold Palmer, Nicklaus’ longtime friend and rival, didn’t make the legendary golfer’s personal cut. The video was originally shot for Golf Digest in August 2024 and was recently repurposed by a popular Twitter account called Official Tour Pro.
Nicklaus, 85, became close friends with Palmer, his rival, while they and Gary Player dominated the sport in the 1960s to help golf gain popularity in the U.S. Palmer, who died in 2016 at age 87, won 62 PGA Tour titles and still ranks fifth in all-time victories behind Sam Snead, Woods, Nicklaus and Hogan.
Jones, who co-founded the Masters Tournament and Augusta National Golf Club where it’s played, played only as an amateur while making his living as an attorney. He’s considered the greatest amateur player who’s ever lived.
Nicklaus, meanwhile, won 117 professional tournaments, including 73 PGA wins plus a record 18 major championships.
That’s three more majors than Woods, who’s still playing. Nicklaus also fronts one of the world’s leading golf course design and construction firms, Nicklaus Design, and has designed numerous courses – including Muirfield Village in Dublin that hosts the annual Memorial Tournament.
Nicklaus has also inspired a line of ice cream flavors plus Golden Bear Lemonade, but neither has a spot on the Mount Rushmore of golf-inspired food/beverage items next to the tasty half lemonade/half iced tea mixture known as an Arnold Palmer.
Blue Jackets reporter Brian Hedger can be reached at bhedger@dispatch.com and @BrianHedger.bsky.social
