Grace Freeman
| Special to The Dispatch
Jack William Nicklaus was born on Jan. 21, 1940, to Louis Charles “Charlie” Nicklaus and Helen “Nellie” Schoener in Columbus, Ohio.
It was Charlie who introduced the game of golf to his son Jack, first as a caddie, then as a player. When Jack’s skill became evident, he enrolled in classes with PGA and Scioto Country Club pro Jack Grout. A 1953 Columbus Dispatch article quoted Grout as saying, “He took golf very seriously right from the very first minute. He was big for his age – nine, then – and he hit the ball farther than you’d expect right off.”
By 1953, Jack was already a division state champion and qualified as the youngest player in the United States Golf Association’s National Junior tournament. He would go on to win five consecutive Junior State Championships (1952-1956).
Jack attended Upper Arlington High School, where he also played football and basketball. In 1958, 18-year-old Jack made his first PGA Tour start in Akron, Ohio, at the Rubber City Open.
Jack attended the Ohio State University. While at OSU he met his wife Barbara Bash. He won an NCAA Championship plus two Amateur titles in 1961. He decided to leave college after 3½ years to go pro.
He began his pro PGA Tour career in 1962. That same year, Nicklaus began one of golf’s greatest rivalries after beating Arnold Palmer in the 1962 U.S. Open in an 18-hole-playoff.
Jack would go on to win 18 majors (the most in golf history), 73 PGA Tours, 6 Masters (more than any other golfer), 5 PGA Championships, 4 U.S. Opens, and 19 major runner-up finishes, among many other accomplishments.
By the 1970s, Jack and Barbara were parents to five children.
In 1969, Jack began working with legendary golf course designer Pete Dye, consulting on The Golf Club in New Albany and went into business designing golf courses in addition to playing the game.
But Nicklaus’ design legacy in Columbus is likely best known for creating the Muirfield Village Golf Course in Dublin, Ohio, which opened in 1974 and is home to the Memorial Tournament. Nicklaus himself founded the tournament in its second year in 1977, and again in 1984.
Nicklaus played his last competitive tournament in 2005, the same year he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He and Barbara remain involved in their Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation, the Memorial Tournament, and many other ventures, in addition to being grandparents to dozens of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Grace Freeman is a librarian with the Columbus Metropolitan Library.