DUBLIN, Ohio – Jack Nicklaus referred to the field at the current week’s Dedication Competition as “presumably as great a field as we’ve at any point had.”
“They’re all here,” he said on Tuesday in a public interview in front of the competition he has at Muirfield Town Golf Club, the club he constructed and that has played host to a yearly PGA Visit stop starting around 1976.
Jack’s Place customarily draws in a ritzy field paying little mind to status however being raised to an assigned occasion with a $20 million satchel hasn’t harmed the 120-man field. Without a doubt, seven of the main 10 in the Authority World Golf Positioning and 38 of the best 50 are in the field as well as 25 of the best 30 in the FedEx Cup standings and 22 of the 27 players that have won on Visit this season.
He added, “In every practical sense, every one of the top players on the planet are here.”
However, those great figures do exclude two of the four ruling significant bosses — English Open victor Cameron Smith and PGA Title champ Streams Koepka — and normal members like Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson and 2018 champ Bryson DeChambeau.
Nicklaus said he sent a salutary note to Koepka after he won the PGA fourteen days prior at Oak Slope, where he won the Wanamaker Prize in 1980. Nicklaus has made an honest effort to avoid the showdown between the PGA Visit and LIV Golf, yet he has an assessment on practically every subject and never has been excessively modest to let anybody know his thought process.
“There were sure players that it was most likely the correct thing for,” Nicklaus said of joining LIV. “It likely prodded the PGA Visit, I believe there’s no doubt about that, either, to move it to more prominent levels. Yet, it wasn’t for me, it wasn’t for what my heritage was. Clearly, I essentially began what the Visit is over here.”
Golf players hold on to jump start during a training round for the Commemoration Competition at Muirfield Town Golf Club. (Photograph: Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch)
Inquired as to whether he was frustrated not to have the prevailing significant victors in the field this week, he said, “I don’t for a moment even consider those folks part of the game any longer. I don’t truly intend that in a frightful manner. This is a PGA Visit occasion and we have the best field we might potentially have for a PGA Visit occasion for the people who are qualified to be here. Different folks pursued a decision of what they did and where they’ve gone and we don’t discuss it.”
Nicklaus added that six or seven LIV players are individuals from the Bears Club, the exclusive hangout he worked in South Florida, and that each of the players have had their participation restored and stay dynamic at the club.
“It’s exactly where they decided to play golf,” Nicklaus said. “I hope everything works out for them all.”
Inquired as to whether he would allow LIV players to get back to contend in the Dedication in ongoing years, he said, “It doesn’t depend on me.” He proceeded: “I couldn’t say whether I’d let them back or not. They went with a decision about what they believe should do and that is the very thing that the principles are.”
Nicklaus played in a time where expert golf for the vast majority of the players was a means residing. He actually procured $33.33 for his most memorable check at the 1962 Los Angeles Open for completing 50th.
“The primary year I played you took care of business — 70 players got it done, yet they just paid 50. Furthermore, I brought in cash in each competition I played in my most memorable year. Furthermore, I had a ton of them that I just took care of business,” he reviewed. “I shot 64 in the last round in Pensacola to bring in last cash. I assume I shot 65 last round in Palm Springs to bring in perhaps last cash or near it. You know, in those days to get $250, which is the thing we were making when we would simply get it done, you know, you needed that $250. That dealt with one more little while of playing golf.”
Was there ever a place where he took a gander at the cash the masters are making today and thought it was faltering?
“I take a gander at it consistently, are you messing with me?” he said. “It is faltering.”
In any case, for Nicklaus, winning was a definitive award.
“I was about how great I could be in a game and cash just dealt with itself,” he made sense of. “A few people, they probably won’t actually think often about playing golf, they’re only great at it. It’s a necessary evil for them. Assuming that is what it is, that is fine. Folks who have remained generally are folks that play the sport of golf for the sport of golf and for its game and the opposition. As far as I might be concerned, that is what’s genuinely going on with the thing. Could it be said that they are getting compensated for that? Totally, they are, I feel that is perfect. We never brought in any cash playing golf. What’s my lifetime income on the customary visit, $5 million?”
Nicklaus speculated his retirement store from the PGA Visit was $237,000 and that Tiger Woods’ would be $100 million.
“We needed to play golf to make a name to go earn enough to pay the rent. On the off chance that I had been playing today would I truly do green plan, would I do different things?” Nicklaus considered. “These folks are truly earning enough to pay the rent and setting up their families for a lifetime by truly playing the game well.”
Story initially showed up on GolfWeek
