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On This Day In History - Jack Nicklaus Is Born

21 Jan, 08 | Comments [0] | Tags: Golf Central | On This Day In History

I'd rather Jack...

Bow down, raise a glass, do whatever you like at these significant points in time – after all, it’s no ordinary day in golf history. On January 21st, 1940, Jack Nicklaus was born in Columbus Ohio.

Such is his dominant presence in the game, that it comes as something of a surprise that Jack’s 70 PGA Tour wins put him only second on the list behind Sam Snead’s 81. In almost every other aspect of the game, that unique combination of god-given talent, grit and incredible self-belief made sure he came out on top.

InGolfWeTrust once spent a day with Jack a couple of years ago. It was the launch of a Polaris resort in Murcia – the weather was chronic and an international assembly of TV crews, reporters and PRs formed a bizarre motorcade through a soon-to-be-flattened lemon grove, as he scoped out his latest multi-million dollar course design.

He seemed older than his years, frail almost. He was certainly tired, which was fair enough as he’d flown straight over to Spain from receiving the Presidential Medal Of Freedom with Muhammad Ali and Aretha Franklin.

The biggest kick about Jack is that if he found a question boring he would swat it away. If he found it interesting he would happily spill his guts. We made him laugh and will never forget the way his crumpled, weathered face turned into the Jack of ’77, Duel In The Sun and all that…

An honest man, an opinionated man and, until Tiger passes his record, the greatest winner in golf, end of.

Meanwhile, on this day in 1981 52 American hostages held at the US Embassy in Tehran were released after 444 days in captivity.

It was also a big day for death. France’s King Louis XVI was executed on this day in 1793, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died of a stroke aged 54 on this day in 1924 and George Orwell died of tuberculosis in 1950.

On a happier note, it’s khoob jeeyo! As they say in Rajasthan to Italian belter Placido Domingo (67), 80s dicso Billy Ocean (58), toothsome actress Geena Davis (52) and formerly bunch-wearing Spice Girl Emma Bunton (32). It would also have been Confederate general Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson’s 184th birthday had he not been accidentally shot by one of his own troops in 1863, lost an arm and died of pneumonia eight days later.

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