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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

May 28, 2019

Jack Nicklaus

Dublin, Ohio

MARK WILLIAMS: We'd like to welcome our host, Mr. Jack Nicklaus. Thanks again for hosting this year. This is the 44th playing of the Memorial Tournament. We're all thrilled to be here, and thank you for joining us for your annual session. I just wonder if you can talk to us a little bit about perhaps the field this year and the golf course, to start things off.

JACK NICKLAUS: That's all there is?

MARK WILLIAMS: That's what we need to get going.

JACK NICKLAUS: The golf course is good. I think if you go out and look at it, I think you'll see that it's about as good as we can get it. The weather conditions will determine how fast or how slow it is. My guess is the next couple of days we will not get very fast. So when you get courses like that, the scores will probably be a little bit lower. It's probably okay because the golf course is really in nice shape, and it will be there for the taking. And that's okay.

Field, field is excellent. We always have a good field. I don't think we've had a bad field. We have, again, a good field. You all know who's here. I don't need to go through that.

MARK WILLIAMS: You've been doing this for many years now. Does it get any easier or any more difficult as time goes on with all of the things that are happening for you during this week?

JACK NICKLAUS: No, just that I'm getting older, that's all. That makes it tougher. It's just I thought there was a rail there, and I put my hand on that thing, and I don't know what it was. But obviously it wasn't a rail.

I think that they've got a pretty well-oiled machine around here with the guys, Chad Mark, our superintendent, does a terrific job. Chad works hard, and the last two years -- I don't know if you noticed or not, but last year you wouldn't see any poa annua on the green, there is poa annua there, it is growing but not seeding. The same thing this year. We have suppressed it and clipped it off. Is that what you do? But you also clip them off, too, don't you? He's got a process he does that we've never had before. I don't know how new the process is, but you obviously know what it is, and you're the only one I've seen that can do it.

So the greens are just real perfect. Fairways are excellent. The rough is probably a little thicker than the players would probably like it, but that's the way it is. If you have rain and the rough grows, then that makes your fairways very receptive to holding the golf ball. So your fairways really play fairly wide. If you don't have rain, the ball runs off and runs into the rough. And if you haven't had rain, then the rough is usually drier than what is there. It's really six of one, half dozen of the other. It's good. All good.

Q. Where were you during the Masters when Tiger was doing his thing, and what do you think of what he accomplished?
JACK NICKLAUS: Depends on what part of the thing he was. If he was on the 9th hole, I was out probably at the flat on -- let's see, probably Ambergris Caye and was probably tailing bonefish. As he got around to about 12, I went back in and watched it from the boat.

Q. Your takeaway, did it bring back memories of '86 at all for you?
JACK NICKLAUS: No, no, didn't bring back any memories of '86 at all. I wasn't there. '86 I was (laughter). I came back in, and when I got there, I watched -- I had watched most of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, whether I watched it in the daytime or watched the replays in the evening. I get out of Augusta on Tuesday -- actually got out Thursday this year. On a Thursday after they hit the tee shot I leave and go to Bahamas. Because I have 10,000 phone calls, and I'd rather look at a bonefish than answer 10,000 phone calls that nobody cares what I say anyway.

I watch it so I can make a nice observation of the tournament and what I think about the tournament and so forth. I thought a lot of guys played very well. It looked as though Brooks or Molinari might win the golf tournament. And then when the guys started filling up Rae's Creek on the 12th hole, I'm watching them one after another hit the ball right of the bunker, and I said, really? You just can't hit the ball right of the bunker, how many times have you seen the tournament lost because they hit it right of the bunker. Tiger hit the ball, and of course he had a little cut shot over the left side of the bunker into the middle of the green, and the tournament is over.

He played beautifully coming home. I knew he was in a position that he knew that he didn't have to do anything special. All he had to do was play good, solid golf. Good, solid golf still required a couple under par, but he had 13 or 15, which he played very solidly. And then of course 18, I don't know what happened there, whether it hit the tree, I don't know what happened. He played the third shot smart and won the tournament.

I suppose you could go back and relate it to what I did in '86. I don't think what I did in '86 -- '86 I won because I found lightning in a bottle. And I really wasn't into the game of golf at that time, I was into it but it wasn't my main priority. I tried to prepare for the Masters, and I did, but I played golf because I just really enjoyed playing golf and being part of it.

Tiger, on the other hand, he came back from injury. He came back, he worked hard to get himself back in shape to be able to play. He had to figure out what he had between the five inches between his ears. He had to get that solved to believe that he could do what he did. He had won The TOUR Championship the year before. But that's still only 30 players. He's not beating a huge field. Played very well to win that. But still not the Masters or the U.S. Open. And he just had to believe it. And he did a very nice job of that. I was very proud of him. Very happy for him. And he just played the way a champion should play.

Q. I've got a follow-up. There's talk written about 18 is on the table now. Do you think it is for him catching you?
JACK NICKLAUS: Sure. It always has been. Once you're below that, it's only on the table if you wanted to get up there. That's a smart aleck answer (laughter).

Yeah, I mean, I've always felt like Tiger, before he won at Augusta, he has four championships, and he has another ten years of major championships. Another 40 major championships in front of him that he'll be playing. And people say, well, he'll never win another one. Still, you've heard me say this in the pressroom. Don't count him out. He won major championships hitting it all over the world off the tee.

Last time he won at San Diego, Torrey Pines, yeah, he never found the fairway. And he was playing on a broken leg, which isn't too bad, winning on a broken leg. But he didn't -- but he never has driven it really well. He's driving the ball well now.

So it's a huge, huge difference for him. And he's always been a great iron player, that's not going to change. He's always chipped well. He always putts well. If you had a putt to make, it's ten feet, and you need somebody to make it, I think I'd go call Tiger. Tiger, come make this 10-footer for me, I need it. He'll make it. He's that kind of a competitor.

So I didn't think that it made that much difference what had happened to him; once he sorted himself out mentally, once he believed that he could play again, he would win. And, you know, like from my standpoint, nobody wants their records broken. I don't want him to break my records, but I don't want him not to be able to play and not be physically sound to play. I mean, if he's physically sound and it's his desire to win and he breaks it, you know, well done. That's what it should be. That's what sports is all about. And he's done a great job. And I wish -- more power to him. I don't have any problem with any of that.

I thought he might play really well at Bethpage, although coming off a win as emotional as the Masters was for him, I think it's understandable that that would happen. I don't think he's going to let that happen again. I think that was a wake-up call again for him. And I expect him to play very well this week. And I think he always plays well here. I think he'll be play really well here, and I think he'll play well at Pebble.

I don't know whether I answered your question or not, but that was about two hours of jabbering. I'm sorry.

Q. Jack, Ben Hogan once said that a good round of golf is when you hit three shots that are exactly as you envisioned them. Did you believe that, and by that barometer, at your peak, how many good rounds of golf would you play in a season?
JACK NICKLAUS: Well, if you would look at that barometer, I don't think anybody ever plays well. Nobody ever plays golf shots like they want to. If you hit three shots that -- I'm just going, because I've never heard this, if you hit three shots that are perfect during a round, that's pretty good.

There are rounds that you hit -- you know, you hit 15 or 20 shots that are pretty darn good. You hit them exactly the way you want to? Nobody ever hits one exactly the way you want to, otherwise it would go in the hole every time. But Hogan was pretty precise. And Ben believes that the game of golf is -- as I believe, it's how well do you manage your misses. And that's why golf is such a difficult game. Nobody's ever mastered the game. And even as much as Hogan practiced, as much as he worked at it and as good as he was, he didn't master the game. Nobody ever has.

So you manage what you have, you manage your -- it's how well can you score playing badly? Because you've got four days of tournaments, you're going to have a day where you're not real good or not very good striking the ball, and ask if you get away that day with a 68, 69 or 70, or something like that, and you play well the other days, you're going to be right there.

That was my philosophy, try to play as well as I can. Try to make sure I don't make any dumb mistakes, try to keep myself in a position to be able to win the tournament on Sunday, and learn from each day that you play and what you did and what you couldn't do, what you could do and how you managed that.

And usually what I was thinking on Sunday afternoon versus what I was thinking on Thursday morning, they were just -- they were miles apart because you learn. Every time you play in a tournament, you learn as you go and you learn to adjust and learn to balance to it.

And that's the way I played. I think Hogan played that way. I'm sure Tiger plays that way. I think that most guys who have won have played that way. When you can't do that is when you have trouble winning.

Q. Can I ask you about Pebble Beach, coming up, too. You won there, Tiger has won there. What is it about that place that breeds a special type of champion?
JACK NICKLAUS: I don't know, I think from my standpoint, I mean, of course I won an amateur there and won an Open there, won three Clambakes there, a couple of Shell matches there against Sam and Tom Watson, two guys tough to beat anytime you play them, so I mention those.

But I always just -- Pebble always just sort of fit not necessarily my eye, but it was my eye because I enjoyed the beauty of it like everybody else. But the shots sort of fit what I thought I could do, and I was comfortable playing what I needed to play and where I needed to play it and how I had to play it. I played away from a few places that I had to be smart in different places.

I just like that type of golf. It's not an overly long type of golf course. It's a golf course when they play it in June it could be like a rock. It could be very difficult to score on; then again, they could have a little bit of rain, enough that carries them through, and all of a sudden -- Pebble Beach without any wind is not a very hard golf course. But you never find it without any wind. That's the beauty of it. It's always sitting there on the ocean and in a difficult place to play golf. It's a different golf course every season of the year.

Q. And then secondly, we hear all about Tiger's chase for 18, but can you put into your words about his choice for 82 wins, if he gets there, what would that mean to you, in terms of if he was to become the winningest PGA Tour player? He's only one from that.
JACK NICKLAUS: Oh, Snead's win. I don't pay any attention to that (laughter). That's not important to me. Might be to him, I don't know.

Q. Do you think it would be a good achievement if he takes that over?
JACK NICKLAUS: I suppose so. I don't know how you add up tournaments anymore. Every time I go someplace, winner of 113 tournaments, winner of 110 tournaments, I don't know how many I won. Depends on how many the Tour is taking away or giving me. They changed their mind every year about what they're going to count. So I don't know what's what. No one in the world could know how many tournaments Sam Snead won.

So I don't know. I mean, Tiger, on regular tournaments, Tiger is the winningest probably player there ever was. And he's probably won a higher percentage of tournaments than anybody that ever played. But I never -- of course I've always measured my life differently. I never measured it on Tour wins. I measured it on major wins. But I learned that as a kid -- the first time that I ever really sort of thought about the game of golf and winning tournaments was 1953. I was 13 years old. And I remember Hogan winning at Oakmont. And he had won at the Masters. And first time -- not that it meant much, but I started thinking about that. And of course he wins at Carnoustie, and he can't get back to playing in the PGA. I thought that was pretty special.

And I played my first USGA event that year after that. And I played the USGA juniors. And I loved the way the course was set up at Southern Hills. And Joe Dye set the golf course up. And I just love what they did. I loved when I played in the Amateur a couple of years later, I love the way the majors were set up.

Then I played at Augusta. Then I got to play the British Amateur and the British Open. And I always liked that type of setup. That to me was some of the most important things. And of course I grew up Scioto, which is where Jones won. And Jones won in '26 there. And all I heard all my life was Jones, Jones, Jones, as I was growing up.

So major championships to me was what I always felt were the last important tournaments. And it's something that's -- they're the only ones you can compare back and forth, I think.

Would 82 be a major achievement? Absolutely. No question about that. But you ask Tiger, which he would rather win, 82 or 18, I think you might get a different answer.

Q. Over the years I'm sure you had many people tell you where they were and what they were doing when they watched you in '86. Do you have any keener appreciation for that now after what Tiger just did? Because a lot of people seem to have the same sense that that will be the same thing, where were you, where were you watching, that sort of thing.
JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I don't know. I suppose it would be. What he did was pretty special to watch. It was pretty special -- I have to say that once I sat down and saw he shot 12, I didn't move again. It was fun to watch. It was fun watching his mind work. It was fun watching how he thought and how I thought he was thinking and how I would have thought.

I shake my head at seeing some of the other shots that I saw played by some of the other guys. Really? You really -- you're trying to win a major championship and you put yourself in that position? Even once you put yourself in a position you shouldn't be in, you went ahead and multiplied it.

Tiger through the years, if you look at what he's done, he didn't have a lot of competition coming down the leaderboard. But he did have some competition; he knew what to do with it. If he was one or two shots ahead, if you look at the leaderboard of Smith, Jones and whatever, you know what I'm saying, or if you looked at the leaderboard, Palmer or Player or Trevino or Watson, you knew what to do.

And through the years his leaderboard were such that he didn't really have to do a whole lot except be smart, be solid. And it's not easy to be smart and solid. You've got to really play well to do that. But if you believe you can do that and you do it, then that's pretty special, which is what he did. He won those things because he was pretty special in the way he played.

But also when you come down the stretch also you get beat once or twice, then your whole frame of mind changes. Really? That guy can play, too. I better do something. Well, the Masters rolled back into what he used to have, because they all sort of folded back. And although he still played 3-under the last six holes except for 18, he bogeyed that, but still pretty good golf.

I don't know if I answered your question or not. I was trying to run around it, somehow trying to figure out what you said. But sometimes I guess I just forgot what you asked me (laughter).

Q. We probably went three, maybe four years of no one asking you whether Tiger was ever going to catch your record or a discussion about it.
JACK NICKLAUS: Kind of nice.

Q. Did you miss it? Did you miss talking about it?
JACK NICKLAUS: No, I never mind talking about it. But they stopped asking me for a while. I never thought that he would not chase my record some day. Who knows how long his body is going to stay together. You've had as many operations as he's had, he may be solid enough that it's all right. And if he is, I think he probably will break my record. But he's 43 years old, and when you get to be 43 years old and you start to get a little creak here and a little creak there, and all of a sudden every day is not the same -- I played with Tiger, I don't know, before Augusta, and he played just fantastic. But his neck was bothering him. And I'm sitting there, really? He shot 64 and everything was just perfect. But he said, I have a little problem with it.

He's going to have a lot more of those problems. We all have a lot of those problems. But if you manage them and you know how to take care of yourself, you know how to pace yourself, you can do that. And he's at the age where he needs -- he will and need to pace himself. He can't just do everything everybody asks him to do. He's got to be a little selfish. And that's okay.

Q. But did you -- and it's a little bit different because I get a sense that you started divesting your interest at a fairly young age for golf, but did you ever feel yourself getting older when you played? In other words, was it harder to win two majors at 35 than it was at 40?
JACK NICKLAUS: Prior to being ancient? What?

Q. Did you find it harder to win two majors at 35 than you did at 40?
JACK NICKLAUS: No, no. I thought winning them at age 40 was just as easy as winning them at 20. The only difference was that I knew what I was doing at 40 and I wasn't sure what I was doing at 20. I got lucky when I was 20 because talent carried me through there. But at age 40 I had to be smarter because I didn't have the talent I had at 20. I suppose I had the talent, I just didn't know how to get it out of me.

But I think as you get older you accommodate your aches and pains. You accommodate how you make adjustments to what your body is. But you get smarter, too. You should get smarter. If you don't get smarter, you're not progressing in life. Did that answer what you asked me?

Q. The PGA Tour is returning to Michigan here in a few weeks in Detroit, and I know you had a lot of history in Michigan, a lot of interest there. I'm curious what your memories are playing in Michigan.
JACK NICKLAUS: Where are they going in Michigan?

Q. Detroit.
JACK NICKLAUS: I don't know where you're going.

MARK WILLIAMS: That's a new event.

Q. Detroit Golf Club. I'm curious what you thought about the Tour. They haven't been in Michigan since the Buick in '09. I wonder what you thought about the importance of being back in that state and some of your memories of playing in Michigan.
JACK NICKLAUS: Me, from Ohio State, the importance of what goes on in Michigan? I didn't know anything important went on in Michigan (laughter).

Q. Not at the university, the whole state.
JACK NICKLAUS: I'm just kidding. It may sound funny to you, but I'm really a big Michigan fan. I'm a Michigan fan about 111 weeks a year. I wanted them to come in undefeated. But that wasn't your question.

Your question was about playing in Detroit. You know, I played -- we didn't play a TOUR event, we played the Buick in Warwick Hills, which the Seniors are going back there this year. We played Oakland Hills on several occasions, but that was usually the U.S. Open or the PGA Championship. And we played the Seniors, I probably played the TPC in Dearborn.

I played quite a bit in Detroit. But I never thought about -- I never played a regular Tour tournament, because they haven't played a regular Tour tournament. I think the last time I played a regular Tour tournament I think Chick Harbert was the pro at -- where was Chick the pro at? You probably don't remember Chick Harbert. But Chick was at -- is there something that starts with a W? It doesn't make any difference. But anyway, I played there back in the early '60s.

And I always played pretty well at Detroit. Big city, a lot of good golf courses. A lot of enthusiasm. It's great to go back there. I don't know how to answer your question other than trying to jump around it here, but not really answering anything, because I don't really know what you're asking me.

Q. With them returning, pro golf has been so big in Michigan for a long time --
JACK NICKLAUS: It's not really gone. You have events.

Q. I mean regular Tour events.
JACK NICKLAUS: You haven't had regular Tour golf in Detroit for 50 years, I would think, back in the early '60s, last time you had Tour golf in Michigan. It's been isolated to The Open, the Senior Open, the PGA Championship, you know, a few odd events. And Oakland Hills has been the prime mover of that. And Oakland Hills has been the one -- when you have a major championship in a city, it's very difficult to try to have a regular tournament. When was the last major championship we had in Columbus, Ohio? 1971? Is that when it was? PGA Championship?

Q. '64.
JACK NICKLAUS: I guess I shot 71 in the last round, I don't know (laughter).

But Columbus is a pretty good golf town. And we've -- but there's not room for us to have a major championship, too. It's very difficult. So if you're having it the other way, it's hard to have both there. I hope you understand what I'm saying. I'm not putting down anything on anybody, because I don't mean to, but I think it's very difficult to hold a major -- sell everything you have to sell to do that and also try to have a regular Tour tournament and sell everything you need to sell to make that successful.

Q. You were -- can you put in words just how meaningful it was to grow up in Ohio and develop your golf game in Ohio? You've been all over the place?
JACK NICKLAUS: Well, it's odd, you wouldn't think that Ohio was a hotbed of growing golfers but, Ohio -- in Western Pennsylvania there was a guy that came from there that was pretty decent (laughter).

But I like having -- I like seasons. To me you create so much more variety up in the northern part of the United States with your golf courses. And I think for a young guy to develop his game or her game, think you have more interesting things to do than -- even the South Florida and Texas, they develop probably more golfers, it's only because I think it's pure numbers that get to play year-round. But when you get a guy -- like Weiskopf was a pretty good player, obviously. Steve was a good player. You've got -- obviously Arnold came across from up here. Give me some help. Justin Thomas -- John Cook was a good player.

I mean, we've got a lot. But I enjoyed -- I loved growing up playing here because I was not a 12-month-a-year golfer. I thought that you burn yourself out by doing that. And I was a kid, I think kids should play more sports. And you grow up here, you have a tendency to play more sports. You go down south, and you don't play many other sports, you play the one sport that you play all year-round.

I think you develop -- the terrain develops you, more side hill lies, downhill lies, uphill lies. I happen to like it. I happen to enjoy it. I think I was blessed to be able to be a Buckeye. I think I was lucky to grow up in Columbus, Ohio, and grow up at a great golf course like Scioto, have the opportunity to play at a great university like The Ohio State University and play the Scarlet course, which is a wonderful golf course. We played -- Brookside was a Donald Ross golf course. Inverness was up here, was a Ross course. We had a lot of really, really nice golf courses to play and play events on. And I think the better the golf courses you play, the better you develop your game. I think that answers your question.

Q. Could you imagine Augusta National putting furrows in the traps or doing something to make bunker play more difficult as you once tried here?
JACK NICKLAUS: Well, you know, that's up to them because it's -- the furrows that we put in here were a result of what the Tour asked me to do. And the Tour said that year they were going to take easy bunker play out of the equation. I said, What do you want? He said, I think we need to rough rake the bunkers. You tell me why you want it done, and we'll do it. I've always been to experiment on what they ask to do. So we experimented, and the Tour says, Oh, no, no, we don't want to do that. I took the brunt for that. Pardon me, Mark, but the Tour didn't support me, even though they asked me.

I happen to think that a bunker should be a penalty. It's a place where you hit a shot that's an errant shot and goes in a place where the ball is not supposed to be. If it's supposed to be fairway, then the fairway would be 50 yards wide and not 35 yards wide with a 15-yard bunker.

But to get in there and get a line in the bunker, which is just as good as you had in the fairway, does that make sense? It didn't to me. Carl Pettersson won the tournament here. Carl didn't hit it in a fairway bunker that week. And that's when he won.

The Tour average of getting up-and-down on greenside bunkers was 45 percent. The Tour, when they played here and we had rough raked the bunkers, it was 44 percent. So basically -- it accomplished what we wanted; was the guy who drove the ball straightest, kept it out of the bunkers on the tee, and the bunker play around the green -- I didn't think it would change around the green. I thought the only thing that would change would be off the tee, and I think it did. It did what it was supposed to.

Now, you're saying would Augusta do that? Augusta pretty much makes their own rules. They've done a pretty darn good job for 83 or -4 years, whatever it is. I think they've done a pretty good job. And they've tried to do everything in the best interests of the game. Why the question?

Q. They talked after the tournament that there were things they could do to make the course harder.
JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, that would make the golf course more difficult, making the bunkers more difficult to recover from, sure. That would be a little bit difficult. But why? Whether the bunkers here or smooth or the bunkers are rough raked, it's the same for everybody except it does require you to think a little bit about -- guys play par-5s and they would just as soon be in a greenside bunker as being in the rough around the green, it's a lot easier shot. If you've got a bunker that the lie will be questionable on how you could play and do with it, then that's a different story. Then you better be thinking you better not go in that bunker.

That's what Fred is talking about, right? But it's their call if they want to do that. I don't think anybody would not go back to Augusta because they put in furrows in the bunkers. We played at Oakmont in '62, they said they didn't rough rake them. But it was like -- they had a rake like this (indicating), and if you took the furrows, the bottom of each rake bottom was about two inches or two and a half inches apart, and each hump was about an inch high. Like a big saw-tooth.

You got in there, you didn't hit it very far. You might get lucky and get on top of the one of the knobs on the bunkers and hit it out, but you're taking a pitching wedge or sand wedge and hit it out to the short grass. And I happen to think -- to me, I think -- we played in the British Open for years, there were no rakes in the British Open. It's whatever you did with your feet, you raked it with your golf shoe, that's how we raked the bunkers. If you happened to get unlucky and the guy didn't do a very good job, you had to play a tough shot. But you didn't want to be in that bunker, particularly a lot of bunkers that guys played a lot of shots into. Greenside bunker, 30 percent of the players hit it in there, you didn't want to be there.

Q. (Off microphone.)
JACK NICKLAUS: On his tee shot?

Q. Would you consider Tiger one of the favorites for Pebble Beach?
JACK NICKLAUS: I would consider him favorite, he won by 15 shots when he played there. Sure. Absolutely. He loves it, absolutely he should be the favorite. There could be a lot of other guys that you could call to be the favorite, too. Today we have so many good players on Tour. We have more good players on Tour today than we've ever had. And these guys can play. And each week they come out and somebody will astonish you with their play that you don't expect to play.

But the solid players always play well, too. And for Tiger to dominate them is difficult. He could beat them and should be a favorite or the favorite, yeah, that's fine, but there are a lot of other guys that can still play pretty good. Not necessarily the case 15 years ago.

Q. On the 5th hole at Pebble, I guess when you consider land acquisition and construction, is that likely the most expensive par-3 ever built? What do you recall about --
JACK NICKLAUS: Didn't cost me anything (laughter). No, it wasn't very expensive. The land was, probably. I don't know what they sold the land behind it for. I mean, they sold -- Schwab bought one of the lots and somebody else bought a lot. I don't know, but I assume that extended into the old par-3. Probably did. Did it not? If it did, the land sale paid for what they had back there and Pebble Beach came out ahead. They had the hole on the ocean rather than in the back woods.

Q. I never saw the old one.
JACK NICKLAUS: Come on, you're old enough to have seen that.

Q. They never let me in the gates back then.
JACK NICKLAUS: Really?

Q. What was it like for you when you finally had a chance and they got the land to go along the coast? What was your thought process on designing it?
JACK NICKLAUS: Let's find it. You can't really take the coast of the Pacific Ocean and Carmel and design a hole. If you look at 6, 6 is found. They had this big hill that went down and you played on top of the hill. 7, you couldn't design that. How could you design it? You had a place here and a place down here, for a hundred-yard hole, you just put it in there if you want it to. There's no tee shot at 8. But the second shot at 8 is the most magnificent shot in the world because it far makes up for what the tee shot was.

The 5th hole there were two or three trees -- there was one big oak tree behind the green, which is gone now, it passed on us. I don't know whether that was through -- I really don't know what happened to it. I think it may have gotten in one of those windstorms or may have gotten diseased. I don't know what happened to it. But a gorgeous -- part of that was part of the design, fitting into it and around, the leaves in the background. But I think that hole fits the rest of the golf course quite nicely. It doesn't look like an orphan. It looks like it fits. I found the hole, I didn't invent it. It was there.

Q. In 2000, did they have rough left of the green?
JACK NICKLAUS: I designed it with a bounce in from front left. I thought that because of the slope you needed to have a little bail-out and bounce into the green, because I thought it was too difficult sitting on the thing to try to carry it in with as much as it pitched to the right. So I opened it up and came back for The Open in -- what was it? -- '92 -- 2000? And they put it in rough. I said, guys, what are you doing? I says -- it turned out to be the most difficult hole in tournament, of course, that week. Only because of one reason, because of the piece of rough they took out. They redesigned my hole.

So the next time we played The Open there it was back in fairway, and the hole played with a reasonable balance with the rest of the course. And you don't need to listen to those designers (laughter).

Q. How did you play for the week, do you remember?
JACK NICKLAUS: I don't know. I had a short week, if I recall. 2000? I think I made a par and a bogey, but I'm not sure.

MARK WILLIAMS: Mr. Nicklaus, thank you. Before we wrap it up here, there's a couple of people that you'd like to recognize that have made significant contributions to The Memorial?

JACK NICKLAUS: I'm looking for -- there's one walking into the room. Moose, are you leaving us?

PAUL SPOHN: Yes, sir.

JACK NICKLAUS: After 46 years?

PAUL SPOHN: 47 on Channel 10.

JACK NICKLAUS: How can we let you go? You've covered every Memorial Tournament. You've been a great friend to all of us here. We appreciate it and we thank you for all your years of service and friendship. Appreciate it. Thank you (applause.)

There's a young guy behind you, there? David McMannis, is he behind you there? You can step forward. Dave's been the security at the Media Center for 30 years. And he's taking care of everything, and every time I've walked in he says, "Hmm...back" (indicating.) He's been great. Dave's retiring after 30 years. You are retiring? Are they going to tell you you're going to retire or tell us?

DAVID McMANNIS: 40 years working the tournament, and 30 of them in the Media Center. Everything I did with you was because of Barbara.

JACK NICKLAUS: She's not here to defend herself.

DAVID McMANNIS: I'm defending her.

JACK NICKLAUS: You have always taken care of us, and appreciate all the things you've done and all the service you put in. You are really going to leave us?

DAVID McMANNIS: Sunday evening.

JACK NICKLAUS: Really?

DAVID McMANNIS: Yes, I may come to work somewhere, but be done with the schedule.

JACK NICKLAUS: Thanks so much. Much appreciated (applause.)

MARK WILLIAMS: Thanks again for being a wonderful host, Mr. Nicklaus. We appreciate it.

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