THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

June 1, 2021

Jack Nicklaus

Muirfield Village

Press Conference

DOUG MILNE: We'll go ahead and get started. We are joined by our tournament Host, Jack Nicklaus. Why don't you get us started.

JACK NICKLAUS: You don't want me to bore you with the changes. You do? I will do whatever you want. I'm saying I can go through that. That only takes about 45 minutes, so. (Laughing.) But I can be quicker than that.

But, last year we finished up the golf tournament and I finally turned to Chad, who is back here in the back and I said, Chad, we got to get rid that have blasted poa annua. I mean, those greens just looked horrible on television, they looked horrible -- and the greens were putting beautifully, there was nothing wrong with the way the golf course played or anything. Aesthetically, I can't stand the look of it. I said why don't we take the top three inches and just skim it off, put some fresh mix on the stop, sterilize it and plant back some new grass. That will last us for six, seven eight years, maybe if you maintain it and do that. And he says, he says, Jack, I don't think that's what we should do. I said, What do you want to do? And he said, well, what I was doing was about, cost about that much. And so he said, Well, he says, You really need to get into the mix. The mix is our problem, you know it's our problem. I said, I know, but I can live with the mix, we get enough rain in the spring, it's probably not going to make that much difference. And he said, No no, he said, I want, if we're going to do this thing, let's do the thing right. I said, Okay.

So we -- and we never, we haven't done it since 30 years anyway. And so we decided to go in and take the mix out and put in fresh mix. Our mix -- the reason why you got sort of from a layman's term, to get greens firm you need an angular mix. If you have round, if you have a round mix, which is a lot of courses got round mix back about 30 years ago, because there was a sort of a the flavor of the day was fast percolation. And so we were perking about 30 inches an hour. Well that's all well and good, we got rid of the water very nicely. But round doesn't compact. And you can't get anything firm. So that's where we were.

And so I said, Okay, I know that's right. He says, Well and while we're there. Yeah. He says, We really got to redo the fairways too because we're just going to track it back on to the green. Really? Okay. I knew that.

And he says, You know, our irrigation system's about due, so we really need to do that. No sense not doing it. And of course all the bunkers are over time have gotten to where they really need work. I said, What you're trying to say is you want to build a new golf course. Yeah. That's what Chad wanted to do. Chad back there, he's the culprit, my superintendent. And he's a good man. He's a good man and he's a hard working guy that -- I mean I couldn't, during the work I tried to get him out to go watch his son play a football game. I had to kick him off the site to get him to go watch his son. Got you there, didn't we? Yes, we did.

Anyway, so we started on this process and as you know we started tearing up the green the last day of the tournament and as you were on the back nine we were tearing the 6th green up. And so we started off the next day and I had done a little bit of preliminary work, but not a lot, really, I had an idea of what I wanted to do, to a large degree. Chris Cochran from my office, who is terrific, Chris has been with me now I guess 29 years or something like that. Maybe 30, I'm not sure. But anyway, Chris was my design associate on the site and we started to work.

And Chad got in LaBar Construction out of Jersey are they? Out of Jersey. And they had, at one time they had as much as 150 people working on this site at one time. That's a lot of people to try to organize that. And anyway they went in and we just obliterated the place. And what you got out there is what you see now.

The key elements of what we did is moving the third green or first green back about 30 yards. Changed the total style of the green. I never -- for some reason I wasn't real happy with what I did the first time so maybe what I did the second will be better.

2, didn't do much.

3, we had a bunker that flooded on the right side of the green, so decided to get rid of that so we wouldn't have the flooding issue. And now we got the green goes to the water and we softened it out so we can putt everywhere.

The 4th green was just too small for everybody. Now it went from the smallest green on the golf course to the largest green on the golf course. 50 yards long now. So you can play a 175 yard shot or a 225 yard shot. We broadened that green about three paces. And so that one turned out nicely. I may have gotten too generous with it, we'll see how it plays this week. That can easily be corrected.

The 5th hole, totally new concept. We restricted the tee shot at the end of the fairway, put rough on that slope that we had for about 60, 70 yards and then moved the green back about 30 yards to the left. I always felt like we had the green too high so we dropped down what we did up there and down to the smallest green on the golf course. And you can get into the green, you can play a nice shot and take it right into the green beautifully. You miss, you start bailing out and then all of a sudden you got a pretty awkward little chip over bunkers to a slope running away to water. They will have their fun with that.

6, we didn't do much except to soften the green a little bit so we could have a little bit more cupping. Lengthened it a little bit. I think we got 12 yards on it.

7, we got about eight yards. Tee shot was there, but the green used to be pretty much this way and I made it more this way (Indicating) but also added a little bit more spice in it so if you're in the front part of the green working to the left side you now have, it's not just a gimmie. And over the green before was rough and a bunker, took all that out and just put it into fairway. So we got a chipping area around the green, I think, which is something that we hadn't had much on this golf course, I think it's a nice little thing to put on golf courses every once in awhile and I think it works nicely. I think the guys are going to have to do a little bit of work there.

8's basically the same.

9, I added a pin placement on the right. Expanded the green to the right.

10's a totally new green. We could only cup in the back left or the front right before, now I can cup all over the green. And I moved it left, we got a place where the green will work out right if somebody's slicing the ball into the back part of the green. I think you'll like it. It's a beautiful hole.

11, moved the green about five yards left, just because those trees on the right on the second shot sort of get in the way. Always have gotten in the way. We keep trimming them, I said, Why don't we just move the green over since we're doing this and move the green over about five yards. And that's what we did and created a little bit more of a bowl. And what that means is if you get the ball in there it will be really -- it won't be very hard. But if you miss it a little bit, right, left or long, the chip coming down the slope is going to be a lot of work. It's going to be -- you have to be very careful with it.

Those playing it as a three-shot hole will have a great advantage because they will throw it into the bank and it will get pretty close, have a lot of birdies there.

12, we didn't change.

13, we didn't change. Except for over the bunker it used to be about a 40-yard fairway and no trees, the guys were hitting it over there. And now it's 22-yard fairway and about 15 new trees. So have at it, guys, I don't care. If you want to hit it in the fairway, that's fine. That's quite all right. But don't just plan on just hitting it up there anywhere and playing a sand wedge to the green out of the rough, you're going to have to work at that. Didn't change the green there.

Did not change 14 at all. It's always been my probably my favorite short hole in golf. The short par-4 in golf. So I love that hole. I think most of the guys like that hole.

15, pretty big change there, we already moved the tee back, but I didn't, and I wanted to see what happened when we moved the tee back with last year's tournament and more guys hit it into the face of the hill, a lot of guys were getting it to the top and I said, That's not fair. It's not fair that the medium-length hitter is penalized for not being, you know -- or I shouldn't say he's giving away too many advantage to the longer hitter. And so tried to bring the fairway back, knock it down, took it down about 20 feet. And when I did that it shoved, it worked left -- there's a creek over to the left now, it relates to the creek over to the left. Put some bunkers to take up the transition coming out of the trees, so we get a, so it looks like it flows nicely and it looks really good looking at it. But you can hit the ball 200 yards off the tee and you can see the whole rest of the hole. Which is what I wanted to do. The members will love it.

Up around the green I felt like we had water coming by the green, but it wasn't really utilized, so we had a mound to the right of the bunkers right of the green, we took the mound out and so the bunkers are right, if you miss the bunkers right, you're going to go to water. If you hit the green long or left, you got a chip coming down that will be fairly quick. And you can still see, they're still going to see a lot of birdies and eagles there, but you're also going to see a few 6s and 7s, which they're not used to seeing.

16, we put it back exactly as it was. When we -- remember everybody how hard that green's been? It's been like a rock. And so when we took the mix out it was it came out in chunks. And I said, Wow, that's pretty telling, telltale that it wasn't right. And so they put it back in and all of a sudden I said, I looked at it and I kept saying, Why did we put this thing back exactly like we had it before? I said, Nobody could stop it on the green before. And I said to Chris, I said, Chris, where do you have this thing draining? And I really was, it was, I was, I was, it was negligence on my part. And he said, Well, it goes out the back left. I said, Really? I said, You got a hole that's downhill, downwind going out the back part of the green.

So we took seven inches out of the center of the green and added seven inches to the back of the green and basically created the same -- now the green sits to you.

17, we just narrowed the fairway a little bit, with a few different, we did the bunkers, softened the green a little bit.

18, we only had one cup in the back of the green. So now I think we probably -- we can get three back there, can't you Chad? Now you get about three cups back there as we laid the green back down. Balls will go up in the back and just roll back down now. Your ball's going to get through the green and you're going to have a nice little chip that's going to be fun.

Outside of that I didn't do anything, guys.

DOUG MILNE: Well, we are well over a year since we had our first traditional press conference and so we appreciate the fact that you're a part of that and with that we'll open it up and take a few questions.

Q. Curious on one thing, are you following much on the French Open tennis with Naomi Osaka?

JACK NICKLAUS: Am I following it?

Q. Yeah.

JACK NICKLAUS: No.

Q. She chose not to speak during --

JACK NICKLAUS: I heard that.

Q. -- and then withdrew from the tournament. I just was curious your thoughts on it, given --

JACK NICKLAUS: Well I hope nobody refuses to speak here.

Q. You're doing good so far.

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, well, I'm not playing either.

Q. I think what made me think of it was your reputation of dealing with the media has been outstanding since before some of us were born. Do you think you would be -- what was your approach back then, what was it like back then and do you think it would be any different now given five or six different broadcast outlets that are now part of the mix?

JACK NICKLAUS: I honestly don't know. But my outlook -- my -- my view towards the press has always been you guys have got a job to do. And I tried to be honest with you, straightforward with you, I tried to answer your questions the best of my ability. If I thought there was something that I probably shouldn't answer, I probably answered it anyway, you know that. But I probably sometimes should have kept my mouth shut.

So I have always dealt with you guys that I treated you fairly, you treated me fairly. And I don't understand some of the young people today and thinking they're not going to get treated fairly. I mean, you always get treated fairly if you treat somebody else fairly. That's always been our way.

Maybe there's always some, there's always a snake in the crowd somewhere who decides they want to do something, but you can't blame everybody for one bad apple. And I don't know what she felt, went into, I have not read anything about it, I just heard she withdrew because she didn't want to go to a press conference and that she felt like she had some issue that --

Q. Anxiety.

JACK NICKLAUS: Anxiety? Well, if she has that and that's, and that bothers her, I mean, then you guys should be able to, you know, accommodate her and allow her to do what she needs to do without running her through the ringer. I mean, if she has a problem, if she really has one, you don't know that, I don't know that, only she knows that and her doctor probably knows it.

So I can't fault her, so I don't really -- one of the times I probably should keep my mouth shut a little bit because I just don't know. I mean, open mouth insert foot? I mean, is that a fair answer to you?

Q. It is, yeah. I was actually we were talking last week when just what it was like for you when you finished a round. I was just curious how much different you think the media was back then?

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't think -- I think people are people. I think you have a people, a few people in the media today who are trying to make a name and they want to get sensational. We have had that for 20 years or so. Didn't have it much right when I was growing up. But for the -- you pretty well identify those people pretty quickly. And then you're just careful with what you do. But I'm still, but still you got a job to do. And I think that -- I mean our guys have been pretty good with the press, I don't think you have anybody that's bad with the press, are you?

DOUG MILNE: None at all. (Laughing.)

JACK NICKLAUS: Surprise answer. (Laughing.) But I don't think you -- I don't think that's a big issue with golf. I feel badly for her and I hope that she, I hope that she, whatever she need or if she needs help or whatever she needs, I hope she gets it. But it's a, you know, I just don't know enough about it to really comment honestly on it.

Q. A question for the local folks about -- a year ago they got to 18 and both the tournaments that were played here and nobody was there and it was a stark reminder of what was going on in the world a year ago and even to an extent --

JACK NICKLAUS: I was there. (Laughing).

Q. But the people who have made this tournament so significant over the years and have followed it with such passion, obviously the fans that come here every year, they weren't here. The value of having them back this year and what that provides, the energy, obviously they spend their money, they spend their time, they care, but can you just --

JACK NICKLAUS: Well I think the PGA TOUR did an unbelievable job last year. I mean, here you have a PGA TOUR with no fans, and you had sponsors who still were sponsoring, they got television time and so forth, but they weren't getting their full-time, they couldn't bring in their pro-am guests, they couldn't entertain, they couldn't do a lot of things. And the PGA TOUR stood up and took care of that financially.

I mean, that shows that the strength of the PGA TOUR is pretty strong. And from a television standpoint obviously they have done very, very well, so they're, they were able to do that. But you can't sustain that over a long period of time. It's impossible. It can't happen. But I thought they did great job. And they did the best they could.

As a matter of fact they're probably the only -- I can't imagine any other tour that had a full schedule last year, any other sport, that did what the PGA TOUR did. They took -- they took the best they could of a bad situation and did a great job with it. The players all said, Hey, we don't need to have any fans around, this is great. (Laughing.) I understand that. But and I also understand that who pays the bills. And the guys have, I think they're welcoming people back, you're getting larger, larger crowds every week, allowing more and more people to come to the tournaments. We're going to be back close to normal here probably in another month or two. And I think that the -- we welcome people coming back, people that have supported us for years. We welcome our Captains Club back who couldn't be here last year. We welcome our honoree ceremony back, which we couldn't do last year, with Nick Price. And of course we're honoring -- we couldn't do Jim Nantz last year for journalism award and Tim Rosaforte we're doing this year. So we have got, we're doing that.

We are not bringing back the clinic this year because we didn't put up the stands, but next year we'll bring back the clinic.

What else did we cancel? What was the other thing we cancelled? Do you remember? We had one other thing. The clinic the only thing? The Legends Lunch, we couldn't have that. We're going to have that in the fall. But there was something else too on the golf course. I don't remember what it was.

But anyway, I think we're getting back to normal. We're getting there. We really thank the people who have stayed with us and understood that it just doesn't, it just doesn't happen, they have got to work at it and things have got to happen and be the right way. So we're -- I think we're very blessed in the game of golf to have had the support and patience of everybody and we're thankful for it.

Q. Given the changes to the golf course how difficult do you anticipate this course to play for these players this week?

JACK NICKLAUS: I would say probably a shot or two -- probably a shot easier. I think the golf course is easier. I didn't want to make the golf course tougher, I wanted to make it better. And when I say that, the mix really will be the contributing factor. I mean, Chad won't be able to get the greens as firm and as fast as he would normally get them, am I correct? It will be close.

CHAD MARK: We're trending well, but it's young turf, we're not going to push anything.

JACK NICKLAUS: You're not going to stress them to the level that we normally stress them. And so, but he's got Precision Air underneath the greens now, so in future years, the whole idea with the greens are that we could take, keep the moisture level up a little bit for the membership and they can play the golf course and enjoy it. All we do is bring the moisture level down for the tournament and then all of a sudden we can firm it up to whatever level we want to firm it up to. And that's sort of what we're, where we wanted to get. But I knew we couldn't get there this year.

So I think that next year you're going to see the tournament be pretty close to the average of what it's been. I mean, if we get high, dry skies and windy weather, scores will be up close to 280. If we get really wet conditions, I don't think they will be as down as far as they will because they will be able to take the moisture out. But they will still drop it, it just naturally would.

But the membership will play the golf course and I think they will enjoy it. They all, they came in and said, oh, they love the golf course, but boy that rough's deep. The rough has nothing to do with you playing the golf course. We only put rough there because we're having the tournament. When the tournament's over we cut the rough down, so don't worry about the rough.

Isn't that a typical comment from a member? I mean, you spend 10 million dollars and they worry about the rough. I mean, it took 30 dollars of fertilizer to create the rough to that height or whatever it was -- or $300.

So anyway, the golf course is really good. I am so pleased with what Chad's done and his people, the golf course obviously -- I mean, I came here May 1st, the fairways were terrific then. They're still terrific. Your greens were almost tournament quality May 1st. I mean, obviously a month later they're much more so. They're fined out, they're really look good. The bunkers are new. The drainage is good now. It's just -- it's things you couldn't band-aid. And Chad was right and, you know, we won't do this again for another two or three years. (Laughing.)

It will be a long time before we do this. I called it my last bite at the apple and I think I'm hoping that I might have to take an extra couple of little touches after the tournament that we'll probably see how it plays, we might touch a couple little things, but nothing that amounts to anything. I think the golf course is really good. I'm really pleased with it.

Q. This is a potential foot in mouth question.

JACK NICKLAUS: For me or you?

Q. Well for you.

JACK NICKLAUS: Okay.

Q. There's a pretty good feud going on with Brooks and Bryson right now. Is that good for golf and do you -- two-parter -- can you imagine having social media in your day, what that would have looked like?

JACK NICKLAUS: First of all, I don't know whether there's a feud or not. If a feud is there, my guess it was probably more media driven than Bryson or Brooks. I don't think either one of them are driven in that direction.

Could I imagine doing, playing when I played to have the social media the way it is today? It would drive you crazy. I mean, it's, I mean, I don't care what you do, you're not right or you're not wrong. You got a side to everything and everybody debates everything. I mean, we got -- Aunt Julie from Grove City getting Peter H from Hillyard and they're arguing over something that means nothing, right? You know what I'm talking about.

And so, but I mean, but it gets in the news and all of a sudden something and it's there. But I mean, we didn't have any of that. And we never -- did we have -- every -- did we have arguments with guys? Sure we all had arguments. Arnold and I were the best of friends, but Arnold and I have a feud ever once in awhile? Sure. I mean, if you don't have an argument with a guy, I mean, you -- he can't stand up for you -- but Arnold and I 99 percent of the time agreed on everything that should be good for the game of golf. We didn't' agree on some things, but that's okay. But, you know, every time I needed support, Arnold had my back and every time he needed support, you know, I had his back.

And I think that's the way the guys -- I don't think you would find -- in the end I don't think you would find Bryson and Brooks to be any different. Did I keep my foot out? Okay.

Q. Xander was saying this morning that he let Kiawah get in his head he --

JACK NICKLAUS: I'm sorry?

Q. Xander Schauffele said he let Kiawah get into his head before the tournament started. Consequently, he didn't play well. Did you ever let something like that happen to you?

JACK NICKLAUS: Oh, are you kidding? Sure. Absolutely. Not very often. But you realize it when you did it. I mean, I remember -- I can go back through the years and quickly pick out three or four sites that didn't fit my eye or something I didn't like or didn't prepare for. One was '68 Pecan Valley, San Antonio. I just, I didn't, I never got interested. I mean, it was ridiculous. You only got four majors a year. What in the world are you doing? I mean, that's stupid.

And you know, and I and you're not supposed to fit the golf course to your eye, you're supposed to fit your eye to the golf course. In other words, you're supposed to fit your game to the course. That's why we play different courses. Otherwise, we play the same course every week. So that was my fault to do that and I missed the cut. Okay.

Oak Hill -- or Oak Tree. Now that was '87 or '88. '88? '88. I didn't prepare properly for Oak Tree and then I had to stay over, after I missed the cut I had to stay over to do television. And, you know, there's nothing worse than staying over the weekend and talking about somebody else playing golf after you missed the cut. I promise you that. It's not a lot of fun.

So Barbara happened to go down to McDonald's with Michael during the week and she brought me back an -- I think it was a Saturday or Sunday morning -- she had a little sippy cup that she got from McDonald's and put it on my thing -- with orange juice in it -- and said, There is no excuse for not being properly prepared. I still got that cup. But I mean she's absolutely dead right.

In other words -- and Trevino always said, he said he could never play at Augusta. He says, I can't play this golf course. I said, Lee -- he says, The golf course doesn't fit me. I said, Lee, it's not supposed to fit you, you're supposed to fit your game to the golf course. And I said, You can play any golf course. Lee Trevino was as good a golfer as ever lived. This guy could really play golf. And he just got it in his head that he could not play that golf course.

And we all get that occasionally. So I had weeks where I just didn't either feel good or I wasn't motivated. Why, I don't know. Not too many, fortunately, because most of the time I was ready to play. And the way I always looked at it is as long as I properly prepared, and I gave it my best effort, and if somebody beat me, well done, congratulations. Because I don't want to be, I'm not embarrassed because I gave it the best effort I could give it that week. And that's all I could ask myself to do. So that's sort of what I looked at. I mean, and I don't know what about Xander, what you were talking about with what?

Q. He said before the PGA last month.

JACK NICKLAUS: Oh, down at Kiawah? It never fit his eye?

Q. Yes.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well that can happen. And sometimes, I mean, if I took the British rota, I mean St. Andrews fit my eye well, Muirfield fit my eye well. Birkdale actually I was in between. Sandwich is the one that I could never get to fit my eye the way I wanted it and I never played great at Sandwich. But that's my fault not the golf course's. It's just, it's my -- I got -- you -- if you got one that doesn't fit you you got to work a little extra hard to make it fit it. That's basically all it is. You don't arrive on Monday and expect it to get there. If you don't like what you're doing, go in the Monday before and play some practice rounds and you need to get it there if you want to win.

Q. From a '67 Sports Illustrated article about you it said, With his power and ability to carry the ball in the air a long way, Nicklaus offered drives over fairway bunkers that catch shorter off-line tee shots. That means he doesn't have to worry about the sand, nor does being in the rough bother him as much as it does others, because it's an advantage for him there with his strength too. He slams the clubhead through heavy grass and makes sharp contact with the ball in lies that would defeat anyone else.

JACK NICKLAUS: DeChambeau 40 years earlier? That was your question.

Q. Right. With that in mind, when you watched what Bryson did in the U.S. Open last year, how did you take that and does it draw any comparison?

JACK NICKLAUS: Well what I would draw from that is that Bryson figured out that he probably -- if he didn't, if he was going to miss -- let's say he's going to miss 30 percent of the fairways. If he hit it -- and he's going to be playing 7-iron out of the rough. If he hit it 30 yards further, and missed 30 percent of the fairways, he's going to hit wedge out of the rough. And he figured out that he would be better off with a wedge. And he was. He won the U.S. Open with that. That was his philosophy.

Bryson's a cerebral guy, as you know. So he thinks about -- that's the kind of things he thinks -- nobody else is going to think about that, to change their whole body to play at a U.S. Open. But he did. And you got to give him credit. You give credit where credit's due and he did a great job with it and he performed well, he won the tournament, and well done.

So, you know, I pretty much did that naturally. I mean, I had tree trunks for legs and so it allowed me to really just drive through any rough. I didn't have a problem with rough. But -- and I hit it far enough to where I'm not playing long clubs. So, much the same. I don't think I am obviously hitting the ball as far as he's hitting it, because we didn't have a golf ball that would go that far.

But there were a lot of golf courses I didn't worry about much about the rough. But I always felt like I played golf courses better when I played the fairways. And I was much better off with a shorter golf course than a longer golf course. Oddly enough that's the way I felt, because I much preferred playing golf with my head and playing golf to where I had to strategically plan how I played a hole or a shot. And I said, Should I hit 3-wood here, should I play 1-iron here or should I just stand back and blast a driver? I never played well on courses that I did that on. And probably because, you know, it didn't make me think, I just stood back and just hit it. So I thought what he did was fantastic.

Q. I'm sure you saw this Senior Open with Phil at Kiawah on the 18th with all the fans and obviously you had a few moments like that in your career. But we have had some incidents in sports here lately where fans have gotten a little out of control and maybe they could have that day. I'm just curious if you're concerned or if you have had any -- and if maybe it was for you at one point where you were worried about getting run over or anything like that?

JACK NICKLAUS: Oh, we got run over a few times. I mean, I got run over at the British Open every year. I mean, when I won the British Open at Saint Andrews in '70 and in '78 we got run over. I don't think -- we didn't at Muirfield, because they kept everybody out of the rough, or out of that. Baltusrol, in '80, the galleries came up right with us. We had to fight our way through that a little bit.

I actually, you know, actually though, from a players' standpoint, they may get a little scared, but actually it's a nice experience to see people so enthusiastic that -- they love it. I mean, is there going to be some idiot that's going to do something stupid? Probably will be. But for the most part 99 percent of those people or 99.9 percent of those people are excited to be there, thrilled to be able to get out on the fairway, thrilled to be able to sit, stand next to Phil playing the last hole. You know, I mean -- and at Baltusrol, when I won in '80, I kept worrying about getting hurt going from green to tee with people hitting me on the shoulder, Keep going. Way to go. I got blasted a lot. And but, you know, you look back on it and you say, that was really nice. It was a nice experience.

And so I'm -- I'm not -- I don't think it's something that should be alarming. Or something you should do much about. I think that at the British Open and a few odd tournaments it's been a tradition. I don't know -- we tried, we don't have many of them on the TOUR, do we?

DOUG MILNE: What's that?

JACK NICKLAUS: Where the gallery goes up. You haven't been following what we're talking about?

DOUG MILNE: No, I have. (Laughing.) I'm with you. The PGA.

JACK NICKLAUS: No, no, I'm sorry. But we don't have any tournaments where we let the gallery out, do we?

DOUG MILNE: Just the PGA.

JACK NICKLAUS: That's the only one. So just the PGA that they allow it to happen. But -- excuse me, I couldn't resist that. (Laughing.)

But anyway, you know, I don't have an objection to it, frankly. Because I think it's -- I think it's kind of, I think it's fan friendly and I think it's getting the guys -- they relate more to the player and they're more -- they say, I was out there on the 18th fairway and I got Phil and I got to touch him. They don't want them touching him, but, I got to do that and I snuck it in and, boy, I was really excited and, boy, it was fun. And they remember that the rest of their lives. So I don't, I don't have a big objection to that.

I understand the TOUR's position on that, because you are trying to protect the guys. I understand that. I don't have a problem with that.

Q. Would you like to see it here?

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't think we need, I don't think we need to because we have got enough space on 18 that people can go everywhere without having to come out on the fairway. And if they come out on the fairway they can't see anyway because they're down below the green. So fortunately we don't have that issue.

DOUG MILNE: One last question. Have you had a chance to see Rory since he's been fine tuning his swing, his work with Pete at all? Just your thoughts.

JACK NICKLAUS: Working with?

DOUG MILNE: Pete Cowan.

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't know him.

DOUG MILNE: Okay. All right. Easy enough. That's --

JACK NICKLAUS: He's changed teachers?

DOUG MILNE: He's been working with, yeah, Pete and he just added Pete.

JACK NICKLAUS: Mike?

Q. He's still with both.

JACK NICKLAUS: Is that his name? Mike, his teacher? Yeah, Mike. Yeah. But he's got this guy helping him?

DOUG MILNE: Yeah.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well no. I'm going to tell you a story, what did I with Jack Grout. Jack Grout was my only teacher. But Jack Grout understood that there were more ways to play golf than just what he thought. Now pay attention. (Laughing).

DOUG MILNE: I'm hanging on to every word.

JACK NICKLAUS: So Grout decided, he said, Jack, he said, I want you to go take a lesson from Byron Nelson, from Bob Toski, and from Claude Harmon. I said, Why do you want me to do that? I want you to understand that there are other ways to play the game than what I teach. And says, But I think and you need to understand that.

Now he sent me to Toski, Toski was identical to Grout. Hands underneath the club, good base, use those lower legs, swung the club, created a great rhythm, he was great.

Byron? Byron was sliding his hips and trying to get me to slide my hips and do things that he was doing. Couldn't do it.

Claude Harmon? Claude Harmon, he got me right here (Indicating.) This is just before I went to the Walker Cup matches in 1959, Grout sent me over to see Claude Harmon. And I said Man, Grout, why did you do that right before I was going to play the Walker Cup. I came back and I popped my hand back, I said, I can't play that way. But that doesn't mean you can't play that way. I mean, there's different ways to play this game.

And if you look at Jon Rahm's this way, Dustin Johnson's this way, Jordan's a little bit this way. And Jordan's played much better lately since he's gotten more back this way, because that's the way he played most of his life. He had been trying to get it up here and it hadn't worked for him. He's back over here a little bit and now it's working for him.

So that was what Grout wanted to do, he wanted to teach me there's more ways to play the game and that I ought to know that and ought to be able to do it and so that's why I'm sure that Rory's been being going to somebody else and getting more philosophies.

The only one that I never understood though was Tiger and he wanted to -- at Pebble Beach he won by 12 shots is that what he won by?

Q. 15.

JACK NICKLAUS: 15 shots? Excuse me. He won by 15 shots and it, the next week he went to somebody else that to, on another lesson. I never understood that. Here's a guy just beat the world by 15 shots and he's going to somebody else. He only beat them by 12 the next time, I guess. But anyway, that's just sort of my take.

Anybody else got anything else? We're in pretty good shape.

Q. It seems like Tiger and there were others like him always searching for something new. Were you ever searching for anything new?

JACK NICKLAUS: I was -- I tell you, most of the time when we played, the guys would help each other. I had Phil Rodgers would come by and make a comment to me or Gardner Dickinson would make a comment to me or, let's see, some of the older guys that I played with. Gary occasionally would make a comment to me. Arnold. You could never make a comment to Arnold about his swing or he would never make one about yours. Arnold was taught by his dad and there was only one way to play golf for Arnold. And that's okay. That's the way he was though. But he was very tight about that not wanting to do anything else.

I remember, let's see, I mean, it was a -- we always helped each other a little bit. And I felt like, you know, if this guy is going to help me, then I'll help him too, which I did. I mean, I helped Rodgers on a few occasions and Rodgers changed my whole short game in 1980. I won two major championships and I think largely because of Phil Rodgers.

So we all have, we all have everybody to thank. It's a game that, thankfully, guys get along great, they're willing to help each other for the better of the game and what they're doing.

Q. I guess what made me think of it is guys apparently back in the day they would watch other players on the range and I wondered how much of that goes on now. If everyone is just so in tune with what they're doing they don't look around, why wouldn't you look at Tiger, why wouldn't you look at you?

JACK NICKLAUS: I watch all the guys. We had 30 kids down at the Bear's Club that I see them all the time. I watch them constantly. I keep my mouth shut unless asked. But generally speaking I see things all the time and especially I see it creep into their game. And then a lot of times they come to me and I say, I saw this a couple months ago, I said, But I didn't want to open my mouth, because I didn't want to do that to you. Okay?

DOUG MILNE: Thank you very much for your time.

JACK NICKLAUS: Thank you, guys. Thank you.