MASTERS TOURNAMENT

April 6, 2023

Jack Nicklaus

Gary Player

Tom Watson

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, literally, I am delighted and thrilled to be joined by our Honorary Starters and three of the greatest heroes and champions this game has ever known, with six-time winner Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, three-time winner and twice, Tom Watson.

It is an extraordinary pleasure to see you. The Honorary Starter ceremony is one of Augusta's most fantastic and appreciated traditions, admired here by Patrons and throughout the world. It started in 1963, and the starters at that time were Jock Hutchison and Fred McLeod, and to date Tom Watson makes our 10th Honorary Starter. Congratulations, sir. We are delighted all of y'all are with us.

The ceremony always excites us. It's a great celebration to the start of the tournament, and we appreciate you all so very much to see our heroes back on the first tee again.

Q. How is your shoulder?

TOM WATSON: My shoulder, it worked today. As I said on the tee, you have a little -- sometimes when you're 73 and you roll over in a go-kart, you have a little problem. But it's going to be fine. It's going to be a while for it to get better, but, you know, it's just part of the deal, and it's not the end of the world, that's for sure.

Q. An honor to see all of you. Can you each pinpoint a key life lesson you learned throughout your years playing at the Masters?

GARY PLAYER: What order do you want us to answer it?

Q. A key life lesson.

GARY PLAYER: What order?

Q. Gary, you can start if you would.

GARY PLAYER: A prevalent thing in winning this tournament is gratitude, to have the opportunity to play in a tournament of this stature and to meet people like President Eisenhower, being from a country that practiced apartheid; that was always a very big imprint on my life when you think of what a marvelous role he played.

And then meeting Bobby Jones here as well, such a wonderful golfer, gentleman, maybe the best player that ever lived. He played with a walking stick and a ball that went 80 yards less than today.

So I think the word is gratitude, just to be able to -- particularly for me, this is my 65th appearance here, and you walk on the first tee and you say, well, this might be last one. So I think gratitude is the one for me.

JACK NICKLAUS: I'll go with everything Gary said. To get to the golf side of it, I first played here, missed the cut the first year with eight three-putt greens, and I was at 149 and Arnold was at 141, and I hit 41 greens in regulation, and he hit 19. I said, I think I'd better learn how to putt. So I learned how to putt these greens, and it worked.

Outside of that, that's a pretty good life lesson, learn how to putt, because if I didn't learn how to putt, I wouldn't be sitting here.

But to be here and be part of what's going on is pretty special, and we've just been very blessed to be part of it. Thank you.

TOM WATSON: I concur with what Gary said, gratitude. I say it a bunch of times, not very lightly. How lucky am I to be able to play a game for a living? I wake up and I can't wait to go out to my job. And it's a game; sometimes gets a little frustrating in years, but to be able to tee it up as an amateur at Augusta in 1970 and then again in 1975, playing with Jack in the second-to-last group when he made that -- how long was that putt at 16?

JACK NICKLAUS: 42 feet, three inches (laughter).

TOM WATSON: Approximately, right?

JACK NICKLAUS: Approximately.

TOM WATSON: But to be able to play and compete with my heroes. I had a chance to play with Arnold Palmer when I was 15 years old and with Jack as an amateur when I was 17 years old and got paired with him in my first Masters in 1975. The dream was there, but just the ability to play a game for a living. You all work for a living, right. I play a game for a living. Can't be any better than that.

JACK NICKLAUS: Pretty good, isn't it.

Q. Curious, when they moved 13 back, are they now hitting what you might have hit in your heyday into that, or it still different even with the 35 extra yards?

JACK NICKLAUS: I'd say -- I went back on the tee a couple weeks ago and looked at it, and you know, I think you can probably still carry a few trees on the right side, and I don't think you probably can carry all the trees. You can always do that from the tee up. If you turn it around the corner, you can get it in to where you might be able to play a 5-iron to the green. And Fred said he played with Scottie the other day, and he hit 5-iron into the green.

TOM WATSON: Kitayama hit a 7-iron.

JACK NICKLAUS: You can do that. Kitayama did? Anyway. I think Augusta, more than anyplace else, has probably adjusted their golf course to keep the conditions similar to what we played under. We played -- we played pretty much the same clubs we are playing in today from a different tee, that's what you're really asking, and 13 was the last one that they did.

Q. Mr. Nicklaus, I guess it's a little tacky to talk about business on the first day of the Masters, but wonder if you can describe, if you remember the reasons that led to the split between the PGA TOUR and The PGA of America back in the day, like what were the economic forces that were driving that?

JACK NICKLAUS: Back in the days when we had that, 1968, was it, when we split? The PGA of America, when you signed your entry form, you signed away all your rights for everything. And the players didn't feel that was fair. They didn't have the ability to be able to do anything, basically, on their own, once they signed it, legally do anything on their own.

So we basically didn't want to do that. We formed a new -- an Association of Tournament Players, 18th tee. Arnold and Gardner Dickinson and I were the start of that, 45 years ago, 43 years ago, 55 years ago, whatever it was, it's hard to remember a whole lot about it. But it was more about freedom to use your own rights.

Now, the complaint that they have had today, as they said, was that -- it's a very similar situation. Well, I don't think it was a similar situation. The TOUR does not have your rights, however, the TOUR has allowed you to do the things you need to do individually. But also, the TOUR has taken our collective rights and done a very, very good job with it to where the players today are -- you can see how much money the guys make when they play tournament golf now.

So I think the TOUR has done a really, really good job with that. It's similar in some ways but not really, realistically, what was going on.

Q. During the last presidential election cycle, you publicly supported Donald Trump, and I'm wondering if you'll do so again this time around?

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, depends on who is running, doesn't it? Well, we'll have to see what happens. You know, I've always supported who I thought was the best candidate. I think Donald Trump was the last time. Whether Donald will be this time or not, I don't know. We'll wait and see.

But I've been -- and I don't like to brand myself as a Republican. I like to sort of brand myself as being able to think freely, and I voted for a lot of Democrats through the years as well as Republicans, and I tried to pick the person I think would do the best job for our country. And we've got a year and a half to wait for that to see what's going to happen.

Q. Apologize, I arrived a little late, if this has been addressed, but there's a lot of different factors in the distance debate, land and environment, but at the most basic is golf has always been a sport with a balance between power and skill. In your opinion, in the men's game, professional game right now, is there an imbalance there, be it from tech or any other reason?

JACK NICKLAUS: Who are you asking?

Q. Any of you, all of you or any of you.

GARY PLAYER: I didn't understand a word he was saying.

JACK NICKLAUS: He was talking about in-balancing; is the game balanced for the power game. I think for most of us, I think the game is pretty well in balance. Power has always been a plus.

Today, the game is balanced more toward power. That was your question, wasn't it?

Q. Is there an imbalance now?

JACK NICKLAUS: I don't know whether there's an imbalance. I think we are going to run out of land if we keep trying to fight the imbalance if it's there. I think that's what the USGA is trying to do where it gets back maybe more imbalance with the USGA and the R&A.

GARY PLAYER: What perturbs me is I said years back, I said on British television to Peter Alliss on BBC that players would hit the ball 400 yards, and he told me I was talking nonsense.

And I said a man at 50 would win a major, and Tom Watson nearly won a major at 59; and he was the most unlucky shot I've probably have seen. If ever there was a great shot that was penalized, that ball should have been no more than ten foot from the hole. And now I said, there will be somebody at 60 that will win a major.

And now what I know is a fact: They will be hitting the ball 500 yards. They hit the ball 474 at the long driving competition.

Jack and I were watching television the other day, we have never had a big man play golf here, guys, and ladies. These guys had thighs this big. They were 6'8". So thank goodness Augusta have been smart and have tried to get the players today to hit the same clubs we hit in our time. And of all the tournaments in the world, they have done the best.

So we are in our infancy. We haven't seen anything yet. So they have got to cut the ball back; otherwise, the technology and the whole objective of golf is going to be imbalanced. I get pretty concerned about how much they are going to cut the ball back. I don't think -- personally I'm really delighted to see them making an effort. There's been a lot of talk about it.

I know Tom, Jack and I, and a lot of players have spoken about it for years and years and years. 20 yards is not enough. If you look into the future, you have to cut it back for pros. Leave it for the amateurs as it is. But for the players, you have to cut it back 40 yards.

This young boy from South Africa, you think DeChambeau is long, this young boy who is an amateur playing in this tournament hits it probably 20 yards further than he does. He's hitting 8-irons into some of these par 5s.

So where we are going? That's a big thought, and it's a really big responsibility for the leaders of the game.

TOM WATSON: There are legitimate reasons to move the ball back. And I concur. I think listening to Jack for all these years when he started being very public about saying we have to reduce how far the ball goes. That's the major factor. Yes, the clubs themselves help you hit the ball a little bit longer, but the ball was the biggest factor. In 2001 when the Pro V1 came out, it put a huge boost to the distance you could hit the ball, and then all the other ball manufacturers went that route.

If you look at the golf courses, and just take the example, the question was raised about the 13th hole, very simply. Augusta had to go in and buy the land to extend the hole, and they spent a lot of money buying that land, but they extended the hole.

Now, how is that hole going to play? It's a sharp dogleg left, and 305 yards to get out where you can see the green. I know Jack, for a fact, when he played there, he hit 3-wood off the tee, and you know, he basically took the left trees out of there. He put a 3-wood down the left side and cut it.

JACK NICKLAUS: No, I hit it out to the right and hooked it.

TOM WATSON: Okay.

JACK NICKLAUS: I tried to take it out.

TOM WATSON: The main factor there is he didn't want to hit it through the fairway, but he got it out there where he could hit it to the green. Golf courses are like that. Gary is right. You're going to have people hit the ball farther and farther.

I think it's a very good thing that the USGA and R&A are starting to move forward and say, all right, we have to create a golf ball that goes less.

Now, do we bifurcate? The great term, "bifurcate." I was against that until recently when I said, you know, I think it's best to have a pro ball to play with and then let everybody else play with a longer ball. That's the way I look at it.

Then, you know, it begs the question, okay, what do you do with the elite amateur competitions or the elite junior competitions where these kids carry it 270, 280 in the air? You can make a local rule that says that you have to play with the pro ball, but then what does that do for how people prepare for the tournaments and play the game normally, the elite amateurs? Do you play with the shorter ball or the longer ball? That's the crux of the issue there if you bifurcate.

The other thing about bifurcation is that if you just went with one ball, what would happen in 2026 to the hundreds of millions of golf balls that were produced to be the long ball and all of a sudden by 2026, you say, you can't play with those balls anymore, the whole public. That's a billion dollars of losses.

So these are the issues that the R&A and the USGA are struggling with, and I'm coming down, I think we ought to play with a pro ball. That's what I think we ought to do.

JACK NICKLAUS: I was around when we changed from the small ball to the large ball. I think they grandfathered in the small ball for eight to ten years, and the pros played the big ball because that's what the Europeans wanted to try to -- the American players were a lot better then because they played the more difficult ball to play. And then the amateurs wanted to play the club -- the elite amateurs wanted to play.

Pretty soon the average golfer said, I want to play what the pros are playing. Basically all they have do is move up two yards on the tee and it's exactly the same.

Now, I want to put one last thought in your mind and then I'm done with it. Bob Jones, and I'm not sure which book, one of his last books, he wrote in his last book, he said the biggest problem we have to face in the game in the future is the distance of how far the golf ball goes. Back in about 1930, okay?

So the problem hasn't changed. And I think what the USGA and the R&A have done is a good start, whether it's bifurcation or -- I think bifurcation is fine to start with, and they thought so the last time. That's why -- the ball. Let's see what happens.

Guys, there's not many places you can go out and buy another golf course to put a tee. We're going to run out of land, run out of water. Plus the fact that you realize, the longer the golf ball goes, the more time it takes to play the game of golf. And the biggest problem we've got, one of the biggest problems is it takes too long to play the game. Anything we can do to shorten up the time to play and make it more sensible and easier, I think we've got to do it.

GARY PLAYER: I think you're right on that. My brother was one of the world's leading conservationists, and 20 years ago he said to me, by the year 2025, the world will be short of 25 percent of water, and that's exactly what's happening around the world today. And also the fertilization, having been a farmer, when you apply fertilization too much, what it does to the soil. It's not healthy. And where are you going to get the ground? How about economically? The machinery costs so much money. How are golf courses going to survive if they have to buy all this machinery.

They have to do something, and I'll endorse what Jack and Tom said, I think the USGA and the R&A have done a great job.

Q. What is the biggest change you've seen at Augusta National from when you first walked on the property to today?

TOM WATSON: Very simple, it's the greens. When I played here as an amateur in 1970, they were overseeded, over bermuda'd, so rye overseeded bermuda. 1981 they changed it to bentgrass. Frankly, that was the biggest change. They had a few issues with the bentgrass greens with the slopes of the greens the first year, and they rectified that. To me that was the biggest change.

GARY PLAYER: The fairways, I remember going in a playoff with Arnold Palmer in 1962 and we came to 13, and he outdrove me by ten yards. I looked at my ball and I said, I have a lie that I cannot go for the green. I remember hitting my ball and when I won the tournament in '61, and the trees on the right, and I couldn't have a clearer shot because I couldn't move the people and I chipped it down on the fairway and it went down into the creek. The lies at No. 2, the little short shots into the green, the fairways, it's just like night and day.

Technology has made a massive difference to the game, the condition of the golf course. And Tom's great mentor Byron Nelson said one of the biggest changes is the mower. And that's so true. The conditions of the course today -- we had a man called Bobby Locke who in America they never regard in the Top-50 players, and he's definitely in the Top 15 players that ever lived. If you put him on greens like this, you would never see putting like you've never seen by any human being.

He putted on bermuda greens and never putted on a bent green like this in his life. The greens today are like a snooker table. And for people to make comparisons of golfers, it's impossible. You can't compare different eras. It's a completely different game today than what we played, completely different, from prize money to conditions of the golf course to modes of travel. It's completely different, yeah.

Q. This tournament has so many wonderful traditions, one of them being the Tuesday night Champions Dinner. Wondering if you could share a favorite Champions Dinner story.

TOM WATSON: I think one of my favorite stories was last year at the dinner. The emcee, Ben Crenshaw, asked if anybody had any comments, and there was silence. So I started a story about Doug Ford and how he won the tournament. The year before that, before Doug passed away, he was over in the corner in the Champions Locker Room, and I went over there to sit by him, and I said, How you feeling? And he said, Not worth a -- like this. You know how Doug was.

I said, Tell me about how you won your Masters Tournament. And he proceeded to describe how he buried it in the left bunker, how he couldn't play through the -- he had a two-shot lead, and he played up the slope. He said, I had to hit it up the slope. I said, How did you do? He said, I holed it. He made three and won by three.

Then Ben asked for another, more comments, and still kind of silence, so I piped up, as sometimes I'm wont to do, and I said, Jack, tell us about the last nine holes of 1986, and he did. And you could have heard a pin drop. All the champions were there listening to the shot-by-shot that Jack played. Because we all have been in that position before. We all won the tournament. We all knew the pressure. We all knew the shots he had to play. And here he is, talking about shot-by-shot on the last nine holes.

That was my favorite part of any of the dinners.

JACK NICKLAUS: Gary finished that same dinner off with Hideki, wasn't it, and made a speech in Japanese to him, which I thought was pretty darned special.

TOM WATSON: And Hideki made a speech in English. That was very special.

JACK NICKLAUS: That was very special, too.

TOM WATSON: Hideki is sitting up there like this, his eyes wide open, and trying to remember and recite in English the whole time, and had a beautiful speech. And after it was over he bent his head down, and, whew, like that. We all clapped. We actually stood up and gave him a standing-o. It was very special.

JACK NICKLAUS: I thought this year's dinner was very special.

TOM WATSON: It was.

JACK NICKLAUS: Everybody was wondering whether there was going to be any problems with the LIV players and things. Zero. It was the most cordial evening you could ever have spent. It was terrific.

GARY PLAYER: My greatest experience was with Bobby Jones. He was riddled with arthritis, and, I mean, he was like that. And he asked me to put the fork between his fingers like that. And when I cut his meat -- and he was bent over, and I cut hit meat. The only way he could eat it was to jab the fork in the steak and eat it. I took the opportunity, I said, "Mr. Jones, may I ask you a question, sir?"

He says, "By all means."

Now, you know that third hole, the little neck on the left, if you put the ball on that pin there, you've hit the shot of your lifetime because if you're short, you roll way back down the hill and if you're too long, you have an extremely difficult shot. And I said, "Mr. Jones, you know, I can never birdie the third hole."

And he just said, "You're not supposed to birdie the third hole."

Q. The green jacket specifically, could each of you share a story about your green jacket, the actual jacket.

TOM WATSON: When I first won the tournament in 1977, they donned the green jacket on me down there in Butler Cabin, and it was a 44 long. It came down below my fingertips like this. Did I care? Not in the least. I'd wear a tent, as long as it's the green jacket. That's my story.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, most of you've heard my story. I had a 46 long they put on me, and I was a 43 regular. The next year I came back and Tom Dewey, former governor of New York that ran for presidency, his was in my locker, and fit me perfectly. I won the Masters a few times after that, and I kept wearing Tom Dewey's coat.

Finally in 1998 a week before the tournament I was having lunch with Jack Stevens, and I told him the story that I didn't have a green jacket and never had a green jacket.

He said "What?"

I said, "No, I've won the tournament five times, six times and nobody has ever given me a green jacket." So I went home, came back over the weekend, and there was a note in my locker that said: You will go to the pro shop and you will be fit for your green jacket.

Thank you very much.

GARY PLAYER: In 1961, I win the tournament, and obviously being the first international player to win it, I was extremely excited, to say the least. And so I take the jacket, I'm going back to South Africa the next day, and I take it with me. Now, in those days, unlike today, they go to "Good Morning America" and go out to dinner with the jacket, etc., etc.

I took the jacket back home. Three days later, the phone goes, "Good morning, Gary, this is Clifford Roberts. Did you take the jacket back home?"

I said, "I did, Mr. Roberts."

"Well, nobody ever takes the jacket off the ground."

I thought very quickly. I said, "Mr. Roberts, why don't you come and fetch it."

He did see the funny side of it. He said to me, "But don't ever wear it in public."

I said, "I promise you, I won't." And I put it in a plastic bag. And it's certainly changed today. Of course, change is the price of survival. It's a vast different story today.

Q. Could you give us some reminiscences of being here in '63?

JACK NICKLAUS: I won in 1963 obviously. I came here, had a couple good runs as an amateur, not a great run as a pro, finished 14th or something. Anyway, I came as U.S. Open champion. I think I shot 74 in the first round or something, and I shot 66 the second round. And then the third round, I was paired with Mike Souchak, who was leading the tournament. It poured down rain in 1963. The 13 fairway had water from the top of the slope to the creek, and it was 100 percent casual water, but they wouldn't let you drop because there was no place to drop. They said play on, and we kept playing on.

And I said, surely they are going to wash this round now. Nobody is going to finish this round. Sure enough, the skies broke open and we finish and I get onto the 18th green. I looked up on the leaderboard, and there was a set of 1s on the leaderboard, and I looked at my caddie, and I said, "Willy" -- and I'm colorblind. I said, "How many of those 1s up there are red?"

He said, "Just you, Boss."

So I was leading the tournament at the time. Ended up tied or something by the end of the day. It was a cute story. I don't remember what I shot the last round, maybe 72 or something like that, whatever it was.

But coming down the stretch, I had Sam Snead, who got close to the lead or tied to the lead, about 12th or 13th hole, Tony Lema finishing second. I had about a 4-footer I guess at the last hole to win the tournament. And I made the tournament, and I always have -- my emotions were -- I didn't have those kind of emotions in those days. I was pretty stoic about what I did. I said, What do I do? I hole this putt -- I think Arnold would have thrown his hat. I reached up, grabbed my hat, and I threw my hat and said, that was pretty false.

If you go back and look at it, it was. Looked like some 23-year-old kid trying to manufacture an emotion. Anyway, that was a pretty special win for me.

Then we came back the next year, and I already talked about the Masters dinner, and the Masters champions set the menu. Bowman used to be a maître d', and he came to me and said, "What would you like to have for your Masters dinner?"

I said, "Bowman," I said, "what do you think Mr. Roberts would like to have?"

He said, "Mr. Roberts would like to have a shrimp cocktail, a New York strip medium rare, some green beans, a baked potato, a tossed salad with some bleu cheese, and he'd like to finish off with Georgia peaches."

"That will be just fine, Bowman." So that's what we had for my first Masters dinner.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you, gentlemen, it has indeed been a great honor and joy to have you all be the official starters of the 87th Masters. You'll always be our heroes. Thank you very much.