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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

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Golden Bear talks about Ryder Cup, course design

Monday night, after Jack Nicklaus served as the inaugural speaker in the Wilson Delta Gamma Lectureship in Values and Ethics at the IU Auditorium, he sat down with members of the press, including Indiana Daily Student reporter Nathan Brown. Nicklaus talked further on why he decided to speak at IU, Team USA’s collapse in the Ryder Cup, Midwestern values and his last trip to Bloomington.

Q:
Why did you decide to speak in this series?
A: Well, that would be my wife, who is good friends with Amy (Wilson) who said, ‘Will Jack do that?’ and Barbara said, ‘Jack, you will do this,’ and I said, ‘Okay.’ They asked me to do it, and I was going to be in Columbus anyways. I came up to do the Ryder Cup television yesterday, and tomorrow we are doing a breakfast and press conference for the President’s Cup, which is a year from now. We’re doing that tomorrow morning, so the captains are coming to Columbus. So I was here, and it worked out well.

Q: Since you mentioned the Ryder Cup, talk a little bit about the finish there.
A: I think the Americans played pretty darn good golf the first two days, but the Europeans are a good bunch of players, and they finally got on their game yesterday. They got into a roll, and they did it, and America didn’t finish very well. All they had to do was put away a few matches early — (Europe) won the fuckin’ first five matches, didn’t they? — and you win the first five matches when you’re behind 10-6, and all the sudden you’re ahead 11-10.

Q:
You talked about Midwestern values, growing up in the Midwest. The topic, I guess the theme, in the speech was sort of that. The discussion was integrity and ethics ... Why do you think Midwestern values instill so much of that in people?
A: Most of the people that come to the Midwest have come from some European background. I think people came to this country to get away from oppression in Europe and for religious freedoms, and I think that a lot of those people settled in the Midwest, and so I think the family values in the Midwest are pretty good.

Q: Can you compare and contrast trying to improve as a golfer to improving in another field, course design, which you apparently have taken to really well?
A: When I first started working, I sold insurance. I didn’t believe that my fraternity brothers needed insurance, but I was trying to sell it to them. But when I started playing golf, it was something I had a goal for because I really liked it. It was something I really wanted to do.
The goal in golf was to be the best I could be. I didn’t really care about being an insurance salesman, but I was actually making a fairly decent living out of it. I didn’t decide to golf because of a financial standpoint because I was a 21-year-old kid making $30,000 a year in 1961.
I wasn’t sure I could make more money than that playing golf, but that was my interest. My interest was to be the best I could at what I wanted to do, so any kid no matter what field they pick, should be the best they can in that field. If you do, that’s your best chance to succeed. You’ll go through some years when it’s not comfortable, but if you really believe that and believe that’s what you really want to do, you’ll succeed. Just keep after it.
Design is the same thing. I really got interested in taking what I learned and putting it on a piece of ground that will be here long beyond my golf game and my lifetime. I thought that was fun, to promote the growth of the game I love, but I knew someday I wouldn’t be able to play. But I would still have a field that I could stay into, which was something I really liked. And I still like it. I mean, I’m 72 years old, and I love to go out and see a piece of ground, and to me, the most fun is what I call unlocking that ground and helping it reach its potential.

Q: Going back to the last time you said you were in Bloomington, when you won your Big Ten championship your senior year ... just talk a little bit more about that experience, how you were able to win by so many shots and what it was like to help your team win?
A: I wish I knew that. All I know is that when my coach asked me, I just put my nose to the grindstone and shot a lot of low scores. When I got done, I said, ‘How did we do, Coach?’ and he said, ‘You won by a lot, and we won by one.’

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