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All Proceeds From The Golden Bear’s Day Date Destined For Charity

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Living legend Jack Nicklaus is widely regarded as the greatest golfer ever largely on account of his 18 major victories, a number still unmatched to this day, the last being The Masters which he won in 1986 at an astounding 46 years of age.

For 12 of those majors and over a period of 50 years, Nicklaus, also known as the Golden Bear, wore his gold Rolex Day Date through professional wins and in personal life, it being his only watch and one that hardly ever left his wrist save for when he tees it up professionally.

After each tournament, the Rolex Day Date would be taken out of his golf bag and the protective plastic removed, the watch going on his wrist and wallet into his back pocket. A simple enough ritual, but one that’s significant as the gold Rolex and the Golden Bear have appeared together in countless pictures of victory with trophy in hand. In the golfing and watch world it is widely considered as one of the three most important watches ever in sports.

Nicklaus recounted how he received the Rolex 1803 Day-date as a gift in 1967 after attending a Rolex party with Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. Rolex offered him a watch as a token of appreciation and Player suggested he pick the Day Date, the first watch Nicklaus had ever owned. He has remained a loyal Rolex brand ambassador ever since.

The Day Date is in a 36mm 18-karat yellow gold case with 18-karat gold bracelet. Powered by the Automatic caliber 1555 with 26 jewels, it is accompanied by a Rolex green leather presentation box, and is possibly the most seen Rolex Day Date in the past half a century.

Expected to fetch between US$100,000 and US$200,000, the opening bid came in at US$500,000, and within two minutes the watch had climbed to $1 million. Proceeds of the sale will go entirely to the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation, which works with pediatric hospitals across the U.S. to fight childhood illness.

“You are only going to be on this Earth a certain amount of time and if you want your legacy to continue, then it has to be because of who you are and that you did something that matters. The charity is a big part of that,” says Nicklaus. “I make sure that charity is involved in everything we do.”

Also at the same auction was Marlon Brando’s stainless-steel Rolex Gmt-master, which he signed on the back and which wore during the filming of Apocalypse Now.” It sold for US$1.952 million.

The most expensive watch ever sold at auction is a Patek-philippe one-off timepiece that sold at a charity-auction for $31 million recently. Before that, the recordholder was Paul Newman’s Rolex Daytona, which sold for $17.7 million in 2017.