Legends together again
Sun coming up, just peeking over the trees at Augusta. The people had been lining up before dawn to get the best view of this. Up on the first tee, according to the scoreboard, three names with unusual player numbers. 82 Arnold Palmer. 76 Gary Player. 72 Jack Nicklaus. But those weren’t numbers, those were years. And here were three men who could teach us a lot about competition and respect, decades after their prime.
Time has raced by. The three men who walked onto the tee in the early morning have produced not only 13 Masters titles, but 49 grandchildren. Their winning span here started in 1958 and black and white television, and ended in 1986 and the infant Internet.
“Three great players, three great men,” Augusta chairman Billy Payne was saying through a microphone.
Palmer hit first. “I’m nervous,” he said as leaned over to put down the tee.
One face in the early morning crowd: Phil Mickelson. His tee time was not for six hours, but he was here, for this was the first Masters these three giants had ever served together as cer- emonial starters, so the moment meant something.
All three found the fairway, Player the longest.
History had been toasted. The Masters could begin.
They sat together later in their press conference, three guys in green jackets. Nicklaus in the middle, Player to his left, Palmer to his right.
“We’ve even cried together, and we’ve laughed together, and we’ve had good times,” Player said.
So, did anyone notice who drove the longest?
“I don’t think any of us can see that far,” Nicklaus said. “We can hear them all land, though.”
They were ferocious competitors, willing to cut each other’s heart out on the golf course. But they were also friends. No silly tweets or ill-chosen gestures or foolish rhetoric. They respected each other and they respected their game, and they respected their incredibly good fortune.
They are old men now, but young men could learn a lot.
“It was just terrific that you could play and really would make it known, ‘I want to beat the hell out of you.’ And yet you could be such great friends,” Player said this week. “And that’s how good friends are supposed to be.”
It did not take much to see how they wished they were out there driving for real Thursday.
“We would all love to still be able to play,” Nicklaus said. “But you know, if you go out and look at where our tee shots were . . . then I think you would understand why we aren’t.”
“If I could do it,” Palmer said, “I would be doing it right now.”