Nicklaus knew how to win but he could also give lessons in losing with dignity

Everyone agreed he’d been the best of all time. He was still fun to watch... he was respected

THE heroes of your youth stay with you forever. The athletic gods and game triers who first made you smile, clap, holler, scream, roar and even laugh out loud with sheer joy? They take some shifting.

Which is why Jack Nicklaus is the first nominee as we begin a series of personal favourites by

Sportsmail’s devoted gang of fans with typewriters.

Now, people will inevitably throw around stats like confetti when backing up their own individual choices. On any countback of honours won and trophies held aloft, Nicklaus more than holds his own.

There are the 18 major championship victories, a total that will never be bettered.

Part of golf’s iconic Big Three — alongside Arnold Palmer and Gary Player — the great adventurer from Columbus, Ohio, also finished runner-up in majors 19 — that’s NINETEEN — times. Which tells you everything you need to know about how competitive the game was back then.

His career spanned the peaks not only of great battlers like Palmer and Player, but the sublimely gifted Tom Watson.

Those three boast 24 major wins among them. In terms of the biggest titles to be won, with that calibre of opposition always in the field, there were precious few gimmes during Jack’s career.

Which brings us to another important point. Because Nicklaus merits admiration not only for how he won, providing iconic moments like removing his sweater to let rip on the 18th at St Andrews, but in how he handled defeat.

He hated losing. But was never anything other than gracious and generous to his rivals.

Famously, he conceded a putt to Tony Jacklin on the 18th hole at Royal Birkdale that effectively saved the Ryder Cup.

The 1969 edition of the transatlantic contest had been bad-tempered and fraught with tension. Some things never change, right?

Yet, standing on the last hole as the final pairing on the course, their match all square and with the teams tied, Nicklaus didn’t even consider asking Jacklin to make a tricky putt of just over two feet to secure the first-ever Ryder Cup draw.

Speaking about it many years later, he explained: ‘I don’t know why, but I very quickly thought about Tony Jacklin and what he had meant to British golf.

‘Here he was, The Open champion, the new hero, and all of a sudden it felt like if he missed this putt he would be criticised forever. This all went through my mind in a very, very quick period of time and I just made up my mind.

‘I said: “I’m not going to give Tony Jacklin the opportunity to miss it. I think we walk off of here, shake hands and have a better relationship between the two golfing organisations is the right way to do it”.’

Pure class. The same innate desire to do the right thing prevailed in the heat of battle with Watson at Turnberry in the 1977 Open Championship.

The Duel in the Sun was about to reach its thrilling climax on the final hole, Watson lining up for a putt that would see him lift the Claret Jug at the expense of his great rival. But the galleries were still going absolutely wild following Jack’s own miraculous escape shot from a gorsebush and the 30-foot putt that followed. Nobody could have pulled the putter head back in those circumstances. With the raising of his arms, though, Nicklaus delivered the silence needed for Watson to drive a dagger through his heart. Not for a second did he think of standing by and hoping that his fellow American would be put off by the din. Watson, recalling that magical day, said: ‘Jack was the most gracious competitor I’ve ever seen in defeat. ‘I’ve never seen anybody so able to take defeat and give credit to the other player even though he is hurting so much inside. ‘And he did that when we walked off that green. He put his arm round me and just about broke my neck, he squeezed me so hard. ‘He said: “Tom, I gave it my best shot but it wasn’t good enough. Congratulations”.’ There you have it. The greatest winner and the finest loser the game of golf has ever seen. And, because this is a deeply personal project, it’s surely okay to consider factors outside the sheer brilliance of the man, woman or animal — Red Rum, anyone? — whose name still sets your pulse racing. Maybe your own sporting hero is the all-or-nothing centrehalf who seemed to make a thousand clearances at the first football match you ever saw. Not a world-beater, but a great club servant. Or it could even be your granny’s favourite wrestler. Perhaps the very mention of the name Kendo Nagasaki takes you back to sitting before the fire, gorging on plain-bread toast and marmalade, while the old dear shouted at the telly. Which is kind of, almost, where Jack comes into the picture. And why, every time this dream job has put the great man within interviewing distance, it’s occasionally been tricky to muster anything beyond: ‘Thanks very much, Mr Nicklaus… ’ before the words fail to come out.

At this time of year, especially, it all hits home. Just when we should be gearing up for the annual dose of wonder that is The Masters, thoughts inevitably turn to the Golden Bear.

Growing up in the 1970s, playing all manner of sports (badly) but yet to really grapple with the frustrations of golf, it must be said that Nicklaus was something of a slow burner for yours truly.

He was a recognisable name who was famous for being good at that Scottish game. Very nice. But not likely to thrill a seven or eight-year-old.

By the early years of the next decade, though, the bug for watching sport — just about any sport — on TV had well and truly bitten.

And so began this gradual understanding of just how good, how wonderfully brilliant, he was. How unfortunate it was for those who had missed his glory years, too.

The memory banks are empty of any real-time experience of watching Nicklaus lift the Claret Jug at St Andrews in ’78; living overseas meant patchy Open coverage, to say the least.

His 1980 US Open win would undoubtedly have been all over the American stations that we relied on for access to the sporting world. But, again, it was probably a little early.

So, by the time watching golf became a habit, Jack was a legend. But an old-timer. Someone your dad would talk about in hushed tones of absolute reverence.

Everyone agreed he’d been the best of all time. He was still fun to watch. And the commentators loved waxing lyrical about his past glories.

Yes, even as the new young bucks were battering the ball miles beyond him, leaving Nicklaus and his middle-aged body far behind in the quest for titles, he was respected. If not quite feared.

And then came Augusta in the spring of ’86. Major title No18. A closing-round 65 that rolled back the years. With his son, Jackie, caddying for him. That family theme is part of what makes it such a special memory. Sitting in the front room, watching it all unfold with the old man, the guy who had so bravely and patiently introduced his son to the game, is something that will never fade.

Jack was older than my dad at the time. He dressed like it, too. Man, those trousers were awful. The yellow shirt, well, maybe he just about pulled it off.

Playing with Sandy Lyle in that final round, he certainly managed just about everything else he tried — especially on a back-nine charge that resonates to this day.

The great man himself said, in the aftermath, that he had tears in his eyes down that home stretch.

And he described losing sight of his wonderful tee shot at the iconic par-three 16th — go look it up, honestly — in typically amusing fashion, noting: ‘I don’t get the pleasure of watching my shots any more; I can’t see that far.’

When it was all over, well, everyone who watched it had been affected. Often in unintentionally humorous ways.

We were all out on te golf course the following Saturday, bending over our putts like Jack with his bad back, pretending to be the great man.

Now when did you ever see a bunch of teenagers desperately aping the sporting exploits of a guy in late middle age? It was as if we’d all decided to dress up as Dean Martin.

The experience also cemented, for me, the idea of The Masters as the absolute must-see sporting event on the television calendar.

Over the next few years, affection for the tournament would grow. Larry Mize’s chip-in was 12 months later. Then came Sandy himself, with the greatest bunker shot in the history of the game.

There have been some truly wondrous tournaments over the years, including the whole Tiger Woods era.

And, when people were searching for ways to describe what Tiger did last year, coming back to win after all those years, there was only one comparison to be made.

Jack Nicklaus, whose first Masters win had come way back in 1963 — the fact that he just edged out Slammin’ Sam Snead doing more than any calendar could to date that victory — still towers above his sport.

So, yes, he’s a worthy first candidate for our own Hall of Fame. Have fun picking your own personal favourite.

Be warned, though. It’s not as simple as it sounds. Do you go for an obvious legend or someone who might not make anyone else’s top ten?

Going first in this series feels a little bit like a poisoned chalice, too. Still, first pick means the opportunity to start with a genuine superstar whose status is beyond dispute.

By any criteria, that description fits Jack like a pair of plaid ‘pants’.