BACK IN THE SUMMER OF ’69
Tony Jacklin recalls his historic Open win… and the sportsmanship of Ryder Cup legend Jack Nicklaus
Canadian rock star Bryan adams wrote a song called Summer of ’69 that draws to a crescendo with a rousing declaration: ‘Those were the best days of my life.’
Fifty years on, there’s no need to ask Tony Jacklin whether he concurs. Slightly deaf in one ear, and with the rounded shape of a man who will turn 75 in July, he becomes positively rheumy-eyed when taken on a journey back to that golden summer when he changed British golf for ever.
during the course of two extraordinary tournaments held just 20 miles apart in the north west of England, his popularity rose to the levels of Manchester United’s starry forward line of Bobby Charlton, denis Law and George Best.
The son of a Scunthorpe lorry driver, Jacklin had no truck with the clothes of inferiority that held the game back in this country. dressed in a shade of lavender usually the preserve of a confident american, he held off all comers at Royal Lytham to become the first British golfer to win the Open for 18 years.
Then, in the dying embers of summer, along the Lancashire coastline at Royal Birkdale, he took on Jack nicklaus in the final singles match of the Ryder Cup — having beaten him 4&3 in the morning — and came away with a half-point that meant the first overall tie in the competition’s history.
The final moments of both events have become part of the fabric of British sporting lore. First, an arrow-straight drive from Jacklin down the 18th at Lytham, threaded judiciously between perilous bunkers, that led to an immortal piece of commentary from Henry Longhurst that summed up the breathless excitement. ‘ Oh, what a corker!’ he exclaimed. On the 18th by Derek Lawrenson Golf Correspondent in Florida green at the Ryder Cup, there was the prospect of a knee- shaking three-footer to decide it all until nicklaus picked up Jacklin’s marker to concede the putt for a halved match, uttering his immortal words: ‘i don’t think you’d have missed it, but i wasn’t going to give you the chance, either.’
The gesture, perhaps the greatest in the sporting firmament, led to a golf club in Bradenton, Florida, being named after it. Where better, then, to meet up with Jacklin to talk about his unforgettable summer of 1969.
‘i see you’ve brought the weather with you,’ he says, cheerfully. The cool, showery conditions didn’t stop him turning up in shorts, looking like a typical, ageing Floridian about to play 18 holes.
The Concession is a 40-minute drive from Jacklin’s Sarasota home on Florida’s Gulf Coast. designed by nicklaus and Jacklin in tandem, you can’t help but smile as, to get there, you drive down Lindrick Lane — the scene of a famous British and irish Ryder Cup victory in 1957. ‘Lindrick was the first Ryder Cup i ever attended, and the reason i took up golf,’ says Jacklin.
On the entrance walls are paintings of some of the men who made the Ryder Cup what it is today. Better still are the black-and-white photos from the 1969 match in the men’s locker room. adorning everything is the club’s insignia — a silhouette of Jacklin and nicklaus, arms around each other’s shoulders, as they came off the 18th green on that unforgettable afternoon.
We start at the Open, where Jacklin sets the scene so beautifully it could have been last year’s event, not half a century ago. ‘By the time the Open came around i was ready for it,’ he begins. ‘i’d won the dunlop Masters in 1967 and had the first hole in one on British television. i’d gone to america and won the Jacksonville Open playing with arnold Palmer, with all his army, in the final round.
‘i’d put up with americans like Gardner dickinson, Bob Goalby and dave Hill. They called people like me “foreigners” and they made it clear they didn’t want us playing in america. all those factors toughened me up and i came to Lytham feeling really mentally strong.
‘Over the first three rounds i’d love to tell you about all the miracle shots i played but links golf is not like that, is it? Well, it wasn’t back then, before modern club technology came along. it was about holding your own, and i did that. Going into the final round, i was two shots clear, and then it was about holding on.’
The fans were feverish with anticipation. Could the cocky young Englishman end the long wait? ‘i loved the fact the crowd were so into it,’ says Jacklin. ‘i was nervous but in a positive way, not anxious or frightened. i felt like an actor and this was my stage. i was determined to embrace it.’
When he got to the 18th, he was two strokes ahead of the new Zealand left-hander Bob Charles, who had won at Lytham six years earlier. ‘Standing on that tee, i thought about some of the near misses for British and irish players in recent years, like dave Thomas and Christy O’Connor, and they were essentially because of a bad drive at the last,’ says Jacklin.
‘This one was certainly not for the faint-hearted. if you went in any of the bunkers down the left or right, you knew you were facing a bogey, and i also knew that Bob was quite capable of getting a birdie.
‘For two years in america i had worked hard on making my swing the same speed under all circumstances and here was the big test. i told myself: “TJ, swing wide and smooth,” and as i was saying it i saw it fly down the middle of the fairway. it was the best drive i ever hit.’
The seven iron that followed to 20ft was not bad either, nor the putt to tap-in distance. ‘Surely, the shortest putt that ever won an Open, as Longhurst described it,’ added Jacklin.
The summer went by in a blur, as his manager Mark McCormack insisted on a hectic PGa Tour schedule Jacklin could have done without. ‘i played in some events when i should have been relaxing on a beach in Barbados, and it took me until the Ryder Cup to get my breath back,’ he summarises.
Britain and ireland — continental Europe wouldn’t join the party for another decade — went into that match on the back of five straight defeats, the last of which had been by the devastating margin of 23.5-8.5. Yet, Jacklin remembers a cautious sense of optimism.
‘We had some good players like Peter Townsend and tenacious ones like Brian Huggett,’ he says. ‘i sensed they looked at my Open victory and thought: “Well, if he can take on the americans, so can we”. We had a fiery, determined
captain in Eric Brown and a lot of the crowd had been at Lytham in July, so they were up for it as well.’
So, however, were the Americans. They had insular men like Dave Hill and Ken Still on the team, who had a low opinion of non-Americans, and a hard-bitten captain in Sam Snead. ‘It’s fair to say the atmosphere among some of the players wasn’t good,’ recalls Jacklin. ‘Brown and Snead were also at each other’s throats, not wanting to give any quarter.’
All of which emphasises the magnitude of the sporting gesture that would take place on the final green in the final match. Jacklin had lost the 16th hole to go one down before sinking an outrageous 50-footer for an eagle at the 17th to square the match. On the 18th tee, both men became aware that it all rested on the hole that lay ahead of them. Both struck fine three-wood tee shots.
Jacklin skipped ahead, only to hear Nicklaus call out to him.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked the Golden Bear, when he’d caught up. ‘Bloody petrified,’ replied Jacklin. The great man started laughing. ‘Thought you would be,’ Nicklaus responded. ‘I just wanted you to know that I’m petrified as well.’
Jacklin recalls: ‘I don’t think there’s a worse place than the 18th hole of a Ryder Cup with everything resting on your shoulders. I don’t care who you are, you don’t want the fate of your team-mates and your nation coming down to you. We both found the green with our approaches, but he was closer and when I putted up to three feet, he had a 20ft effort to win. I was thinking that if he missed I would offer him a halved match but when he hit it seven feet past there was no chance of that.
‘As he studied his putt, I just concentrated on my own. I kept telling myself: “Whether he makes it or not, you have to hole yours”. The next thing I knew was that he had holed, and then he picked up my marker. He said his famous words, and then he told me why afterwards. He could see the bigger picture. He knew I’d won the Open down the road, knew what that had meant to the British game, and it didn’t sit well with him what would happen if I missed from 3ft.’
There was fury among the American ranks at the concession. ‘Some people reckon that Snead cried out: “We didn’t come here to be good ol’ boys,” but I don’t know about that,’ says Jacklin.
‘What I do know is they were a tough bunch. I know what Dave Hill was like because he once said he didn’t want foreigners playing in America, and I was sitting next to him at the time. I told him: “Sit down, you miserable b*****d”.
‘Jack and Arnold were never like that. If you could play, come. Jack and I were never like that at the Ryder Cup. We were so competitive in our prime we would take delight in beating our kids, and we wanted to beat each other’s brains out. But if you can’t look the other fellow in the eye at the end of a match, what the hell is it all about?’
A day after the contest, Jacklin wrote to Nicklaus — the only letter he penned in his 40-year career. ‘I want you to know your gesture will stay with me for ever,’ he wrote.
It has, too. A day before Jacklin’s 75th birthday, Nicklaus will join in the celebrations as the pair recall the concession at a special dinner at Wentworth, and the time of their lives in the summer of ’69.
‘TJ’, I said, ‘swing wide and smooth.’ It was the best drive of my life