(10 of 10)
The months ahead will be busy, and the pressures to win will be greater than ever. Simon & Schuster plans to publish an instructional golf book under his byline; MacGregor and Slazengers will produce Jack Nicklaus golf clubs; Revere Sportswear will manufacture a Jack Nicklaus line of shirts and sweaters. Nicklaus has been signed for three TV golf shows, he will play a series of exhibitions (at a minimum of $2,000 each), and he is negotiating contracts for endorsements of slacks, walking shorts, sports jackets, windbreakers, shoes, cigarettes and skin bracer. Arnold Palmer, an old hand at such matters, has often complained that his extracurricular business activities leave him too little energy for playing championship-caliber golf, and youthful Jack Nicklaus is going to have to adjust to being a celebrity too. If he can, with at least a dozen good playing years ahead of him, there seems no limit to the heights he may reach. He has certainly set his goal high enough. "I want," says Jack Nicklaus, "to be the best golfer the world has ever seen."
* Set by Ben Hogan in the 1953 U.S. Open. In the three Opens that had been played at Oakmont before this year, only two golfers—Hogan and Sam Snead—had ever broken 290.