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Never Again. Perhaps nobody is. In the very first round of golf that Jack Nicklaus ever shot, at ten. he scored a 51 for nine holes—and he has never done that poorly since. Recalls his father, a Columbus, Ohio, chain druggist and a onetime scratch handicapper on the golf course: "By the time Jack was twelve, I couldn't handle him any more. I remember one day I hit as good a drive as I could, maybe 260 yds. I told Jack, 'If you outhit that one, I'll buy you a Cadillac convertible.' He hit his ball 25 or 30 yds. past mine, and I never outdrove him again." (Jack never forgot the promise, settled for a Mercury convertible when he graduated from high school.) About that same time, Jack caught the eye of Jack Grout, then a pro at Columbus' Scioto Country Club. Recalls Grout: "I smoked a good one off the tee at No. 16, over the hill in the fairway. I hit onto the green with a 7-iron. Just after I started walking toward the green, a ball came whizzing by me. I looked around and I couldn't see anyone. Pretty soon, here comes little Jack, Charlie Nicklaus' son, playing all by himself. That was his drive. I knew right then this kid was something. When you're only twelve and hit the ball that far—it must have been 275 yds.—wow!" A year later, at 13. Jack shot a 69 from the back tees at Scioto—a 7,095-yd. championship course that has been the site of the Open, the P.G.A. and the Ryder Cup.
During the next eight years. Papa Nicklaus poured more than $35,000 into his prodigy son's gol—-for clubs, clothes, transportation, hotels, caddy fees, etc. "It's the most wonderful money I ever spent," says Charles Nicklaus. "I figure it's like living my life all over again. I always wanted to be a champ." By the time he was 14. Jack already was a local hero in Columbus. MOVE OVER SNEAD—MAKE ROOM FOR JACKIE, read a headline in the Columbus Citizen in 1954. Sportswriters compared Jack to Bobby Jone—who had captured the Georgia Amateur at 14, gone on to the third round of the National Amateur. Even Jones showed up to watch Nicklaus play in his first U.S. Amateur at 15, and the Ohioan was so rattled by his presence that he hit a drive into the woods on one hole, skulled his approach on the next, made a total mess of a third and lost the match, i up.