Jack Nicklaus: My Story

by Jack Nicklaus, Ken Bowden (Editor)

Overview

Over the half millennium and more that golf has existed, very few players have come within even sighting distance of Jack Nicklaus's incredible achievements. Counting his two US Amateur Championships, Nicklaus was the winner of twenty major championships and more than one hundred professional tournaments around the world. He was named "Golfer of the Century" in 1988 by the PGA.

Jack Nicklaus: My Story, now with a new afterword, is Jack Nicklaus's compelling, personal account of his legendary majors triumphs, along with many other competition highlights — and some lowlights, too — of one of the greatest sports careers of all time. Revealed with the unfailing candor and intensity that are his most distinctive personality traits, here is the Jack Nicklaus his legions of admirers, and even some of those close to him, have never known.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416542247
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	07/03/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	632,758
Product dimensions:	5.48(w) x 10.30(h) x 1.31(d)

About the Author

Jack Nicklaus was born in 1940 in Columbus, Ohio, and maintains a home there and in Florida. Widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time, he has achieved a record of twenty major championship victories, consisting of two US Amateurs, six Masters (also a record), four US Opens, three British Opens, and five PGA Championships. The winner of more than 100 professional tournaments around the world, Nicklaus was named Golfer of the Century in 1988.

Ken Bowden was the editorial director of both Europe’s and America’s premier golf magazines, and has collaborated with Jack Nicklaus on eleven books. Since first watching Nicklaus compete in 1959, Bowden has witnessed a great many of Nicklaus’s achievements first-hand.

Editorial Reviews

"The most important golf autobiography since that of Nicklaus's boyhood hero, Bobby Jones. A chronicle of rare insight and depth. It manages to increase the reputation of its subject. And like him, it will last."

— Jay Nordlinger, The Washington Times

"A must read for golfers of all ages. A wonderful book with insights into the great man's life and thoughts. Everyone who enjoys the game should get a copy, curl up in a comfortable chair and lose yourself in his wonderland."

— Stan Hunt, The Pilot

From the Publisher

Most golf pros, amateurs and just plain fans agree that Nicklaus, who has won 20 major golf tournaments, may be the best ever at the game. In this autobiography, which is Nicklaus's seventh collaboration (Golf My Way, etc.) with Bowden, the Golden Bear catalogues the highlights of his amazing career. Two elements of the book are striking: eschewing false modesty, Nicklaus several times refers to himself as a great golfer; and he displays a mind-boggling ability to recall his best and worst shots, even at a remove of more than 30 years. He begins with his first U.S. Amateur Championship in 1959, when he was 19, and his selection for the Walker Cup team that same year. Then come his first pro victory, the U.S. Open in 1962, and accounts of his three subsequent U.S. Open wins, his three British Open titles, his five PGA championships and his unparalleled six Masters victories. The last of these, the 1986 triumph, Nicklaus considers his most fulfilling win, because he had not taken a major championship in six years and because, battling for this last crown, he was cheered on by the fans, a far cry from his status 30 years before, when he was hated for dethroning the popular Arnold Palmer. Along the way, Nicklaus pays tribute to his father, his teachers, his fellow players, many of whom offered him valuable tips over the years, and above all his wife, in his view the perfect partner. There are valuable hints on the mental set necessary to play superior golf and on matters of technique. No links fan will want to miss this warm and personal memoir by the greatest of the great. Photos not seen by PW. 125,000 first printing; first serial to Golf Magazine. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Nicklaus, winner of the Professional Golfer's Association's Golfer of the Century award in 1988, covers some of the same ground with longtime associate Bowden that he did with renowned golf historian Herbert Warren Wind in The Greatest Game of All (1969). Here, Nicklaus focuses on his Hall of Fame career, beginning with his victory in the 1959 U.S. Amateur Championship and concluding with his dramatic win in The Masters in 1986 at the age of 46. Shot-by-shot, hole-by-hole descriptions of many of his record championships are included along with his notions on the present condition of professional golf. With a graciousness and humility rarely found in sports biographies today, the Golden Bear relates his feelings about rivals (Arnold Palmer and more), heroes (Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan), and family. But it's when he describes what he considers the key mental requirements for winning consistently and his own approach to getting ready for a tournament that Nicklaus reveals the temperament of a tenacious competitor driven by the absolute need to win. Recommended for all sports collections.Peter Ward, Lindenhurst Memorial Lib., West Islip, N.Y.

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