Jack Nicklaus would like to talk to you

In 1950, when the PGA Championship came to Scioto Golf Club, a 10-year-old boy wandered the grounds near Columbus, Ohio, looking for autographs. He had just started playing golf that year, and the likes of Sam Snead and Lloyd Mangrum crowded his home course.

The boy was Jack Nicklaus.

The spectacle, he recalled this spring, was one of the early inspirations for a golf career whose genius became abundantly clear 60 years ago. Nicklaus had won his first major title by then, but 1963 brought the 23-year-old his first Masters Tournament victory and his inaugural victory at a PGA Championship.

Nicklaus’ fifth and final PGA Championship win came in 1980 at Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, NY, where the tournament is played on Thursday.

During two interviews last month — one at the Augusta National Golf Club and another over the phone — Nicklaus thought about Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm, the new LIV Golf league backed by Saudi Arabia, the future of the golf ball and whether anyone would can win at Oak Hill by seven strokes, as he did in 1980.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

In 2013, when the PGA Championship was last held at Oak Hill, 21 players were below par. There had only been four in the previous two PGA Championships, in 1980 and 2003. Had Oak Hill become too easy?

I won there in 1980 and I think 280 was par. Oak Hill played pretty tough. I didn’t play very well that week, hit him all over the place, but every time I got him on the green, I holed him. I remember being in the lead on the last lap and being nervous because I wasn’t doing very well. I hit in the rough and got it on the green so I shot 35 feet on the first hole. I said, “Well, here we go,” and started to feel a little more comfortable.

If a designer wants to challenge today’s players, how much challenge can he create by, as Andrew Green has now done at Oak Hill, turning back the clock and looking back at Donald Ross’s original designs?

That is not possible. The only thing you’re going to backtrack and add is distance. I thought Oak Hill was very different, most Ross golf courses are relatively small greens and Oak Hill had very large greens. And then, of course, Fazio came in there and hit three or four holes in the middle part of the front nine, as I remember, and they weren’t really much like the other holes on the course that I saw in ’68. I like Oak Hill; I think it’s a great golf course. But you can get something straight out of its tradition.

What should be done with the golf ball?

They say the golf ball has “only” expanded 0.82 meters per year, meaning it has increased by 8.2 meters in the last 10 years. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

And I don’t think the US Golf Association and R&A have really rolled the ball back much. What they’ve done is say, “We really don’t want it to go beyond this.” And that’s really only for the elite players. They left the golf ball alone for the average golfer.

It was a really good move to try and draw a line in the sand. I mean, not everyone has the opportunity to buy the golf course next door like you do at Augusta. You can’t just keep buying and adding land. We used to have probably a few thousand golf courses in this country that could be tournament golf courses. Today we may have 100.

Many players say, “Why would you want to change something that’s really good?”

Well, it’s not because it’s really good; it’s because it’s really good for a small percentage of people, and it must be better for a larger percentage of people. It is a game that we hope can be played by many people.

Part of that fun comes from having the pros play with the amateurs. I used to be able to play an exhibition with a club champion. We played the back tees and I hit him maybe 15, 20 yards at him, but we played a game because he knew the course.

Can you imagine today Tiger Woods or Jon Rahm going to play an exhibition with a club champion? They had hit it 100 yards at him. I mean, that’s not a game.

There is also debate on the world ranking system. Who is the best player in the world right now?

It’s very debatable. I think Rory McIlroy is the one I would have said is probably the best player in the world, but then Rory won’t even make it to the first major. How does the best player in the world miss the cut at the first major?

Jon Rahm is pretty good. And you’ve got Brooks Koepka, who’s come back and he’s leading the tournament.

I think that’s the beauty of golf. It’s not like tennis where you knew you were going to get Nadal and Djokovic.

Gary Player doesn’t think golf has an era-defining figure right now – that there’s no Tiger, that there isn’t anyone like you.

No, there isn’t.

Is there a player who could become that person?

Rahm would come closest.

Is it better for golf to have one megawatt superstar that everyone knows about, or is it better to have a bunch of guys with a big following but who don’t get all the attention?

I think most sports are probably healthier with more stars – more diversity in what’s going on and more people to watch. When Arnold Palmer, Gary and I played and one of the three of us didn’t play in a tournament, they felt the tournament was a failure.

But if you have 10 or 12 guys that are really at the top, you don’t need more than two or three to create a tournament and you have a really good field. If there’s just one guy, it’s all on his back, and I don’t think that’s really good.

Since you mentioned Rory, what’s stopping him?

I’m a big fan of Rory, and he’s a good friend of mine, and I talk to him a lot. But I really don’t know.

His habit is to go par, par, birdie, birdie, birdie, eight, which is what he hasn’t done. He and I talked about it. I said, “Rory, it has to be 100 percent concentration, and you can’t put yourself in a position where you can do a quad or whatever.” I think he understands that very well. He must be very smart.

Justin Thomas just missed the cut, and I support Justin a lot too. I spend a lot of time with him. Great boy. He’s having a hard time, and he’s just missing something small right now.

And Rahm looks like he’s full of confidence. He glows a little.

If you watch Rahm, what kind of recon report do you get away with?

I’ve known him since he received a college award, the Nicklaus Award. I liked him then and I followed his game from the moment he started. I always thought he played golf very cleverly. He played pretty much like I did: left to right, and played a lot for the power game. I like what he does. I like the way he handles it. He’s got a little fire in him. He can get angry, which is okay because it usually helps him. Some guys get angry and it destroys them, but it seems to help him.

How do you see Rahm’s approach to the game working at Oak Hill?

Oak Hill is a golf course right up its alley. I was a left-to-right player, hit the ball long. When I won in 1980, I was the only person to break par. He’s a good putter. I putted really well on Oak Hill. I didn’t play great, but my putter was the deciding factor. Since my game was a strong one, I stayed in the tournament and my putter won it for me, and I would think he would be in about the same category: if he played well or half well, he will be there. If he doesn’t putt well, he won’t win.

But he’s a damn good putter.

Some of your colleagues have said that they think there is a universe where LIV, the new Saudi-backed league, could be good for golf. Do you buy that?

Competition is good everywhere. My own opinion is that I was part of the start of the PGA Tour. [LIV Golf officials] talked to me that they wanted me to do it, and I just told them, ‘I can’t guys. I started my legacy on the PGA Tour and I have to stay there.

I don’t have a big problem with it. I think there’s a big place for a lot of those guys who are at the end of their careers. I think it’s okay from that standpoint.

But for me it wasn’t. And for all the young guys who are really into the game of golf and into competition, I don’t think 48 players and three rounds of golf and shotgun starts are anything to really live off. They will corner their families for a long time, and I have no problem with the guys who left. But it wasn’t my cup of tea. And is there a universe for both? Probably. Don’t know.

You organize the Memorial Tournament in June. What do you think of this no-cut plan that sometimes goes into effect on the PGA Tour next year?

I’m not fond of it. Part of it comes from trying not to make the tournaments too secondary. If you have 120 guys playing in a cut and they suddenly end up in the higher tournaments, what kind of field do you have in the other tournaments? And if you have 70 players in one, the 71st player is a pretty good player on the PGA Tour.

I think what they’re trying to do – and what it will do – is get some guys that you haven’t heard much about, and they’ll be your stars coming along. They’re trying to build more names within the PGA Tour, and we’ll have to see and see how it plays out.

At the Memorial Tournament, I’m not fond of a 70-player field for a number of reasons. One is we have a lot of people coming to watch golf, and I want to see them play golf all day long, especially on Thursdays and Fridays.

If Oak Hill doesn’t play harder this time, should it stay in the mix for the majors?

Oak Hill will play a lot tough. Oak Hill is not going to bend; it’s too good a golf course to admit. I imagine the PGA Championship in Oak Hill will have a pretty heavy pick in May. Now the tour, on a weekly basis, has shortened the rough and driving distance has been emphasized and accuracy not.

Personally, I don’t think golf should be played that way. The rough Memorial Tournament won’t be short.

I think the game of golf is a combination of strength, accuracy, intelligence and skill in how you play your strokes. You’re trying to make the golf course so it doesn’t favor a 320-yard batter, and you don’t want it to favor a 270-yard batter. You want to bring some diversity to that – some holes will favor one, and others will favor the other – and their skill will make that possible.

I feel like the guy who plays the best golf in the entire round is the guy who should win. The tour focused more on entertainment and the man scored low scores. Well, for most of my career I avoided the courses where everyone got low scores. I felt like they didn’t really bring out my talent I guess. When I had a good, tough golf course, the better players shone there, and Oak Hill will shine.

What is the probability that someone like you can win with seven tricks?

If you get a little rough and you get a bit of a dry spell – you’ll probably have some wind and some odd weather – your scores can go up. But a man can catch lightning in a bottle, kind of like I did, and win by several. You just don’t know.