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Nicklaus-Palmer Oakmont battle a documentary

Jack Nicklaus was so focused on winning his first professional golf tournament, especially one as important as the U.S. Open, that he wasn’t aware of everything going on around him.
Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus
Jack Nicklaus

Jack Nicklaus was so focused on winning his first professional golf tournament, especially one as important as the U.S. Open, that he wasn’t aware of everything going on around him.

Facing Arnold Palmer in an 18-hole playoff at Oakmont Country Club in 1962, the then-22-year-old prodigy from Columbus, Ohio, had no idea that the crowd was so against him that his dad had to be restrained by none other than Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes from going after antagonists in the gallery.

What’s more, as a tour rookie going against the iconic King, Nicklaus even said he had no idea at the time that Palmer was effectively playing in his own backyard, about a half-hour away from his hometown of Latrobe, Pa.

All he was concerned about was winning a golf tournament, something he had yet to do as a professional.

And he did, beginning a wondrous and dominating chapter of golf history that may never be equaled again.

“I was a 22-year-old kid with blinders on,” Nicklaus said. “I didn’t know Arnold lived in that area. Why would I know anything about that? I was trying to win the tournament. I felt after finishing second at Cherry Hills (in the ’60 U.S. Open) and fourth at Oakland Hills (in ’61) my turn was next. I didn’t realize there was a guy named Arnold Palmer who would play well. I was naive enough to believe that.

“People ask me about it being Arnold’s backyard and all that and I never even heard it. All I was trying to do was win.”

Nicklaus’ playoff victory against Palmer remains one of the benchmark moments in golf because it served as the game’s changing of the guard. It would be the first of his 18 major victories — a record that remains unchallenged — but it would also spark one of the greatest rivalries in sports history. More than anything, it served as the day golf’s mantle passed from a King to a Bear.

And it happened at Oakmont.

That’s why the United States Golf Association is producing a one-hour documentary called The 1962 U.S. Open: Jack’s First Major, that will air June 17 on NBC before the final round of the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic Club in San Francisco.

“I look back, I go, ‘Wow, look what happened.’ It is pretty amazing to me,” Nicklaus said.

When Palmer first learned about the documentary, he joked to Nicklaus, “Why are they doing a film about me losing the U.S. Open?”

Gerry Dulac is a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist who can be reached at gdulac@post-gazette.com.