Jack Nicklaus' 1986 Masters win defied all expectations

Forty years ago, as planes rolled down concrete runways at William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, hundreds of golf fans fixed their eyes on terminal TV monitors to see what was happening on grassy runways 150 miles away.

Jack Nicklaus was taking off.

Six-time major championship winner Lee Trevino was among that airport crowd watching Nicklaus climb the leaderboard during the final round of the 1986 Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. Having completed his tournament round hours earlier, the Merry Mex was enjoying a relaxing beverage when Nicklaus took another big step toward achieving the unthinkable.

At age 46, the Golden Bear no longer resembled precious metal. The Upper Arlington native had not won a major championship in six years, and his only PGA Tour victories after that had come at the 1982 Colonial and 1984 Memorial, on a Muirfield Village Golf Club course he designed. But here he was vying to become the oldest player to win the Masters.

Trevino, also 46 at the time, understood what Nicklaus was up against. Age was not as much of a roadblock to success as in other sports. Still, golf was a younger man’s game. Flatter bellies usually prevailed. Older golfers occasionally found ways to turn back the clock, but put it this way: No one in 1986 was saying 50 is the new 40.

Knowing the stakes, Trevino tuned in to watch his frenemy – the two Hall of Famers were friends but also rivals – attempt what many thought nearly impossible: winning a sixth green jacket and 18th major by charging ahead of seven other players. Nicklaus was looking to catch and pass third-round leader Greg Norman, who began the final round four shots ahead of Nicklaus.

Bernhard Langer presents Jack Nicklaus with the traditional green jacket in recognition of Nicklaus’ win at the 1986 Masters.

“When I finished, Jack hadn’t teed off yet,” said Trevino, who played with Johnny Miller in the fourth pairing of the day. “There was a bar across from the gate in Atlanta, and I am drinking double Scotches. And then he eagles 15 and we’re screaming, ‘Hold the plane! Hold the plane!’ Everybody is watching. The airport is going nuts.”

As the golfing world hyperventilated, Nicklaus remained composed. The final round was going just as he had planned.

“I felt like when I birdied 9, I was decent,” Nicklaus said. “Birdied 10, I started to feel better. I birdied 11 and felt like I was in the golf tournament. When I eagled 15, I knew I was in the middle of it.”

By contrast, the day began with the vast majority of fans, media, and even some younger tour players figuring Nicklaus was near the end; that the Bear’s best days were behind him.

Before the tournament, a 36-year-old Tom Kite said Nicklaus was “on the back side of his prime.” Maybe so, but Kite and everyone else were about to discover that a post-prime Nicklaus remained capable of kicking the back side of those nearing their peak.

Famously, Atlanta Journal-Constitution golf writer Tom McCollister had written before the tournament that, “Nicklaus is gone, done. He just doesn’t have the game anymore. It’s rusted from lack of use. He’s 46, and nobody that old wins the Masters.”

Nicklaus’ friend, John Montgomery, clipped the column and taped it onto the refrigerator door of the house where Nicklaus stayed that week.

Many doubted Nicklaus would be able to win

McCollister wasn’t the only member of the media to doubt Nicklaus, at least during the final round.

Bob Baptist, a longtime golf writer for the Dispatch, shared how he was following Nicklaus the first few holes on Sunday when he spotted the Bear’s wife, Barbara, in the gallery.

“We’re walking and talking and Jack is doing nothing,” Baptist recalled. “I’m walking up No. 7 with Barbara, and we get to the first crosswalk and I say, ‘Well, I have to go [into the media center] and see who’s going to win this thing.’”

Hours later, Baptist fast-walked – there is no running at Augusta – out to the 18th green as Nicklaus was coming up the 18th fairway. The crowd was jet-engine loud.

Former Dispatch columnist Dick Fenlon described the din: “The sound split the ears. On a day without clouds, all the thunder once found in the sky was at ground level, rolling across the deep green of Augusta National.”

Baptist took it all in, then took a metaphorical elbow to the ribs from Barbara.

“When they brought Jack into the post-round press conference, he walks in, Barbara walks in and Jack’s mother walks in,” Baptist said. “Barbara spots me in the horde of journalists and gives me a little smile, and her eyebrow arches.”

Barbara never said a word to the reporter who left to “go see who’s going to win this thing.” She didn’t need to.

Baptist wrote later, “The privilege to write does not carry with it the privilege to write off. Given yesterday’s events, it is safe to say only Jack Nicklaus, and not the chroniclers of his career, will know when it is time to write off Jack Nicklaus.”

Yet no one needed to apologize for questioning Nicklaus’ comeback chops, because entering Masters week, even Nicklaus wondered if he still had the right stuff.

“I kind of agreed with [McCollister], I’m afraid,” Nicklaus said after winning.

Golden Bear needed help and got it

Truth be told, Nicklaus needed more than his own exceptional play (he shot a 7-under-par 65 on Sunday) to top the field. He needed, and received, help from the players ahead of him when the final round began.

Often lost in the luster of Nicklaus’ charge up the leaderboard is that winning depended on circumstances beyond his control. Even as he exited the 18th green with a one-shot lead, his closest pursuers, Kite and Greg Norman, playing two and three groups behind Nicklaus, could still crash the party.

Jack Nicklaus watches his putt drop for a birdie on the 17th hole at Augusta National on April 13, 1986 in Augusta, Ga. The shot gave him the lead and he went on to win his sixth Masters title.

As CBS golf analyst Ken Venturi later recalled, “Jack still hadn’t won. His back nine [30] was just phenomenal. You didn’t think it was going to happen that way. It was a special moment with Jack and his son [Jackie] embracing afterward. But he still hadn’t won.”

Jackie, who now goes by Jack II, caddied for his father, which is the only bit of Nicklaus news the CBS broadcast cared about until the Bear came out of hibernation on the back nine.

Nicklaus made a 10-foot birdie putt to make the turn 1-under, but was running out of real estate with big names like Norman, Kite, Tom Watson, Nick Price and Seve Ballesteros standing in his way.

That changed quickly, and by the time Nicklaus birdied No. 17 and raised his putter, prompting a “Yes, sir!” from CBS broadcaster Verne Lundquist, many of the pieces had fallen into place. But not all.

Norman could still play spoiler. The Great White Shark set up the thrilling ending with birdies at holes 14 through 17 to pull even with Nicklaus, who had finished with a par at No. 18 to finish 9-under. The Bear watched from the Jones Cabin, having survived Ballesteros, whose bogey at No. 15 doomed his chances, and Kite, who missed a 12-foot putt at 18 that would have forced a playoff.

Only Norman remained. And all he needed was to par No. 18 to force a sudden death playoff. But then, destiny? The Shark pushed his second shot into the gallery right of the green and failed to get up-and-down, finishing with a bogey that gave Nicklaus a one-stroke victory.

For my money, the ’86 Masters remains the single-greatest sports event, not just in golf, of the past 40 years. It contained all the elements that make sports special, including a comeback story for the ages. The older ages.

Sports columnist Rob Oller can be reached at roller@dispatch.com and on X.com at @rollerCD.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Jack Nicklaus’ 1986 Masters win at 46

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