Battle on the Greens

From the start, the big (6 ft., 190 lbs.), crew-cropped junior from Ohio State approached last week's 59th U.S. Amateur at the Broadmoor Golf Club in Colorado Springs as though it were just a casual round with his buddies back home in Columbus. Jack Nicklaus, 19, joked with opponents and officials alike, was undaunted by the tricky greens of the 7,010-yd. course hacked out of the eastern slope of the Rampart Range, 6,500 ft. above sea level. Because of the backdrop of jagged peaks, some level greens seemed to slope uphill, some uphill greens seemed flat.

Nor was Nicklaus bothered by the prospect of eventually figuring the lie of the greens against Defending Champion Charlie Coe, 35, the dry-spoken, shaft-lean (6 ft., 150 lbs.) oil broker from Oklahoma City. Nicklaus had just the club to back up his long game off the tee: an oldfashioned, hickory-shafted putter, which he had ordered in Scotland last spring while helping Captain Coe defend the Walker Cup against the British amateurs. In the semifinals, faced with a 27-ft. putt downhill over a hump, Nicklaus precisely moved his new bat and watched the ball trickle home to eliminate California's Gene Andrews, 2 and 1. "There was no way that ball could get into the cup," complained Andrews, who carried a form chart on every green. "Just no way it could be done."

In the finals Coe started fast, drilling birdies on the first three holes, led two up after the morning round of 18 holes. But in the afternoon Coe began to wilt. He sent seven of nine tee shots into the rough, set six geese to frantic squawking by nearly dropping a ball into their pond.

Swinging with smooth power, canning his putts with authority, Nicklaus caught Coe on the 21st hole. Going into the 36th, the exhausted Coe and the confident Nicklaus were still tied. The sun was down, and the greens had slowed when Coe chipped for the cup out of a grassed bunker. Normally, the ball would have rolled in, but in the dampening grass it stopped inches away. Nicklaus conferred briefly with 16-year-old Caddy Bob Valdes ("Best greens reader we've got," said Club Pro Ed Dudley). Then Nicklaus took his new putter and sank his eight-footer for a birdie three and the U.S. Amateur. New Champion Nicklaus was the youngest player to win the title in half a century.

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