With the Help of St. Jude

Things have come to a pretty pass when betting on golf gets as risky as betting on horses. It used to be that all anyone had to do was book both Arnie Palmer and Jack Nicklaus to win the big tournaments; one or the other al most always did. Not this year, though.Palmer won the Masters. But who could have figured Ken Venturi to win the U.S. Open? Or Tony Lema to rattle off four victories in six weeks,including the British Open? Or Bobby Nichols to beat them all in theProfessional Golfers Association championship?

If ever a tournament looked like a lock for the Big Two, it was the P.G.A. It is the only major title Palmer has never won, and he took a week's holiday just to work himself up to proper pitch. Nicklaus was the defending champion, and he figured to know the Columbus (Ohio) Country Club like the back of his chubby hand -- being as how he has lived most of his 24 years in Columbus.

Long on Trash. Nichols, 28, didn't figure at all. He was lucky to be alive, let alone playing golf. A onetime caddie from Louisville, he was nearly killed in 1952 when a car in which he was riding went off the road at 107 m.p.h., putting him in the hospital for 96 days with a broken pelvis, a spine injury, a concussion and assorted internal injuries. That ruled out such sports as football and basketball. But he could still play golf, and after college he turned pro, with so-so results: in five years, he won three tournaments, created his biggest splash in 1962 when he wound up third behind Nicklaus and Palmer in the U.S. Open.

A husky six-footer who hits one of the game's longest balls (he once won a driving contest with measured drives of 347, 352 and 367 yds.), Nichols is known as a "trash player," a scrambler, who sprays his shots like a 20-handicapper, plays best when he is in deepest trouble. Last week he outdid himself. On the first round, he drove into the rough four times -- and each time got a birdie, with miraculous recoveries, for a six-under-par 64, the lowest score ever shot in a P.G.A.championship. A second-day 71 was good enough to keep him out front, onestroke ahead of Palmer. Then came the third round, and not even Nicholswas prepared for what happened.

Carbon Copy. Teeing off at the start, he pulled his drive into rough, hit his second shot into a trap, somehow blasted out to within 10 ft. of the pin for a par four. The second hole was practically a carbon copy of the first:his drive landed behind a tree, his second shot found a trap--and he still got a par. On and on he went, playing as if he had taken lessons from Rube Goldberg--straying down an adjoining fairway on the eighth, bouncing his ball off a tree on the 15th, dumping his drive into loose sod on the 16th. Scores: two pars and a birdie. On the par-three 17th hole, Nichols "squirreled" his No. 2 iron tee shot off to his right and overhit his wedge recovery. So what happened? The ball hit the top of the pin and dropped dead 1 1/2 ft. from the hole. Dazed, Bobby added up his day's score --a one-under 69--and headed for a press conference. "Fellows," he sighed, "you'll never believe this, but . . ."

Still a stroke behind at the start of the final round, Arnold Palmer shot a 69 that was good, but not nearly good enough. Nicklaus matched Nichols' first-round record with a magnificent 64. But that only got him a 274, and a tie with Palmer for second place. Nichols had his game under control now. He only hit one tree in 18 holes, sank putts of 15, 18, 35 and 51 ft. for a three-under 67 and a 72-hole total of 271. "All week long, I've been praying to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes," said Nichols, whose previous earnings on the tour this year amounted to $15,745. The victory was worth $18,000, plus another $22,500 in bonuses.

It also gave Nichols a shot (along with Palmer, Venturi and Lema) at the biggest bonanza of all: the $50,000 first prize in September's World Series of Golf at Akron, Ohio.

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