Honorary starters: Golf legends reflect on lives, careers

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Golf legends Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson hit the first balls at the 88th Masters Tournament on Thursday, officially launching the tournament.

Nicklaus, Player and Watson combined are the winners of 11 Masters Tournaments and have made 140 tournament appearances.

Six-time champion Jack Nicklaus, with his wife Barbara on the bag, ed three-time winner Gary Player and two-time champion Tom Watson as thousands of patrons surrounded the first tee to watch them hit the traditional opening shots.

“It’s not so easy to put the ball on the tee now, is it?” Player asked the others, before striping one down the fairway.

“Watch out on the left and right,” Nicklaus quipped, before he, too, drove it right down the middle.

After the ceremony, they sat down at a news conference to take questions.

Among the questions asked of them was how they stay so youthful.

“I live life, I love people, I love my job,” Player answered.

He said a gerontologist has given him 10 steps to take, and among his own:

“I read a lot, I laugh a lot and I have love in my heart,” he said.

He also thinks it’s important to undereat.

Watson’s secret: “Surround yourself with people you love and eat responsibly.:”

Nicklaus said his kids, grandkids and great-grandkids keep him young.”

Nicklaus and Watson were asked to discuss their wins and losses against each other and what they learned from them.

“What I learned – probably not enough,” Nicklaus said.

Watson said that when Nicklaus, then the greatest golfer in the world, congratulated him, he said to himself: “Maybe I can play with the big boys.”

Watson was asked to comment on the fractured world of professional golf, with the PGA Tour and LIV Golf.

He noted that at the Champions Dinner, there was a lot of good companionship, but there was an awkwardness.

“I got up and I said – I’m looking around the room, and I’m seeing just a wonderful experience everybody is having. They are jovial. They are having a great time. They are laughing – I said, ‘Ain’t it good to be together again?’”

Then there was a pall over the joviality, he said, and it quieted down, and soon it was time to leave.

“And in a sense, I hope that the players themselves took that to say, ‘You know, we have to do something. We have to do something,’” Watson said.

He said he doesn’t think the PGA Tour and LIV have the answer right now to mending the rift.

They all spoke of their love of the game.

“You have to learn to love adversity” to play professional golf, Player said.

Watson spoke of what a great life he’s had, being able to play a game for a living instead of toiling.

Player said something needs to be done about growing lengths of shots.

“Nothing about the game today – not one single thing – is the same as when we played,” he said.

“We’re changing the whole history of the game,” he said.

“They’ve got to cut that ball back,’ he said.

Nicklaus agreed with Tiger Woods that Rory Mcilroy is destined to win the Masters and attain a Grand Slam.

“He’s just too talented not to,” he said.

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