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Nestled atop a hill five miles from the parade route, Athens Country Club was a playground for university professors and administrators and for the doctors, dentists and businessmen who had them as patients and clients.
Theirs was a simple nine-hole, Donald Ross course, with alternate tees for the second nine. Put together, the nines measured 6,382 yards and played to a par 72. With a single dirt road (barely wide enough for two cars passing in opposite directions) leading into the club, Athens hardly looked like the center of the golf universe. But with the Tour season largely complete, this was the biggest game on the schedule.
The sky was clear, and the temperature was in the upper 60s. A gallery of about 1,500 poured onto the grounds. Fans parked cars along the 7th fairway. In fact, fans parked in the yards of everyone who lived just off the course. The sides were chosen, and Palmer, considered the strongest player, was paired with Nicklaus, considered the weakest because of his age. The four participants were warming up when the forces of fate intervened.
Nicklaus and Palmer would go head-to-head after all.
As Palmer and Finsterwald were swatting practice drives from the elevated tee on the 321-yard 1st hole, Nicklaus and Saunders were sent to the nearby 9th green to hit balls back toward the 9th tee. Jack swung with all his teenage might and immediately caused a stir.
A witness approached Kermit Blosser, the Ohio U golf coach and de facto master of ceremonies.
"Hey," the man told Blosser, "you ought to get that Nicklaus kid to hit against Arnold on number 1. He's really moving it down there."
Blosser summoned Nicklaus to the 1st tee, where Palmer was flexing his comic-book biceps. The golf coach had a microphone, and he was about to become a play-by-play man. A short, precise driver known for his cautious, anti-Arnold game, Finsterwald stepped aside as Palmer accepted the challenge.
The fairways were dry and fast, allowing the mad bombers to add an extra 15 or 20 yards to their prodigious drives. Palmer and Nicklaus took a few warmup swings. Jack's technically sound form appeared torn from the pages of a manual, with one exception: His right elbow flew away from his side. Palmer couldn't help but notice the flaw, but he wasn't in any position to mock another player's mechanics. His swing was punctuated by the least aesthetically pleasing follow-through in golf. In the immediate wake of impact Palmer abruptly jerked the club above his head and appeared to begin wrestling with a rattlesnake, a gushing water hose, or both.
Nicklaus, meanwhile, had a full follow-through and none of Palmer's gyrations. Their games were as different as their backgrounds and body types. Nicklaus came from German stock, Palmer from Scotch, Irish and English. Nicklaus had thighs that looked like redwood trunks; Palmer had hands that could crush a watermelon.
On this day in Athens, Palmer showed up tan and fit. As always, he was distracting the ladies with his rugged, man-of-the-earth looks. Palmer carried himself with a John Wayne swagger and an Errol Flynn flair. He didn't walk to his tee shots; he marched.
After surveying his target and flicking his cigarette to the grass, Palmer approached his ball as if he were a cowboy loading up at the O.K. Corral.
He'd hitch up his pants, puff out his chest and defy the smooth and effortless strokes of the greats before him. Palmer wasn't interested in the sweet science of Sam Snead's swing, nor was he hoping to match Ben Hogan's relentless quest for technical perfection. Palmer was simply trying to land his ball on the moon.
Nicklaus? He looked like an extra on Palmer's movie set.
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