The greatest rivalry in golf began on a nine-hole course in the Ohio countryside

Nicklaus would win only low amateur honors, his 68 beating Saunders's 71. Finsterwald saved face in his own backyard, edging Nicklaus by a shot. Palmer sank a 50-footer at the 16th and made an easy two-putt par on the 18th for a 62, celebrating Finsterwald's day by breaking his friend's Athens record by one.

Palmer said a few kind words about Nicklaus afterward but wasn't effusive in his praise. Over the decades, whenever asked about this day, Palmer would inevitably talk about Nicklaus's flying elbow, the one conspicuous flaw.

"I thought he was potentially good," Palmer says. "I noticed he had his right elbow, it was unattached. Let's say it swung out. . . . Until he got that elbow under control or kept that elbow closer, he might've had some problems with his game."

The exhibition wasn't about Nicklaus, anyway.

"I think the whole thing was just the fact that I was there to [honor]a good friend," Palmer says, "and that was Dow Finsterwald. It had nothing to do with Jack Nicklaus, other than the fact that I was happy to see him and make his acquaintance, and to understand he was an up-and-coming player to be reckoned with at some point. And that was it."

After the exhibition the golfers were off to a dinner held in Dow's honor. Palmer and Finsterwald helped themselves to a few cocktails while Charlie Nicklaus kept close watch over his boy.

"I don't think either Arnold or I realized how great Jack was going to be," Finsterwald would say. "We didn't appreciate . . . the significance of what was taking place."

Finsterwald did make a speech at the dinner, and in it he predicted Nicklaus would have a "wonderful future" in golf. The other players spoke as well, and Nicklaus handled himself with surprising ease on the podium. Palmer told the audience he liked Jack's putting stroke. At the close of the evening, the man and the boy shared their final handshake and went their separate ways, Arnold back to the Tour, Jack back to Ohio State.

Swearingen would go on to become an NFL referee and make one of the most controversial calls in league history: the Immaculate Reception ruling that decided the 1972 Oakland Raiders-Pittsburgh Steelers playoff game. But first he officiated at golf's Immaculate Conception, the birth of a rivalry that would fuel the surging popularity of golf in the 1960s.

A driving contest in Appalachia. A meaningless exhibition on a middling nine-hole course.

"That was the start of the whole Palmer and Nicklaus thing," Swearingen says.

That was the start of a lifelong clash of titans that would play out in fairways and boardrooms across the globe.