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Thursday, July 13, 2017

Jack Nicklaus Museum in Columbus

Last winter Pam and I looked at our travel schedule in Ohio and decided we wanted to not only see the State Capitol, but also attend the Memorial Golf Tournament in Muirfield Villiage near Dublin, OH.  Jack Nicklaus is the sponsor of the golf tournament that he has held

It didn't work out for us to attend the golf tournament, but while we were recently in Columbus, we made a visit to the Jack Nicklaus Golf Museum on the campus of the Ohio State University.  It is next door to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.

The building looks like it has been there a few years and a very nice facility to house the memorabilia  of Jack Nicklaus life and legacy.
Early on a newspaper writer took not of his blond hair and dubbed a hefty Jack Nicklaus the "Golden Bear".
Jack Nicklaus' accomplishments truly establish him as one of the Legends of the Game and the Greatest of All Time (GOAT).
In the 1950's Jack played basketball and was very much an all-around athlete.
But he found the game of golf was his passion in his teens and he rigged up a covered area where he could practice and hit golf balls in the dead of the Ohio winter.
I liked the amount of artifacts the were on display.  Each showcase had its own story.
As a golfer, accomplished a lot.  First he won a lot of golf tournaments at The Ohio State University and the U.S. Amateur.
Jack also won the four 'Majors':  U.S. Open, The Masters,  PGA, and the British Open.  A specific room was devoted to each of these tournaments and his trophies associated with each win were on display.
Jack started a tournament of his own called the Memorial Invitational Golf tournament which honors former champions and contributors of the game of golf.
He also has been involved with the design of 410 golf courses in 41 countries and 39 states.
We have played on a few of his courses.  The last one I remember seeing was in Dove Mountain outside of Tucson AZ which hosted the World Golf Championships.  It was a match play tournament that started with 64 players and was eventually won that year (2014) by Jason Day.

The museum is a nice stop and a great way to learn about Jack Nicklaus.  I liked the old golf clubs and score cards and golf balls.  His golf equipment changed dramatically throughout his career.  He started out using persimmon woods and when he quit playing he was using the metal woods with the much larger heads.

It was also fun to see some of the ads for the things he advertised during his career.

That's about it for this edition of the Roadrunner Chronicles.  Thanks for taking a look!




1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the blog, we'll be in Columbus next month and plan to visit it.

    ReplyDelete