When fate frowned on the Golden Bear

Thirty years on, Charlie Mulqueen recalls how close Jack Nicklaus came to making history at Muirfield.

TOP-CLASS golfers rarely publicly state their goals before a campaign begins. The reasons are obvious. You're really setting yourself to be shot down. Jack Nicklaus never worried about such trivia and 1972 had hardly dawned when he announced his intention to do what everybody believed impossible. He pledged to win the four majors the US Masters and Open, the Open and the US PGA in the same year.

He won the Masters and his national Open and with Muirfield regarded as his favourite course on the Open rota, the third leg of the slam was looking a probability rather than a possibility. Nicklaus left nothing to chance, appreciating this might well be his last chance to make history. He turned up a week early at the Greywalls Hotel, the 22-room castle that runs immediately beyond the out-of-bounds wall to the left of the ninth fairway, while Scotland erupted into a frenzy over the most anticipated Open in many years.

Nicklaus was installed as red-hot favourite. The newspapers outdid themselves for hyperbole. Even Arnold Palmer got caught up in the hype, warning: "From now on, he's going to have trouble even breathing."

A record number of tickets were sold and, for the first time in decades, a member of the royal family, Princess Margaret, attended.

And yet, the first two days were relatively low key. As we will discover this week when Tiger Woods attempts to succeed where Nicklaus failed, Muirfield is not a particularly long course, especially in fast-running conditions. So he left his driver in the bag for the most part and played conservatively to open with scores of 70 and 72. Still, he was only one stroke adrift of joint leaders Lee Trevino and Tony Jacklin.

Nicklaus was not at his best and even Trevino grumbled about the noise emanating from the hospitality tents and barked: "I'm going to throw gasoline on all of them and set fire to them." But he had fire of a different kind in mind.

Just imagine the scene as the starting times for the leaders neared on a perfect Saturday afternoon. Nicklaus was partnered with Gary Player, another part of the Big Three of the era, in the second-last match. They were followed by Jacklin and Trevino. Player fell away early on, Nicklaus continued to struggle with his game, and it began to look like a two horse race.

England's big hope had won the title three years previously and the American equivalent in 1970 and he was a major force at the time. And unlike several other Brits of that era, he wasn't afraid to win. He had an eagle and two birdies over the first 13 before Trevino made his move from there to the finish. He birdied the 14th and 15th and then proceeded on one of the most astonishing and fortunate bursts imaginable.

His tee shot to the short 16th found a bunker to the left of the green, his task all the more difficult because he had an awkward lie on a downslope. He carried a ladies' wedge which made anything but ladylike contact with the ball and sent it whizzing across the green. Well, it would have gone across and over the green had it not cannoned into the flagstick two feet above the hole and dropped straight down into the cup. Jacklin managed a brave par and both men birdied the long 17th. That was four in a row for "Supermex", who then reminded his caddy Willie Aitchison that he'd never made five birdies in succession in Britain.

Such an eventuality looked to be out of the question not just because the 18th a very difficult hole (Doug Sanders had cost himself the outright lead with a triple bogey seven there the previous day) but also because he put his second shot well over the back of the green into a difficult lie. The golfing gods were on his side and a beautifully struck chip landed softly and ran into the middle of the hole.

Trevino was round in 66 but Jacklin, to his great credit, took only one more. Nicklaus, in spite of a chip-in of his own, could do no better than 71 and stood six off the pace.

"I didn't come to Scotland to help Nicklaus win a grand slam. If I played golf with my wife, I'd try to beat the daylights out of her," said Trevino. He thought he had Nicklaus licked. He ought to have known better. The Golden Bear had seen enough of his two iron and on the first tee on Sunday grabbed the driver and lashed a 300-yard shot down the centre of the fairway. He attacked and attacked and reached the turn in 32.

The roars as each putt dropped left Trevino and Jacklin in no doubt as to what was happening up ahead.

Within minutes, Nicklaus birdied number 10 and found himself in the outright lead. But Trevino wasn't having any of it. Now, he decided, was the time for action. After belting a big driver up the fairway of the long ninth, he knocked a five iron to 18 feet and holed for eagle. Incredibly, Jacklin also eagled. Battle was truly joined.

Nicklaus heard the roars as he stood over his own birdie putt on the 11th. He stood off, then resettled and knocked it in. Now it was a three-way tie between the last three champions and with Nicklaus six-under for the first 11. He knew, however, that he could not afford a single mistake and when it came at the 16th, his heart sank as he missed from five feet. When he failed to birdie the long 17th, Jack knew the game was up. But the Scottish fans wanted him to keep his Grand Slam bid on track and 15,000 or so of them gave him a standing ovation all the way up the 18th.

Jack always gloried in such adulation but he couldn't turn it into the essential birdie as he two-putted for par from 40ft for a 66.

It was now left to Trevino and Jacklin to win it or lose it. Trevino himself thought he had blown it when unable to reach the 17th green in three shots. He is even said to have remarked to Jacklin: "I'm through it's all yours."

He carelessly knocked the next over the green, strode up to the ball and gave it a firm rap. "I was steaming," Trevino recalled. "I was so mad I was just going to hit it and then hit it. I didn't care if I made an eight."

He was sure he had played another poor shot but it was dead on line for the hole and dropped in without ever having hit the fairway from tee to green. "I didn't know what to think, I was even frowning as I took the ball from the hole," he admitted, and he did look suitably embarrassed.

What of poor Jacklin? He had an 18 footer for birdie, knocked it four past and missed the return. He was shattered, the blood drained from his face. Trevino made sure he took his time to reach the 18th tee, allowing the Englishman further time to curse his luck and feel sorry for himself. When he struck, Trevino's drive was a cracker, 300 yards down the middle. Henry Longhurst on BBC television muttered: "You have just seen the shot that has won the Open."

He was right. Trevino won with 278, four better than the 11 previous Opens at Muirfield, and when Jacklin also bogeyed the last, Nicklaus was in second place, agonisingly short of the play-off that would have kept his Open dream alive.

He later confessed: "The frustration and disappointment were more immense than I care to remember, even now." Trevino, for his part, came up with the most appropriate explanation: "God is a Mexican."

Now Muirfield and history await Tiger Woods.