Jack Nicklaus sent his ceremonial tee shot low and hard toward a line of patrons at Augusta National on Thursday, then watched it clear their heads by a couple of feet before Tom Watson stepped in behind him and drove one down the middle.
The 90-year-old Nicklaus, Gary Player and Watson opened the 90th Masters Tournament with the traditional first swings on the first fairway, and the closest call came when Nicklaus warned, “Oh, boy, watch out,” before turning to the gallery and saying, “I said, ‘Spread out on both sides because I don’t want to kill anybody.’” He added later, “If it'd been a little closer I might have.”
Player, 86, went first and split the fairway with a big leg kick. Nicklaus, 76, followed with the shot that drew the laugh and the flinch. Watson then asked, “May I use your tee,” after Nicklaus left it stuck in the ground, and Nicklaus answered, “It's why I left it,” before Watson sent his ball down the middle.
Read Also: Jim Nantz remembers the day Jack Nicklaus won his 6th Masters
The honorary starter tradition at Augusta National dates to 1963, when Jock Hutchinson and Fred McLeod hit the opening shots of the tournament. Bobby Jones had come up with the idea years earlier, and Byron Nelson, Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead handled the duty throughout most of the 1980s and 1990s. Arnold Palmer later joined Nicklaus and Player for many years before Palmer died in 2016, leaving Nicklaus and Player as a pair until Watson was asked to join them.
Nicklaus said he had carpal tunnel surgery about five or six weeks ago and had not really been playing, adding that he had played golf once all of last year and once more this past February. Even so, he said the ceremony remains a privilege, and he put the point in his own blunt way: “I hope to be able to do it as long as I can not kill anybody.”
Read Also: Arnold Palmer and the 1966 Masters: Jack Nicklaus makes history
The near miss is the kind of moment that can only happen at Augusta, where ritual and pressure share the same stage. Nicklaus walked away with his line intact and no one hurt, and the old trio carried on the Masters opener exactly as the tournament intended.
