The Saturday Strategy
Day 3 on “One for the Ages” by Tom Clavin
“Jack wasn’t on anyone’s radar.”
Jack Nicklaus made the cut on Friday.
But no one believed he was a contender. Verne Lundquist covered the Masters for CBS. He said, “Jack wasn’t on anyone’s radar.”
Saturday was warm and humid, with barely a puff of wind. Jack was eight shots down. Not even on the leaderboard.
Yes, he chose to be positive. But he was human. Being human means having doubts, and eight shots can create a lot of doubt.
But Jack also had a Saturday strategy: Be patient by forgetting the number of strokes you’re behind and focusing on the number of people ahead of you.
Moving Day.
That morning, Jack studied the leaderboard. 16 players stood above him. They were all good. But half were untested under major fire.
Saturday was called “Moving Day” for a reason: it was as much about slipping down the leaderboard as climbing up. They would come back to him.
The players he had to worry about were Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Nick Price and Tom Kite.
Like Jack, these battle-tough champions understood Moving Day: playing smart and staying close to the top was more important than shooting a low score.
Jack’s patience paid off.
Jack birdied the second hole, then gave it back with a bogey on 5.
That sounds discouraging. But today wasn’t about chasing a low score. It was about staying close and staying patient. Those 16 guys ahead of him would make bogeys of their own.
Jack’s patience paid off.
He birdied 8 and 9, parred 10, stepped into Amen Corner, birdied 11 and birdied 12, the most intimidating hole on the course.
For the first time, the name “Nicklaus” went up on the leaderboard. A buzz ran through the gallery—then his approach on 13 spun off the green into Rae’s Creek.
If Jack was all about his score, that would have stuck in his mind. But today was about staying smart and patient. Jack regrouped and parred his way home for 69.
When he looked at the leaderboard, he saw that his Saturday strategy had paid off. There were now only eight players above Jack and he was only four shots behind.
Gandhi said, “To lose patience is to lose the battle.”
Shooting for a low score is important. As we’ll see, Jack will change his strategy to do just that. But sometimes, especially in a tournament, you have to step back and look at the big picture.
Be patient. Allow the other players to make the mistakes. And when you make a mistake, as Jack did, be kind to yourself so you don’t carry that mistake forward. Those were lessons that Jack, at 46, was mature enough to understand. Patience and kindness would become a deciding factor in the crucible of competition on Sunday—and they can help us handle the clutch moments in our own game.
That’s all for now. Until next time, keep imagining what’s possible.