Golden Bear remains golden standard by all which interviews are measured

At age 70, Jack Nicklaus remains as sharp and relevant as ever. During a wide-ranging Tuesday news conference, the Golden Bear tackled topics ranging from Tiger Woods to Ben Hogan to the new groove rule.

By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM Site Producer

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- He’s known as the Golden Bear, but Jack Nicklaus should also be considered the golden standard, at least in terms of interviews. He was the best on the golf course, and he’s the best off it.

On Tuesday, Nicklaus met with the media for 45 minutes -- even though the moderator tried to wrap up the interview session after the allotted 30 minutes had passed. That 45 minutes, by the way, didn’t include the five minutes Nicklaus spent shaking hands and answering more questions off to the side after the proceedings officially ended.

By contrast, no other player who came into the interview room Tuesday came close to holding court for that length of time. On Monday, Tiger Woods' much-anticipated session lasted nearly 35 minutes.

Even at 70 years old and five years removed from his last competitive Masters, Nicklaus remains as sharp and relevant as ever. His 18 majors are the standard by which greatness is measured, and the care he puts into his thoughts should be the standard by which all answers are measured, too.

From his new role as honorary starter with Arnold Palmer, to inevitable questions about Woods, Nicklaus answered more than 45 questions in all. Though, even Nicklaus was reluctant to dive into the deep end of the pool when it came to Woods.

“It's been none of my business so I've stayed away from it frankly,” Nicklaus said.

He wasn’t completely mum, however, reiterating that if Woods didn’t play this year, it would be a lot more difficult for him to break Nicklaus' record of 18 major championships.

Nicklaus also said he wasn’t surprised that Woods decided to make his return at Augusta National. “I never expected him to pass that up,” Nicklaus said. “I fully expected to see him here.”

As for what effect the events of the last five months will have on Woods’ legacy, that was a touchier subject. “That's a pretty hard question for me to answer,” Nicklaus said. “I don't think I'll answer it.”

Nicklaus answered everything else, though, including what it was like to play with Ben Hogan.

“I almost won the golf tournament, but I was watching Hogan play golf because I was going to learn from how he played,” Nicklaus said. “I learned a ton that day watching him play.

“The nicest compliment I got from that is the next time I saw Hogan was here in the locker room. He walked in and says, ‘Hey, fella. You got a game.’ That was the nicest compliment I had.”

When asked what he learned that day, Nicklaus said he learned how to play golf and that he could take 3 or 4 hours to explain it. If he did, every reporter in the room would have sat there and listened, too.

Nicklaus is just as good in the present. When asked about the new grooves rule on the PGA TOUR, Nicklaus admitted that he hadn’t paid much attention to how it has affected the players.

“When they first did the groove thing, it was like throwing the deck chair off the Titanic,” Nicklaus said. “I didn't think there was much to it.

“Then I started thinking about it. The V-grooves would require a softer ball out of the rough. These guys have never hit flyers in their lives, so they are going to hit a golf ball and say, ‘Oh, what was that?’ Twenty years ago, that's what guys used to hit.

“I think it's going to have to run its way through the bag. I think it will bring the ball back. Whether it brings the ball back far enough is another question. What will it do here? If the greens are firm, it will probably do a lot.”

That’s just a small sample of what Nicklaus had to say. The rest? It could go on for pages -- nine of them, in fact, on the transcript -- so I’ll leave you with what Nicklaus thinks of Woods’ chances to win are this week.

“Pretty darned good,” he said.

That’s the best way to describe Nicklaus, too.