The Memorial Tournament Presented By Workday

Sunday, June 4, 2023

Dublin, Ohio, USA

Muirfield Village

Jack Nicklaus

Aneel Bhusri

Charles DeLong

Alex Price

Easton Johnson

Matthis Lefevre

Press Conference


THE MODERATOR: Good morning and welcome to the awards presentation for the 2023 Jack Nicklaus awards presented by Workday.

First, I would like to recognize our five recipients. The first recipients from NCAA Division I, Ludvig Aberg from Texas Tech. Aberg clinched the No. 1 spot in the final PGA TOUR University rankings finishing in the Top-8 in nine tournaments this season on and won four times, including his second straight Big-12 championship in the NCAA Norman Regional.

The senior from Oslo, Sweden, is Texas Tech's all-time leader in career wins with eight and became the second golfer to win the Hogan award multiple times, joining past Nicklaus recipient, Jon Rahm. Ludvig was unable to join us today.

From Division II, Charles DeLong from Grand Valley State. DeLong won a program record seven tournaments this season en route to Ping First Team All America, Ping All Midwest Region, and his second consecutive Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Player of the Year award. The redshirt sophomore from DeWitt, Michigan, is also the program's all-time leader in individual wins with 13 and he led NCAA Division II in adjusted stroke average at 69.70 and recorded 30 rounds of par or better and 16 rounds in the 60s for Grand Valley State.

Charles is joined by his parents, Peter and Jamie Delong; brother, Jason DeLong; Coach Gary Bissell; and Jim Bissell; and his girlfriend Katelyn Goodwin.

I would like to recognize Charles DeLong.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: Our Division III recipient, Alex Price, from Christopher Newport. Price carded eight top 5 finishes in nine tournaments this season with three wins and two runner-up finishes, including the Division III national championship. In 26 rounds, the senior from Hillsboro, Virginia, was at par or better 21 times.

Price became the first golfer in Christopher Newport history to be named All-American four times and to the First Team twice. His 69.69 scoring average topped his own single season school record by almost three strokes.

Alex is joined by his mother, Karen Price; Coach Jamie Coleman; girlfriend, Sarah Carman; and her mother, Melissa Fleming.

From Christopher Newport, Alex Price.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: Our NAIA recipient Easton Johnson from the Masters. Johnson finished in the top 11 in all 11 tournaments this season and won the 2023 NAIA Men's Golf Individual National Championship. The freshman from Kansas City, Missouri, earned the 2023 NAIA Phil Mickelson Outstanding Freshman award and Ping First-Team All-America honors, Ping All-West Region and All Golden State Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year honors.

Easton is joined by his parents, Dale and Summer Johnson and his coach, Jacob Hicks.

From the Masters, Easton Johnson.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: The NJCAA recipient, Matthis Lefèvre, from New Mexico Junior College. Lefèvre, the top-ranked player in NJCAA Division I, finished no worse than ninth in all 12 tournaments this season, winning four times. The sophomore from France owns the program record for career wins with nine, carded 16 round in the 60s en route to Ping First-Team All-America honors, Ping All-South District Central, and Western Junior College Athletic Conference Player of the Year.

He will continue his college career at Arkansas next season. From New Mexico Junior College, Matthis Lefèvre.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: Sorry, I was remiss. I was so intimidated by trying to pronounce his hometown, which I skipped on here, that I forgot to mention that he was joined by his coaches, Jay Rees and Laurent Poncelet.

Now I would like to invite our awards sponsor, Aneel Bhusri, who is the cofounder and CEO of Workday.

(Applause.)

ANEEL BHUSRI: Well, it's great to be here. It's an honor for Workday to be involved with the Memorial Tournament and with the Jack Nicklaus Award. We've got these fine young gentlemen here and I wish you all the best in golf and life and just feel so great that it's the golf coaches that chose you for this award, and truly all the best to you.

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I would like to invite Mr. Nicklaus to the podium, please.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, thanks, Dustin.

How many years we been doing this now?

THE MODERATOR: Since 2007.

JACK NICKLAUS: Since 2007. So we've had quite a few years and quite a few good players have come through here, and it doesn't look like we have a crop that's going to be anything less. I wish you congratulations to you guys. We wish you well. I know that you're all going back and playing a little bit more college golf. I've got a feeling you'll probably be here at the Memorial Tournament in a couple years, right? Well, we hope so.

You know, I think that it's really nice to be able to honor these young men, and the records they've had, you know, how many times they shoot in the 60s. We felt like if we ever broke 70 back when we were playing, we really had a great round.

Well, they do it a bunch of times. And the players coming out of college today are just -- they're so good and it's nice to be able to -- nice to be able to honor 'em.

And I also want to thank Workday for joining me in this now. Aneel's history has been absolutely fantastic for the Memorial Tournament. He wanted to be part of what we're doing here with the young people. He's just the best.

Aneel, thank you so much for your support. We appreciate it very much.

I don't know what else to say except congratulations, guys, and we'll look forward to following you and watching you play in the years to come. I asked 'em if they could all putt and they all shoot in the 60s or something, and I said, oh, I think they can putt.

Thank you very much. Thanks, Dustin.

THE MODERATOR: So one thing we started in 2020 when we weren't able to get together as a group due to COVID was all these guys get to ask Mr. Nicklaus a question.

So, Matthis, since you're right next to Mr. Nicklaus, we'll start with you.

MATTHIS LEFÈVRE: Mr. Nicklaus, I have got a question for you. What advice would you give to an amateur for him to succeed as a pro?

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I think, first of all, for an amateur to succeed as a pro you got to be able to beat everybody you're playing against as an amateur. That's certainly, I think, a given. I mean, obviously, you don't beat everybody because sometimes there's some guys that are just pretty good players.

But you're not going to win every time at the game of golf. You've found that out too, haven't you? That's what's neat about the game. I said you can be probably the best player if you win 10 or 15 percent of the time. Some of you will win more than that. And in college golf you probably do win more in your divisions and what you're playing.

Don't get too cocky. You're going to run into some guys that can really play as you go along. You guys haven't been playing against each other. Now you'll start playing against each other.

But what it is to succeed is, you know, you have to grow, you have to learn who you are, what you are, what you can do, what you can't do, and you got to apply it. And you're going to play a million different golf courses -- not a million, but you're going to play a lot of different golf courses, a lot of different conditions. You have been playing -- well, I guess you guys probably have played all over the country. But you're more likely -- most of yours are regional events then you go to national events, and so forth.

So you're going to have conditions that you're not used to. I know I grew up in Ohio, and I started going to Florida. I don't think I won a tournament in Florida. I think it took me -- I was 27 before I won my first professional tournament in Florida, and I was putting on Bermuda and that kind of stuff. It was different conditions. Had to learn to it, learn how to do it.

So I think just be patient. Patience is a big virtue. I sort of tell the story about Rory McIlroy. Rory came to me when he was 19 years old and he was struggling, he said. I mean, a 19-year-old struggling? He hadn't won for a year, and that had been in Dubai. And he was at the Honda tournament down in Florida, and he came over and had lunch with me, and I told him, I said, Rory, I says, you got to just be patient. Pretty soon you're going to get to that last round and you're going to be in contention and instead of shooting 36 or 37, you're going to shoot 32 or 33 and you're going to win the golf tournament, and it's just patience. It's going to happen. You're just too good a player for that not to happen.

Well, just a few weeks later he goes to Charlotte and shoots 63 the last round and wins by about eight or nine shots, and so I dropped him a note, and I said, well, I told you to be patient, but this is ridiculous.

So anyway, that's what you do, you wait your time and pretty soon it will happen. Once you do that, then you'll gain confidence, and winning breeds winning.

Well, I'll finish the second story with Rory. Rory went to the Masters and he was leading in the Masters and shot 80 the last round. None of the guys remember back then. That was a few years ago. But he shot 80 the last round and I saw him up here at the Memorial Tournament, and I said -- he came over to me, and I says, Did you learn anything?

And he says, I hope so.

I said, Well, you need to apply it for the next tournament, what happened and why you shot 80 the last round and how you lost, not winning.

Well, he went down to Congressional the next week and won by about eight shots, and I wrote him another note again, and I said, Rory, I says, you obviously learned from Augusta. I said, but more important, did you learn why you won at Congressional?

So you got to understand, you know, how you win, but you also -- or how you lose -- but you also understand how you win, and putting those together is how you develop a career. That's a long answer to your question.

THE MODERATOR: Charles?

CHARLES DeLONG: So growing up in Michigan in the Midwest and now playing college golf in a similar area, the weather can obviously be pretty spotty for a few months here, and I know you grew up in Ohio, same, similar situation. So I want to know how you were able to kind of overcome that and what led to your success in that way.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, conditions were such that I sort of -- I always took the falls off. And why? I don't know. I guess maybe it was coming back from high school I played up through maybe up through the Junior tournaments and the national amateur and that kind of stuff, and then I just went and I played basketball through the winter. So I didn't really worry about it.

But starting about, oh, I suppose the end of January, February, I started getting the itch to go play. So I would go out to Scioto, which is where I played, which is a course just across town here, and we would have snow on the ground, and I would get a shovel and a broom and go out and brush it off and I would go -- in those days we all had practice bags, all the members had practice bags.

So I would go out and borrow all the members' practice bags and I'd go out and I'd hit 'em and when the snow melted, then I went out and got the balls back and separated them. But I started to get my itch to start to play again. But I always felt like a little time off is good. You got to refresh yourself.

The worst year I ever had was 1979. I didn't win a tournament. So I got done -- I finished about, oh, I don't know, I guess probably about the 1st of October, and I just said, I'm going to take some time off this fall. I think I touched a club three times between the 1st of October and January 1. And so January 1 I went back to my instructor, a fellow named Jack Grout, and I said, Okay, J Grout, let's start over. I says, I have all the bad habits that caused me what happened in the last year. I don't want any of those bad habits. I want to make sure that I'm doing things right way.

So we started with grip, we started with stance, we started with posture, we started with head position. All those things that helped, you know, and now I was -- I got it fresh in my mind. It took me awhile to get it, but I got it to about -- it took me probably three or four months and then the U.S. Open rolled around and I won the U.S. Open and the PGA that year. So it was worth doing that.

But in Ohio, first thing I have to think of kids going to college. You guys I'm not sure exactly where you are. But if you go really far north like, maybe -- where are you -- you're in school in Michigan? Well, the Michigan schools are smart enough to go south in the wintertime, right? You get to go south for a couple weeks or so?

CHARLES DELONG: Yeah.

JACK NICKLAUS: The guys that go the mid Atlantic area, they sort of think they have good weather and they stay there. But the guys who go north, you get some time to go south. So I never thought it was a big imposition going to Ohio State. I loved Ohio State. I loved the golf courses up here and then the opportunity to go south all of a sudden became really a special time and really worked on it when we did it.

I don't think I answered your question. But I just sort of -- I never worried about being north. If you look at -- I think Arnold Palmer did all right. He was north too. There's a lot of guys that grew up in the northern part of the United States that have done all right on TOUR. So I wouldn't think that's a big disadvantage. You'll do all right, particularly if you can putt, right? We talked about that earlier.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. Nicklaus, I have another question for you. What was the most difficult part of your career and then how did you get through that?

JACK NICKLAUS: My most difficult part of my career? Well, I suppose winning the first time is always the hardest part of anybody's career, and as I said, winning breeds winning. I came out of college and I was fortunate in college to win the U.S. Amateur and the NCAA and I knew how to win.

But when I got to college -- or when I got to the pros, my first tournament I played was L.A. and I won $33.33. I finished tied for 50th. And then I won -- not very much, I won 400 or 500 bucks the next few weeks, and got to Phoenix and finished second.

Well, then I had three seconds before the U.S. Open. I finished second at Phoenix, finished second and lost a playoff at Houston, and then I finished second at the Thunderbird, which is a week before the U.S. Open, and I was getting a little frustrated about not winning because I was used to winning. And I think that's what you guys are, you're used to winning, you're going out there and playing.

But again, I had patience and I went to Oakmont the next week and I forgot that there was a fellow that lived close to Oakmont a fellow named Palmer. So he was a bit of a favorite in that thing. But I finished close in the previous two Opens and I felt like this was my tournament and in spite of this guy, Palmer. We got in a playoff and I ended up prevailing in the playoff.

But the hardest thing was to go through and just be patient enough to win. And I had the same thing that I just said to you guys, I said to Rory, and it was Joe Black who ran the TOUR in those days. He came to me early on after I finished second a couple times. He said, just be patient. He says, Just shoot that 32 or 33 the last round rather than 36 or 37. The same line.

And it's exactly what happened. I did. And so just be patient with yourself. Just keep working at it and keep trying to make sure that you're trying to get better and don't get discouraged with yourself because you got a lot of other guys out there going through the same thing you are. So good luck to you.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Mr. Nicklaus, first of all, I would just like to say it a tremendous honor to be able to win this award and come here and meet you and be able to do this, so I would just like to, first of all, say thank you.

But as for my question for you: Out of all your wins, amateur, professional, major championships, is there one that you look back on that you're the most proud of?

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, I'm proud of all of 'em. I think that if you weren't proud of all of 'em, I think there's something wrong with you, and, you know, whether it was my college days or whatever. I think that in 1959 I was playing -- I was 19 years old. I made the Walker Cup team, I played in the Walker Cup, came back, played in the U.S. Amateur at Broadmoor. I got to the finals and playing Charlie Coe, who was the defending champion. 36-hole matches in the semi-finals and the finals in those years.

And Charlie and I got to the 18th hole, all even after 35 holes. We played the 18th hole at the Broadmoor. Charlie hit it on the back fringe and I hit it about 8 feet short of the hole, and he ran the chip down and just hung it over the edge of the cup, and I holed the putt, which to me was the most important putt I ever made because it meant to me that under the pressure, under the type of tournament that you're going to win, I could do it.

And all of a sudden that allowed me to take forward something that allowed me to move forward and do things. And I think that was a really big stepping stone. I always look back on it that way. Of course beating Palmer in the playoff at Oakmont wasn't too bad because that was -- you know, you had the guy who was the best in the game at the time and I took him on and beat him. Arnold was terrific to me. Arnold and I had a great relationship. Even though I beat him, Arnold always took care of me, took me under his wing and sort of -- he shepherded me through my first it two years. Arnold was 10 years older than I. But he shepherded me through that and I always appreciated that.

And you'll find that there's guys out there that are really good guys on the TOUR and they will help you. Don't be afraid to ask 'em. Ask 'em for help. They're happy to help you. Really, they're no different than you guys. They're a bunch of nice guys that are very competitive, but they also knew what they went through and they also want to help other guys through the same thing.

That's some good questions, guys.

THE MODERATOR: All right. Any questions?

Q. What are you going to do during the summer until, what will you do for the rest of the summer to stay active, stay sharp?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: There's a lot of opportunities now days between college season ending in the spring and fall for us to get out and compete against each other. And it's kind of fun across all divisions. You are playing against guys you might not play all of the college season. So there's about as many events as you want to play you can sign up for. Obviously, U.S. Amateur being the biggest. That type of stuff. So you can keep your game sharp in the summer and it's almost more competitive sometimes.

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: Personally I'm going to go back to Europe and it's the same out there. We have a lot of tournaments we can play over the summer. Like the British Amateur and the St. Andrews Links Trophy. So it's the same. We have a lot of tournaments to keep playing.

JACK NICKLAUS: When is the British Amateur? Probably right about now, isn't it?

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: It is in two week, three weeks.

JACK NICKLAUS: You're going back?

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: Yeah.

JACK NICKLAUS: Three weeks. They play it in June now? We used to play it in May.

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: It's June now.

Q. Did you have a small ball at the Amateur too, Jack?

JACK NICKLAUS: I'm sorry?

Q. Did you have the small ball at the Amateur?

JACK NICKLAUS: What do you mean? When we played over there?

Q. Yeah. You had the small ball at the Open, did you also have it at the Amateur?

JACK NICKLAUS: Yeah, yeah, there's one over there sitting in the 5th hole in Sandwich that I lost. That cost me my match with Bill Hyman in the quarterfinals of the Amateur too. It's the only time I played the British Amateur. And the small ball was something that my first experience of it was playing you guys never seen the small ball, but my first experience was playing it over there in the Walker Cup matches. So we played it at Muirfield at Walker Cup matches and then went down to Sandwich and played the Amateur. And of course that little ball you could just, the small ball we hit 50 yards further than the big ball. And I think that's about what the difference would be today with what the golf ball was 20 years ago and what it is today is about 50 yards. So, you know, it's -- I was used to it. You might say.

Q. Matthis, I wanted to, I can't escape without asking you one other thing about your first trip to Muirfield Village and apparently it was a very uneventful flight for you or no? What details can you share with us?

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: Yeah, so a lot of things happened during this flight. So, my coach and I, we were flying two days ago from Paris to Detroit. And in the flight somebody was drunk. So he probably started drinking before the flight and he kept drinking during the flight. And so this person was drunk in the plane and was being kind of dangerous. And he was threatening to people and it was the chaos in the plane at that moment. And so the women working in the plane asked me personally and the other guy that was sitting next to me to come help them to control the guy. So I asked my coach to come as well and so, because, and so we went to help them (laughing.) During, maybe two hours. And unfortunately we had to stop in Canada, so I missed the next flight. But, yeah, we had to stop in Canada, the police came. They took the guy. We could arrive in Detroit three hours later, but, yeah, that was a long flight.

Q. Did he break out of his handcuffs?

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: Yeah, he did, twice. So they tried to put the handcuffs, but it was plastic ones, it's not the handcuffs police officers have. So they put the handcuffs and he was just trying to remove them, to take, to take them off and he did it twice. So it was tough as well. So, yeah.

Q. Jack, can you top that?

JACK NICKLAUS: No, I've never had any experiences like that. Not on an airplane and thank goodness.

Q. Some big names have sat where you guys are right now. Jon Rahm, Patrick Cantlay. Do you allow yourself to think, that could be me? Do you dream that big, I assume?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, I mean, I think, I can't speak for them, but at least for me like that's where I want to be in, hopefully, just a few years. But realistically, hopefully like in five or six or seven. So I think you have to think that way if you want to be able to make it, so...

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, I think that's a key for me for sure is definitely thinking along those lines. You have to have a dream or otherwise what are you going to chase. So I think that is a big piece to probably all of us playing so well is being able to dream that big.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You need to have big goals if you want to make it. So trying to fill names like Patrick Cantlay and Mr. Nicklaus, like if that's your goal and you fall short of that you might still have a great career, so, yeah.

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: I don't want to talk for the other guys as well, but I think that's the reason we're sitting at this table right now next to Mr. Nicklaus. Because we all want to get there once, one time in our life.

Q. We ask you guys the question every year, your favorite shot, your most meaningful tournament shot in tournament play, in practice, whatever case was. What did it mean, what was the circumstance around it?

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: I've got one shot in my mind and coach Jay Rees is here, he's going to approve this one. So we were playing a tournament in Florida, it was in January, and we were like 10 or 15 shots behind with one round to go with the team. We had a great day. We tied at the end as a team. So we played a playoff, like a team playoff. Five against five. And I missed my drive left and I had to, it was a par-5, and I had 295 yards to the pin. And I hit it straight to the -- I mean, Coach Jay Rees could talk about it -- straight to the pin to around 15 feet and missed the putt, unfortunately, but it was enough, it was enough for the win to for the team to win.

CHARLES DeLONG: Mine wasn't as impactful of a moment, but it's fresh in my head. I hit my first hole-in-one last week. So I've been excited about that.

JACK NICKLAUS: Where did you have it?

CHARLES DeLONG: Just at our home university course. It was out with a couple teammates and a 6-iron just right at it.

JACK NICKLAUS: Where is your course?

CHARLES DeLONG: It's The Meadows at Grand Valley State. So like right on campus in Grand Rapids.

JACK NICKLAUS: In Grand Rapids. Okay. I was in Grand Rapids last week.

CHARLES DeLONG: Oh, we've been loving American Dunes, so thank you for that.

JACK NICKLAUS: Enjoying it?

CHARLES DeLONG: Yeah.

JACK NICKLAUS: Nice golf course, isn't it.

CHARLES DeLONG: Awesome.

JACK NICKLAUS: Very interesting.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: For me that's a tough question, first of all, but I think for me it's pretty recent. In the national championship I had, I had a two-shot lead with three to play and I wanted know where I was at so I turned to my coach and asked him before I hit my shot on a par-3 on 16 and turned to him and asked him what I was at. He told me and I was like, okay, that's a good lead with a few holes to play, but I need, I want more. So I hit, pulled 8-iron, hit it pretty close, and actually made about a 15-, 20-footer to get me to go 3-up with two to play. Little did I know that the guy in front of me had finished well and we ended up getting into a playoff. But like that was definitely like probably my favorite shot.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I don't know. For me it was probably, it was 7, but it was my 16th hole of my first win. I had come close to winning before, but had fallen short like four or five times before. And I stepped up -- to me at least it was kind of a tough tee shot and I hit a good tee shot, I had like 250 and then hit just an absolutely perfect 3-iron to like 18 feet and made the putt and that got me a two- or three-shot lead at that point. So to finally like have hit that great shot under pressure trying to win a tournament, at least for me was pretty big.

Q. A little bit out there, but just considering our host of this award, I would like to ask all four of you if you've ever hit a 1-iron.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I've never been able to find a lefty 1-iron, so...

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I've hit a 1-iron, but not like the ones that they had to play back in the day. It was nice and chunky.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I'm the same way. I've hit like a newer 1-iron, but never the old one.

MATTHIS LEFEVRE: No, I never had the chance to try, unfortunately. I would like to.

JACK NICKLAUS: Well, let me sort of answer what a 1-iron really is, Doug. A 1-iron that we played in those days was probably 17, 18 degrees loft, which is about the loft of your 2-iron today. So when they did, when they -- and these guys probably, not even really -- back years ago, Hogan made a set of forgings that were, they all came back, they had been made overseas, they all came back and they were all about D-0 or C-9 or whatever it was. C-9 maybe. And they couldn't sell 'em. So they figured, well, they came up with the idea that if we add three quarters of an inch to the shaft they would all go to about D-3. So everybody that bought Hogan clubs that year says, Man, I can't believe how far I hit my 5-iron or my 7-iron or whatever it might be. Well they had three quarters of an inch of shaft and so obviously we're going to hit it further.

So then the manufacturers, I don't know which one it was decided, he say, You know, that was a pretty good thing that Hogan did. Why don't we just take the 7-iron and put 6 on it. Why don't we just take the 4-iron and put 3 on it. Well, that's where you ended up with the gap wedge. Because they didn't have anything after 9. 9-irons used to be 47 degrees. Now your pitching wedge is 47 degrees and your gap wedge is the 51-degree club.

So all of a sudden the 1-iron disappeared. The 1-iron would have had to go to about 12 degrees of loft. Nobody could get it off the ground. So that's why you don't see one anymore. I've got a whole, I've got a whole rack full of 'em. If you guys want, I can get you one.

Q. Was the 1-iron you hit at Baltusrol different from the one you hit at Pebble in '72?

JACK NICKLAUS: Different club?

Q. Yeah. Actual club.

JACK NICKLAUS: I really don't know. I usually, I used whatever new set of clubs that we came up with, that MacGregor at that time, just put 'em in the bag. But might have been a good chance -- let's see, I used the -- I used a set of irons for my first, maybe five years on TOUR. Then I did -- could, it could have been the same club. Could possibly, yeah.

Q. As you mentioned that, how different were your MacGregors from your Slazengers when you went overseas?

JACK NICKLAUS: Well we fudged it a little bit. I took the Slazengers and sent 'em to MacGregor and had 'em redo 'em to make sure that the did 'em and then just kept the Slazenger name on it.

Q. You mentioned earlier on about how there would be some guys that you didn't really know who they were and you would get caught off guard, that they were better than you thought they were. Did you, could you mention anybody that you showed up to a tournament and you went, oh, I had no idea this guy could play like this?

JACK NICKLAUS: Try a guy like Trevino, maybe. I mean, I never heard of Lee Trevino know and all of a sudden he finished 5th at the U.S. Open in 1967, which is his, I think it was his first U.S. Open. And Lee is the same age as I am. And I went to -- we played Cleveland the next week and I went to the practice range and I saw this guy hitting balls. And I saw this sort of odd looking golf swing. And I stood back and watched and I said, Hey, he repeats that pretty well. I says, Who is that guy? And he says, Oh, that's that guy Lee Trevino. And I said, Oh, we got a new sheriff on the block, huh. And he proved it, obviously he was a really, really good player and a great striker of the ball. Trevino was as -- Hogan was the best I had ever seen and Trevino is probably the second best guy that -- and he wasn't far behind Hogan. But he was, he could do anything with a golf ball. And that's the guy I would pick as a guy that I didn't know anything about.

THE MODERATOR: Do we have any other questions?

JACK NICKLAUS: Let me just add, Dustin, that it's really great to have these young guys here and it's really an honor and a privilege for all of us to have you here and to honor you and we wish you well in the rest of your college career and we look forward to having you here at Muirfield in a few years. Okay. Good luck to you.

(All said thank you.)

(Applause.)

THE MODERATOR: Well thank you again, Mr. Nicklaus, for your time this morning. We very much appreciate it. And Mr. Bhusri, thank you so much for your support. And thank you everyone for joining us this morning.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports
133565-2-1044 2023-06-04 16:36:00 GMT

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