Peter Williams: Meeting the master

I met Jack Nicklaus on Friday. This is like an enthusiastic amateur short story writer meeting Shakespeare or a wannabe artist having a conversation with Picasso.

Jack William Nicklaus is the best golfer ever. When you've won 18 major championships over a 24-year period from 1962 to 1986 and the next best total is the 11 won by Ben Hogan, there can be no pretender to that title.

For my generation at least, Nicklaus stands above all others in golf and right there with the other legendary sporting figures of his time like Muhammad Ali and Pele. It was his longevity as a winner that I loved the most. I first heard of him when I was at primary school, yet he won his famous sixth victory at the Masters when I'd been working for more than ten years. As junior golfers, my mates and I watched his TV programmes, read his books, wore his shirts and used his clubs.

When the time came we probably preferred American Express to Diners Club only because Jack reckoned he never left home without it.

After talking with him on the site of the new course he's designing at Kinloch, my impressions of him were only enhanced. Despite his unparalleled record as a player in the game and now as head of the busiest golf course design and construction company in the world, Jack seemed like the type of bloke I love - one who's happy to yap about golf and golfing things for ages. What was supposed to be a 10-minute window set aside for my television interview stretched out to more than double that time and might have gone on longer had it not been suggested that perhaps he'd better continue with his work on the new course.

Afterwards came the realization that even legends are not indestructible. During the interview he'd told me he didn't know when he'd be able to play a full round of golf again. He had back surgery in November to stop the pain he'd had in his legs. He doesn't know whether he'll be able to play in his own Memorial tournament near his hometown of Colombus, Ohio in late May. But he's trying to make the Masters in April and the British Open in July.

If he makes it to Augusta it'll be for the 45th time as a player and that will be more than anyone else. He wants to play the British Open because the Royal and Ancient close off exemptions to former champions at the age of 65, so this would be the last time he could be there. The tournament is at St Andrews too, where he won in 1970 and 1978.

But Jack Nicklaus is a proud man. He will only play, he told me, if he does not embarrass himself. He acknowledges that he cannot "shoot 65 at 65".

I didn't tell him this, but in my mind and in the minds of every golf fan, Jack Nicklaus has played so well so often and for so long, there is no way he can ever embarrass himself on any golf course at any tournament anymore. But because of the standards he set and the new levels he took the game too, I knew what he meant.

Jack Nicklaus only played golf in New Zealand once. That was an exhibition with Bob Charles about 1962. He's been here often to fish and he'll be coming here a lot more in years to come as Kinloch is built. The game in this country will be a lot better for having a piece of Jack Nicklaus as part of it.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY