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Done playing, Golden Bear still working
By Mike Sorensen
Deseret Morning News
June 19, 2007
HEBER CITY - A day after watching the U.S. Open and fully expecting Tiger Woods to close the gap on him in major championship wins, Jack Nicklaus was in Utah Monday helping to break ground on one of his signature golf courses.
Nicklaus, who has already designed two courses in Utah at Park Meadows and Promontory, has designed the 18-hole private Red Ledges course, which will be built on the 2,000-acre site that will include 1,200 homes, just east of Heber City real estate.
After taking a tour of the future layout, Nicklaus, Gov. Jon Huntsman and owner Tony Burns put shovels to the dirt in a groundbreaking ceremony at the future No. 9 tee. For Nicklaus, who retired from competitive golf two years ago, it was just another day of work in his busy schedule.
"I've said many times, most people work their whole lives to retire to play golf. I played golf my whole life to retire and work," Nicklaus said with a laugh. "I'd get bored to tears if I sat around and I don't want to do that." Nicklaus' design company has 60 to 70 courses under construction and 150 golf courses under contract. He said 75 percent of his work is outside of the United States with much of it in Eastern Europe and the Caribbean.
"We're working in 29 new countries in places like Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia and Turkey," he said. He said he also has several Caribbean locations such as the Bahamas, which are thriving because of a new grass that can be irrigated with salt water. "I enjoy it," Nicklaus says of his golf course design business. "This has stimulated me. We're doing well and my kids are all involved in the business."
Nicklaus says he only plays golf about once a month these days. He plays in Father-and-Sons events like the annual Champions Challenge at Thanksgiving Point, which will be played in August, and some Skins Games, but no competitive golf. Golfing legend Jack Nicklaus was in Utah to break ground at the Red Ledges Golf Course near Heber City on Monday.
He enjoyed watching the U.S. Open over the weekend at Oakmont, where he won in 1962 with a 283 total, two better than this year's winning score. "I kept looking (at the TV) and I couldn't see a way Tiger wasn't going to win it," he said. "Oakmont's a tough golf course, a survival golf course." Angel Cabrera was the fourth straight non-American to win the U.S. Open, but Nicklaus said that's not surprising to him.
"The game of golf was dominated by Great Britain at the turn of the last century, but after Francis Ouimet won the U.S. Open, the Americans began to dominate," he said. "There was Hagen and Jones, and then Snead and Hogan came along. Then it was Palmer, myself and Watson. But all of a sudden the rest of the world started catching up. Golf is really a global game now."
While Nicklaus doesn't mind the fact that the rest of the world is catching up to the U.S. in golf, he isn't happy about the way technology has changed the game. "I don't like that stuff," he said. "From the mid-1930s when they went from wood shafts to steel shafts until about 1995, golf changed very little. But golf is absolutely a different game now."
Nicklaus is referring to the large-headed drivers, titanium shafts and golf balls that go a mile, all of which began revolutionizing the game about a decade ago. "Is that good? I don't think so," Nicklaus said. "Technology and progress, if you can call it progress, has to happen in every walk of life. But we have 19,000 obsolete golf courses for pros in this country now. I hope the USGA and R&A will wake up and realize what is happening."
Nicklaus' involvement in the Red Ledges course and development stems from his relationship with Burns, the former Ryder System CEO, who has been friends with Nicklaus for many years.
Besides the golf course, which is set to be completed in July 2009, the Red Ledges community will feature a nine-hole "short course," a Jim McLean Practice Facility, a Cliff Drysdale Tennis Academy, an equestrian center, a private ski club at Deer Valley Resort and private club boats at Jordanelle Reservoir.
E-mail: sor@desnews.com © 2007 Deseret News Publishing Company deseretnews.com | Done playing, Golden Bear still working | Deseret Morning News Web Original URL: http://deseretnews.com/dn/print/1,1442,665194840,00.html 6/22/2007
