I'm absolutely thrilled delighted and honored to welcome the Golden Bear onto our set here Live From The Players Championship what an honor Mr Nicholas thank you so much for joining us the 50th anniversary of this great Championship you are the first winner the only three-time winner just how special is this week for the PGA Tour how special is the is the anniversary of The Players Championship well I I know I didn't think about it until somebody told me it was 50 but uh you know it's it was alw
ays an honor to win the players championship and always uh uh it's always nice to have your name on a trophy and of course uh I woned three out of five I didn't win it here uh I don't I don't know I don't know where I finished here I think I finished you a few times in the top 10 but I don't remember but it's uh uh you know I when I won my last one I was 38 so obviously I was pretty well done playing a lot of tournament golf by the time we got here okay so you didn't win it here but when you fir
st came here in 1982 and saw this Stadium Course do you remember what your immediate impression was and what was your thought process going into that first one here no no now going coming here and playing it's uh you know I knew that I I played a lot of golf in Jacksonville I knew that Jacksonville was uh at the time of year which is basically this time of year weather could be anything and I always liked having weather be part of your tournament and uh you know of the major champ ships you know
if you got uh the Masters weather always plays A Part US Open British Open in the in in the PJ it didn't play A Part until now they moved to May so it plays a part in everything so to have it play part here at the Players too I think is important and so uh and then the golf so the golf course would set up so that you know one day like it is today which we didn't have very many days like today you could shoot a low score but if it wasn't like today you know pull on to your hat Mr Nicholas 50 yea
rs ago when this tournament started could you have ever imagined that the venue would turn into what it is today with the infrastructure in stadium golf and now the new Global home of the PGA Tour well I think that uh can we imagine what golf is turned into I mean it's no we didn't have any of that idea I think that uh uh I don't know what was the first year they played here 1982 82 yeah see we did the first stadium golf course we did at mirfield actually and uh uh that was one was done from its
Inception austa added the mountains and so forth but then Dean took it to another level and went to you know benching the the seats in and do and really creating a bigger bigger uh Stadium I it's fantastic you know to come here as a player what I played it was fantastic to play but uh it was uh you know always a challenging Golf Course for me what was the most challenging part for you about this golf course I didn't shoot enough low scores I had a feeling that was going to be the answer Jack wh
at do you make of uh this view behind us the path 3 17th what's your assessment of this I I I've I've i' I've sort of copied the the idea of it several times on golf courses I've done never quite put a green in quite that small but uh I think that it's I think I think it's really I don't know whether it's in the right place on the golf course or not I think you guys have talked about that a lot and cuz you know once you get down 71 holes or 70 holes all of a sudden you can make a big number and
Bo the week is gone that bothers me but but it's a great hole it's a I got a great finish here birdie at 16 is is important chance for Eagle at 16 you know what you could do at 17 you can make double bogey or or you can make birdie and then 18 Again you hold on to your hat a little bit that's a that's a difficult shot I saw what Rory did a little while ago and uh after he drove it in the water then then to knock it on the Green from there and we all were sitting back watching that I said well he
must have pulled that second shot about 25 yards cuz he was certainly aim well to the right of that what was your thought process on that at I mean that's just an incredibly important and difficult t- shot I always played it with a one iron actually yeah cuz I I always felt like I didn't want to end my golf tournament there Freewood would take me too far into the trees if I missed it right one iron if I pushed it in the right rough a little bit I still had a clean shot to the green and of cours
e obviously I wasn't going in the water and so that that's sort of what I did then I usually ended up with play the five or six iron of the green you know you you said you weren't totally aware that this was the 50th year but it's important as the PGA Tour has been in your career in your life in general you must be immensely proud when you see what this has really grown into what we started back in 1968 you know when we left the left the PGA of America had formed our own tour what was it tournam
ent I don't remember we called it ATP or some Association of tournament Players or something like that anyway we started that and what what it's grown into you know Arnold was a big instrument part of that Arnold Gardner dickets and I were on the board we're the ones that broke away to have more rights for the players and uh you know and then then it's been taken from there Dean first commissioner did a great job Tim finchum took it another level then Jay I think just done a fantastic job and of
course the game of golf itself Mark you know it's people want to see the game and the ability to be able to have this we're sitting here at 17 looking around us the number of people that can see let alone who's on television number of people here is fantastic where where would you like to see it go from here the game the game well that's a pretty good question I we've got a few issues we got to clean up right now once we get those issues come up I I would always like to see the best players in
the world play together you know and uh uh that's they do with the major championships right now to a certain degree few of the Live players go there but not very many because they're only the ones that have qualified for them uh but I like to see all the all the best players in the world play together and uh they come come together and I think the PJ schedule is fantastic now being able to play uh your I don't know what you call Signature tournaments but then and and the tournaments that they'r
e building that are in between which is the basis of the tour are building new stars uh they're bringing new names out giving people the the opportunity to move up in into the rankings I think the PJ structure is pretty darn good right now speaking of the best talent in the world Jack Scotty Sheffer is of course world number one and he's defending how special of a talent do you think he is could he be the next dominant player Oh Scotty is well you know he's he's he's pretty special as you're rig
ht he's I I look at him I say okay I see him he slipped again where did it go right down the middle but he has such a strange swing and strange strange follow through it that you wonder how you play from there and I've never seen anybody else play that way and but he does and he obviously plays well and he uh when he gets when he gets to putting well that's when he's Dough because what did he last week he made a bunch of putts in a row that just were coming down I didn't see it but I told coming
down the stretch he was fantastic but anyway he's he's he's a good player and we got a lot of good players out here there's a whole bunch of them I have to ask you about Rory melroy's driving because you were the greatest driver I had ever seen by far and now when I watch Rory drive it's just unbelievable to me uh how far he hits it how straights he hits it what do you think when you see Rory Mary Drive the ball now well it's not so much see Rory driv the ball cuz Rory Rory will do a little bit
like what he did there at 18 on occasion he puts himself in a position he really didn't need to be in uh I mean I I don't want to second guess Rory because that's not my position but you know I'd like to see Roy take advantage of what he can take advantage of his ability to hit it long his ability to hit it straight and when he's got some holes that can't back it up a little bit one question just follow up on the state of the game today Jack do you think it would help if today's player would lo
ok back at what you all did when you were talking about you and Arnold and and the ATP days and and not so much what you did but how you did it because as you said you broke away things were different you changed them but the way you went about it is totally different than the way we seem to be going about the future of the game right now well we tried to do it in the best interest of the game uh the PGA of America who we separated from but when we formed the policy board we had three PJ of Amer
ica Executives on the board so that they had had a big say they should we didn't want to want to break away from them as the game we just felt like the players uh the players should control their own destiny and that's really what what we did and the players are controlling their own Des they have and they have for the last what is it 40 years 70 yeah 4050 years 76 years yeah I'm going to take you back just a couple weeks ago you said something about stars in the game 5 56 years6 years good math
I'm sorry my math wasn't good the first time I'm sorry no worries uh you you had mentioned earlier about uh growing new stars in the game the cogniz cognizant classic of the Palm Beaches I know that's a tournament that's close to Your Heart Austin ekro kind of broke out onto the scene had a really nice rookie year last year what do you make of a guy like that and what did you learn about him the way he played that Golf Course wonderful opportunity for a young man like that I mean here you are n
ow he's he's always been a good player he's played well he played what Oklahoma with uh with Victor and you know I guess they won the NCAA together and here all of a sudden now we get back and he hadn't quite gotten there now he's gotten there and that when winning breathes winning you're going to hear a lot more from L de any question about that if if I want to go back to Rory maroy really quick since he's on the top of everybody's Minds because he's on the top of the board if he came to you an
d I know it's not your style to give him as you said not to give him advice but if he came to you and said Mr Nicholas what do I need to do to get back in the winter Circle at major championships what do I have to do to win those to give myself opportunities like you gave yourself back in the day to win those on a regular basis what would you tell him well I I I spent a lot of Rory's early years talking to him about exactly that kind of stuff and Roy came to me and we talked half a dozen times y
ou know the first time we talked was at uh when he was down to the Honda tournament now the the cognizant and he was like 19 years he couldn't finish he had a horrible time finishing and he uh I I talked him about being patient and how to know who you are and play within yourself and not try to do things you can't do and particularly when you get into contention don't do dumb things do the things if you have to get a little bit more conservative on the on the on the awkward every hole's got abou
t five or six short shots you got to watch out for this one's got maybe even more than that but that's what you got to do so he took that advice he went on about three weeks later he played Charlotte shot 63 the last round and I dropped him not I said I told you to be patient but this is ridiculous but anyway it's the same type of thing and then when he then after he he he did what he did at the Masters and shot 80 the last round came to me at the Memorial tournament couple weeks before the US o
pened a congressional and he talked me I said I said okay now Roy did you learn from your experience I said did you learn why you lost the tournament you know when I grew up and I I made my mistakes I learned from them I tried not to repeat my mistakes and that's what I was hoping he would Hing he would talk about I didn't want to tell him what to do I wanted him to find out himself what to do so anyway he goes to he says I think I learned from it I said okay I said well we wish you well at Cong
ressional went to Congressional what do you would by nine shots or something so I dropped him a note I said I said now you did obviously learn something from what happened in the Masters but more importantly did you learn from why you won it's not only how you lose it's how you win if you put that combination together it makes you a better player I love Roy he's a great guy a great player uh I see him a lot and you know I don't want to interject myself in his life and and uh because I I mean he
he's 33 years old now I guess and uh he's got his old Life to Live and his old way to play but anytime he wants to talk to me which he has through the years I've always been available and Frank I've get very flattered that somebody Roy's age would come to an old old goat like me and see if they can uh learn Something I Don't Know Jack I think you're a pretty good resource to turn to but just uh finally just on this week just to bring it back I mean 73 PGA Tour wins when you look back on your PGA
Tour career what stands out to you is there a moment outside of the majors that you really reflect on with fondness I organized my year around the majors and you know you know it's so and we didn't know whether the PLAYERS Championship was going to be a major or not so I wanted to win as many of them as I could just in case they decide change your mind and we had the same with the Memorial tournament I want to do there and I wenton there a couple of times too so you know uh I just always wanted
to play the important tournaments and I wanted to be ready to play those important tournaments uh that's what I tried to do and uh you know did I find other tournaments important and intriguing yeah I love playing at Pebble Beach if I had one round of golf to go play I'd probably go to Pebble Beach CU I love it it's just I think it's just just a wonderful spot and you know the British Open the type of tournament that play in I love going to Britain and play that's why I always went over maybe n
ot just a weekend but I went over 10 days in had a time because I wanted because I love the style of golf it was fun and so you know uh there are a lot of other tournaments that we played through the time that you played on good golf courses and I enjoyed playing I never I never never had I never liked playing golf courses as You' shoot 65 on every day I remember I'm not going to mention the tournament I didn't play it very often but they they asked me to come I said I said fine okay I'll come t
his year I went and I shot 67 the first round and I was in 17th Place I I shot 68 the first round 77 shot 67 the second round in 25th Place shot 67 the third round I was in 32nd Place shot 67 the last round finished 42nd and I said I don't think this place is for me so that's the kind so I avoided that kind that golf because I always felt the G the game of golf was not a putting contest it was being able to be able to hit good t- shots good play good smart second shots being able to Chip and Put
t but being able to manage your game around a difficult area and and and and not only beat the other players with your clubs but beat them with your head I enjoyed that that was what was fun and so putting contests never interested me and anyway you know the tour you're going to have some putting contest because you can't help it so you know some guys like that and that's why we've got different tours and people some people always come to say to me you know gee this course doesn't fit me I said
it's not supposed to you're supposed to fit yourself to the course that's why we play different courses in different different venues every time yeah I think this is a perfect example of that here at TPC seal grass uh Mr Nicholas thank you so much for your time we really appreciate it and uh it's a pleasure having you on the desk and enjoy the week thank you very much
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