Jack Nicklaus says his family, not him, made best shots at Augusta

Jack Nicklaus has won the Masters a record six times and yet he doesn’t even own the best shot hit at Augusta National Golf Club in his family. Sorry, Jack, but none of yours – not the 40-foot bomb at the par-3 16th in the final round in 1975 or any of the shots from his back-nine 30 in 1986 en route to winning the Green Jacket at age 46 – rank as the second best either, although that one may be a tie. This all came to light when Jack responded to Golfweek/USA Today’s annual Masters Survey – as he’s been kind enough to do every year that we’ve asked – to the question of the best shot or round he’s witnessed at the home of the Masters.

“The most memorable shots to me were made by my family. Everyone saw GT’s hole in one at 9 in the Par-3 Contest,” he began, referring to his grandson’s heroics in 2018. “But Jack III, the oldest of my 24 grandchildren, made an albatross at 15 on May 21, 2022.

He hit driver, 8-iron from 168 yards to a middle-right pin. We all saw it land behind the pin and suck back in. ” Stop the presses!

Jack’s grandson did what? Nearly 90 years after Gene Sarazen holed a 3-wood from 235 yards for a deuce at 15 in what became known as “The Shot Heard Round the World,” Jack III still has the ball with the Augusta grass stain in a display. “Played the tips that day on all the holes but the par 5s,” he said.