ESPN.com - Golf Online - PGA Championship 2000

By Karl Ravech
Special to ESPN Golf Online
Wednesday, August 16

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Having been with Jack Nicklaus as soon as he walked off the 18th green at the British Open, and having been the first to interview him for the American public after he signed his scorecard, the strain that he has been under this entire season was easily apparent.


	Jack Nicklaus waits to leave Valhalla on Wednesday after learning of his mother's death.

The burden which he has carried to bow out of a sport gracefully when he is ill prepared, let alone ready to concede his time has come, has been enough to add wrinkles to his face.

And this morning the weight on his shoulders became even heavier.

The phone call came from his sister at around 11:15 a.m.: Their mother had died in her arms. There were no tears, externally, though internally you could sense the pain -- the pacing around the tee box, the blue eyes turning gray.

Nicklaus explained to his playing partner, Glen Day, that his mother had always said: "I don't want my dying to screw up what you are doing."

Nicklaus told me, as we walked up the seventh hole at Valhalla, the course he designed, that his mother was the type to always stay in the background. It was his father who guided him toward golf, his mother who supported whatever it was he wanted to do.

Tonight, Nicklaus is to receive an award from the PGA for contributions he has made. This morning he received another reminder that at 60, not only is the game passing him, but life is passing on as well.

Heard on the range

Valhalla's reputation was born in the 1996 PGA Championship. Then it was an immature course not worthy of a championship. After four years, it has changed, and so have the players' opinions of it. While it is clearly not in the same class as Augusta, Pebble Beach or St. Andrews, it will provide a stern enough test that by Sunday afternoon, only the best players in the world will be at the top of the leaderboard. Ernie Els says the rough is tougher than any he has seen at a U.S. Open.

Scott Hoch has played in 19 PGA Championships, with four top-10s. He prepared for this week by taking a month off, doing "nothing". What is nothing, I ask him. He can't answer. "I don't remember what I did."

Jim Furyk, with two top-10s in the past three PGA Championships and one of the top putters on tour, continues to look for -- what else -- a new putter. Bob Estes is trying to find a new driver and is considering using an old wooden-head club, which likely would be the only one in the field in play.

The day before the U.S. Open, Tiger Woods spent two hours on the putting green. Not the case at Valhalla. He believes that aspect of his game is just fine. Look for his conditioning to be a factor as well. He's in as good a physical shape as anyone out here, as if he needed another edge.

ESPN's Karl Ravech will share his thoughts daily throughout the PGA Championship.