Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus and Golf's Greatest Rivalry

excellent

The Nicklaus/Palmer battles on and off the golf course have long since passed into sporting history, and the prospective reader could be tempted into thinking "why go through it all again after all this time?" - after all, we have new golfing heroes these days such as Tiger Woods and Co. to admire and scrutinise. To a certain extent this is true, but in the late 1950's and early 1960's when Palmer's star was in the ascendant, TV coverage of golf was in its infancy, and he became a seminal figure with a unique place in the sport. Nicklaus's record, of course, speaks for itself, and in cold statistical terms he eclipsed Palmer by a mile.So by and large I think Ian O'Connor is justified in putting their careers and relationship under the microscope once again. For the casual golf reader like myself, and for anyone curious to know what they were all about, this book kills two birds with one stone.Although they weren't totally contemporaries, the two players provided a fascinating scenario in the early days for the TV-watching public who hitherto hadn't seen much in the way of live golf coverage. Palmer was charismatic and his go-for-broke attitude on the course won him many tournaments and an "Army" of fans. Nicklaus was extremely focussed with a tough competitive edge. He was the young upstart who threatened to dethrone the King. The crowds who watched them do battle were fiercely partisan (at least when Jack first broke through) and Nicklaus had a tough job on his hands to win them over. Having ten years of youth on his side, obviously his rise to the top would soon coincide with Palmer's gradual and inevitable decline. By the 1970's Arnold's halcyon days were over and Jack was into his golden era.As the years rolled by, the two got into course design and the scenes of their rivalry shifted from the course to the board room. So the comparisons continued, with Palmer arguably becoming the more successful in business and in his various associations. The author points up the contrast between the two: Nicklaus the ruthless course analyst as he always was, not lending his name until every little detail was up to his exacting standards; Palmer, on the other hand, was content to delegate matters to his trusted associates while he flew the length and breadth of the country in his beloved aircraft, wheeling and dealing as he went.It still makes fascinating reading. They were like chalk and cheese, but as the years mellowed their obvious differences, a tolerance developed between the two (aided and abetted by their wives who were good friends and played down the various feuds) and O'Connor covers the delicate personal situations in diplomatic fashion.Yes, of course we have new golfing heroes, but reading this book is a reminder that Nicklaus and Palmer were central characters in the development of golf into the huge moneyspinning business it now is. Things change, of course. To paraphrase the remark made by the great Bobby Jones about Nicklaus, the present leading lights of golf must be playing a game with which the old warhorses are not too familiar. But the old stagers' legacy is still felt and appreciated.This book is not too heavy a read at 316 pages of main text, with a comprehensive appendix but only black-and-white illustrations, which may have been a deliberate ploy to emphasise the era in which most of the golfing battles were played out..... I enjoyed it.

Great read

If you want the long and short of this book, it's easy to summarize: Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus loved nothing better than to one-up each other; Arnold wanted to win more on the golf course, and Jack wanted to be more popular with the fans; their wives kept the rivalry from getting out of hand; and they are more at peace with one another now than before.If you want to read about the various times they played each other, the off-course competition, slights to one another, and what bugged each one about the other, then you'll want to read every page of this detailed dual biography. If you would rather read just about one or the other . . . and their whole career in perspective, another book will undoubtedly be more pleasing.I had never read anything about the backgrounds of either golfer so I learned a lot. As soon as the book got into the years where I was well aware of both men, the book didn't add very much to what I knew already. In fact, Mr. O'Connor left out material that I would have included.Because the two men are ten years apart in age, they aren't the kind of playing rivals that some of the earlier champions were who competed against each other in their prime years. In the process, the astonishing rise of golf as a spectator sport isn't given as much attention as it should.But if you want to get an overview of both men, magnified by their feelings about one another, this book will serve you all right. But don't expect the book to be compelling reading. It's more like those long-winded stories you hear at the country club in the bar that are shared by the oldest member after quite a few libations.

If you want the long and short of this book, it's easy to summarize: Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus loved nothing better than to one-up each other; Arnold wanted to win more on the golf course, and Jack wanted to be more popular with the fans; their wives kept the rivalry from getting out of hand; and they are more at peace with one another now than before.If you want to read about the various times they played each other, the off-course competition, slights to one another, and what bugged each one about the other, then you'll want to read every page of this detailed dual biography. If you would rather read just about one or the other . . . and their whole career in perspective, another book will undoubtedly be more pleasing.I had never read anything about the backgrounds of either golfer so I learned a lot. As soon as the book got into the years where I was well aware of both men, the book didn't add very much to what I knew already. In fact, Mr. O'Connor left out material that I would have included.Because the two men are ten years apart in age, they aren't the kind of playing rivals that some of the earlier champions were who competed against each other in their prime years. In the process, the astonishing rise of golf as a spectator sport isn't given as much attention as it should.But if you want to get an overview of both men, magnified by their feelings about one another, this book will serve you all right. But don't expect the book to be compelling reading. It's more like those long-winded stories you hear at the country club in the bar that are shared by the oldest member after quite a few libations.