On a perfect day, with the sky as blue as his eyes, Jack Nicklaus took a moment out of his likely farewell appearance at the Creighton Farms Invitational to reflect on what golf has given to him and to charity.
For background, Jack and Barbara, his wife of more than 60 years, recently sold their home at Creighton Farms, which claims one of the more than 400 golf courses he designed. The annual tournament, now in its 9th year, has already raised more than $7.5 million for the Nicklaus Children’s Healthcare Foundation that has been the couple’s passion since its founding in 2004.
Like many spurs to philanthropy, the Nicklaus’s commitment to kids comes from personal experience. When their only daughter Nan, an 11-month-old, was struggling to breathe, her parents took her to Columbus Children’s Hospital – now Nationwide Children’s. The doctor used an adult bronchoscope to see what was wrong. Usage of an adult tool rather than one sized for children forced an obstructing crayon deeper into Nan’s lungs, leading to pneumonia. Nan’s life was saved, but the importance of child-centered health care was deeply etched on Jack and Barbara’s hearts. When they had the resources and the time, they vowed that they’d join forces to make a difference.
Jack played his 44th and final U.S. Open tournament in 2000, and although one more Masters’ was in his future in 2005, he and Barbara took advantage of the twilight of Jack’s professional career to launch the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation in 2004. Every year of the last 16 marked a milestone in the foundation’s growth – little things like the renaming of Miami Children’s to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, which branding expanded to include the entire Miami Children’s Health System. Twenty children’s outpatient clinics dot the coast. Multiple pediatric centers have opened in Florida with the mission to address treating and researching childhood cancers and other childhood diseases, including some rare conditions like Phenylketonuria or PKU. (The son of one of Jack's former Creighton Farms neighbors suffers from PKU.)
Thousands of children with rare conditions or who have faced and overcome medical mysteries now feel welcomed into the Nicklaus family, consisting of the couple’s four sons and one daughter and 22 grandchildren. To illustrate, Jack tears up a bit telling the story of Tegan, one of two twin girls born in Minneapolis with half a heart facing backwards and just one lung. The parents were told to take her home and love her because she wouldn't be around long. Two months later, their urgent call reached Barbara, who reached out to Dr. Redmond Burke, a congenital heart surgeon and founder of what’s now The Congenital Heart Institute at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami. “Redmond is one of what Barbara calls her 'angel doctors,'" Jack adds. “Inoperable is not in his vocabulary.”
Six years later the Nicklaus’s met the girl and her sister who had just graduated from kindergarten at a cardiac patients’ reunion at the Miami Institute. Kids were hugging their doctors legs and saying, “you saved my life!” Jack says. “I mean, that will keep you motivated."
All four of his own sons and Jack’s son-in-law work with Nicklaus Design, which has designed golf courses all over the world. In addition to existing courses there are dozens more in works including multiple courses in the U.S., Mexico, Vietnam, China and Greece – Athens and Crete – and one in Saudi Arabia. When the pandemic lifts, Jack quips, "I might actually have to go back to work!”
No one doubts his commitment either to designing challenging courses in stunning locations, or to the work of the foundation. Last year, the charity marked $125 million in donations to the work of children’s hospitals, research and pediatric care – but even that total pales in comparison to the more than $1 billion Jack may have secured for children’s hospitals nationwide, just by picking up the phone to his friend President Donald Trump.
As Jack tells it, what occasioned the call was a seeming oversight in The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security or CARES Act that left out free-standing children’s hospitals, many of them shuttered by the pandemic. Hospital relief funding was channeled through Medicare and there aren’t many 65-year-olds in children’s hospitals.
Jack got a text back within five minutes, to the effect that the president was on it. Gillian Ray, VP of External Affairs for the Children's Hospital Association told us, "We can confirm that Mr. Nicklaus was in touch with the Trump Administration on behalf of Nicklaus Children’s in support of provider relief funding for our group of children’s hospitals which are safety-net/high-Medicaid providers." Once the Act passed, the hospitals still had to request funding on a case-by-case basis, but HHS already had been given the head's up to make sure children's hospitals were included. "CHA very much appreciates Mr. Nicklaus’s involvement," Gillian said.
All told, 28 children's hospitals received more than $1 billion. That money “put a lot of hospital bottom lines back in good shape,” and that’s its own reward, Jack said. Or as wife Barbara so famously puts it, “The legacy you leave here on earth is measured by the hearts you touch.”
"The legacy you leave here on earth is measured by the hearts you touch.” -- Barbara Nicklaus
Among those “hearts” are the hearts and lives of many golfers over the years, men and women Jack has helped not only to improve their swing, but to build philanthropy into their lifestyles. “Guys and gals like the ones who are here have wanted to be part of that, and I think it has enriched their lives too.... They understand that giving back is part of life."
Pro golfers participating in the Creighton Farms Invitational in August included Jack Nicklaus II, Jay Haas, Chase Koepka, Jin Park, Chesson Hadley, Kyle Westmoreland, Jonathan Byrd, Turk Pettit, Andreas Gonzalez, Kent Bulle, Parker McLachlin, Mark Hensby, Chris Stroud, Ken Duke, Javier Colon, Todd Hamilton, D.A. Points, Charlie Rymer, Rick Lamb, Heath Slocum, Tom Pertzer, Trevor Cone, Brett Wetterich, Carl Paulson, Billy Hurley III, Kevin Yu and Kyle Thompson.
Whether he was a change-maker or just part of a trend, Jack recalls that, when he was starting out in the game, charity was rarely the focus of tournaments. That changed sometime in the mid- to late 1990’s, and, as of 2019, The PGA Tour announced that its tournaments had generated more than $3 Billion in giving – nearly all of it for non-golf-related causes where the money was spent locally.
“Believe me,” he chuckles, “back in the day I couldn’t have walked into an office and ask someone for $1,000. Now I don’t mind inviting people to one of these events and asking for $10 million!” If that sounds like a stretch, he muses, tournaments like the one hosted at Creighton Farms used to average a few hundred thousand dollars, but now typically generate seven figures. The Honda Classic, the Lost Tree Pro-Member tourney and “The Jake,” played annually in memory of his 17-month-old grandson who accidentally drowned in 2005, easily raise $1 million or more.
He and Barbara celebrated their 80th birthdays last year, characteristically by launching a “legacy” fund to raise $80 million more for kids. And while Jack has only shot a couple of rounds this year, around 30 younger golfers call him regularly for advice. “They call to pick my brain about this or that. That’s pretty flattering. How many 43-year-olds pick an 80-year-old brain and actually listen to it!” Those he mentors typically practice harder. One player will see another out working hard, and it’s contagious. He adds, “it's kept me young, allowed me to be part of their lives and, you know, just keeps me up to date.”
See https://nchcf.org/ for the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation and https://give.nicklauschildrens.org/ for the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.