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    (CNN) -- This month Living Golf celebrates its 50th edition and as a way to commemorate the achievement, Justin Armsden spent time with the legendary Jack Nicklaus at St Andrews, a course which holds a special place in the heart of the Golden Bear as it was there that he retired from the game at the 2005 British Open. Nicklaus reflected on his illustrious career and says he should probably have retired five years earlier than he did. He talked about how he is busier than ever thanks to his thriving golf course development business and offered his thoughts on Tiger Woods' venture into golf course design as well as the current state of the game. For the full interview and more, be sure to log on to Living Golf's homepage where you can watch the latest installment of the show. On life since he retired from competitive golf in 2005: I retired from golf but not from life. Most of my life really is traveling the world and doing golf courses and you know trying to get back home and watch some of my grand kids in some of the events that they're playing in athletically and so forth and spending some time with my wife and doing a bit of leisure boating or fishing or something like that. On closing out his playing career: I've never really had any issue with retiring from golf. I probably should have retired about five years earlier but the R&A were really nice when they seemingly adjusted their date in coming to St Andrews in 2005 and really I played five years longer than I probably should have. When you play something and you're able to play it well and you cease to be able to play it well, or play it to the level that you want to play it, and competition is what drives you, which it does, then I lost my vehicle to competition and I love the game of golf but it was still my vehicle to competition so it really hasn't been hard for me at all because I can't compete and so why do it? I'm never one to look back. I'm just looking to see what I'll do tomorrow. I enjoy doing things. I do look back and say 'yeah I've had a great career, yeah I've had great fun and I've accomplished a lot in different things' but I still have a lot of things I want to accomplish. And I always said the same thing when I was playing. I always wanted to climb that mountain. I didn't ever want to get on the other side of it and start falling down. When I start falling down, I lose my interest to play. So when you lose your interest to do something, then you've got to go and find another thing you can climb your mountain doing. And so I always want to keep climbing. On how he manages to challenge himself nowadays: My competition comes mostly from my golf courses, my competition with land, my competition to try and produce the best product I can for my client. You know he's relying on me to be the main amenity for his success and if I can do that and do it successfully, and to see him be successful because I did a good job for him, I think that's a lot of fun for me. On his golf course design business: As a company, I've got about 60 golf courses under construction. About 30 of those are my golf courses, my signature golf courses of which I take from A to Z and I'm probably into a facility somewhere from 6 to 12 times depending during the construction of that golf course I'm involved in everything, everything that happens, everything that ends up on the top piece of that ground that I'm responsible for and I'm also want to be responsible for. We're working in 24 new countries that I've not worked in previously and I've worked in 29 countries previously so that's over 50 countries in the next year or so that will finish golf courses that haven't been played. That's a lot of countries around the world and a lot of travel but it's exciting to me because the game of golf is what I love and I'm able to take the game of golf to a lot of emerging markets. We're in the eastern bloc, Croatia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, Greece, Russia, Ukraine. I mean we're in places where people don't play golf and all of a sudden I see the opportunity to be able to create a facility for the young people in that country to learn to play on. On whether he feels there is a lack of anticipation and rivalry in the Tiger Woods' era of golf as compared to his own playing days: I think you might look at it a couple of ways. When I played I had five or six guys that really were pretty much at the same level that I was. Maybe I might have been just a hair above and that's why I won just a little bit more. Is Tiger or all the guys who are playing today at the same level that we were? And is Tiger way up here? Or is Tiger here at the level that I was and the other guys are down here? We just don't know the answer to that. It's a different time, it's a different day. All we know is that Tiger is dominating and that the other fellows aren't able to step up to compete to the level that Trevino or Palmer or Player or Watson did against me. I think you might say that Tiger is in a league by himself, above where I was or anybody else. That's very possible. And everybody else is pretty darn good. But we don't know. But either way it doesn't really make a difference. You can only look at one era and one time and playing against people of their time. So whatever Tiger is doing, he's beating the people of his time. And maybe in the next two or three years one of these young kids that are coming out of college or that are coming from these foreign countries will step up and be the player that will compete against him. I don't know, I don't think anyone knows at this point. On Tiger Woods' venture into golf course design: Tiger doesn't know anything about designing golf courses. I certainly didn't when I was his age even though I'd been working. But Tiger is going to use his name for a project and you know it's very good, it's good promotionally, so forth and so on. And eventually he will learn if he wishes to continue with that business. On other professional players and their involvement in golf course design: There's a lot of fellas out here who really know how to play the game of golf, they don't really understand a golf course and if they want to learn the business, they really got to pay their dues and go work under some other people, and work with people and that takes time and then. Then they'll be...not only will they be able to use their name to produce a facility but also they'll be able to produce a facility they're proud of. Not just say oh Joe Jones is doing a golf course and you know my name's on it and that's my golf course. Well...Joe Jones was probably never there and that's not what you want. On the FedEx Cup: Well they had to get enough so the guys would play. That's really what it amounts to. I don't think it's...the guys want to play at that time of year. They had to figure out how...what do I do to create a different event that will say ok, Tiger, Phil (Mickelson), Ernie (Els), Retief (Goosen), Vijay (Singh) you guys and all the other guys, I want you to play all the season ending events. Well if they do that kind of thing and it becomes a $10million first prize, I think most of the guys are going to play. So they'll accomplish what they want through money. And is that good? May be good may not be good but it does get the guys playing, it does create a new interest. On Tim Finchem's impact as Commissioner of the PGA Tour: I think Tim Finchem has done a very very good job with the PGA Tour. You have the four majors and then he's had maybe four world championships or three or four world championships, now he's added the FedEx Cup. He's created a major tour within the Tour. He's done the same thing that really Greg Norman talked about a few years ago. He's done it and done it successfully but done it...it's been sort of transparent the way he's done it. He's done it a little bit at a time and then all of a sudden he's there. He's got that and he's got another four or five tournaments. He's supported the Memorial very well, he's supported Bay Hill with Arnold (Palmer) very well, he's supported another couple of events very well so that that becomes their top tier run of tournaments. Is that maybe good for the other tournaments? I'm not so sure but certainly if you're going to get the top players in the world to play and you're going to get them to play you know in 14 or 15 events, and you give them 14 or 15 really significant events to play in, most of them are going to play in most of those and it's going to be a very successful tour. On how golf has managed to stay clean while most other sports have been tarnished by scandals (drugs, corruption): Well I'm thinking thank goodness for the game of golf because it's the one game, the only one of those games, where you govern yourself rule-wise. You know I think that the players individually understand the game and what the game has done for their lives and they've been brought up to see what's happened in other sports and how it's hurt it. I think golfers are very very aware and conscious you know that they can kill the goose that laid its golden egg themselves so I don't think that you see it much. I don't think performance-enhancing drugs will help you in golf. I mean will it make you stronger? Probably and there might be a few guys who do use drugs, I mean I don't know. I don't know of any but that doesn't mean they don't because I just don't know. But they've never had a reason for testing and they've never felt it was necessary because they don't think it's prevalent in anyway, direction, shape or form. It's certainly not obvious so you know it's never been part of it so it's a blessing for the game. On how he believes that players nowadays may rely a bit too much on their gurus or coaches: The biggest disappointment I have in teaching, is that the guys today seem to have a guru standing behind them with every shot they play, you know on practice tee and so forth. They're always there. One of the things Bobby Jones impressed upon me as I was growing up was that you really have to learn to do it yourself. When you get in the heat of battle and you're not having a good day, you've got to figure out 'how do I get to the clubhouse, how do I fix what I've got and how can I compete with what I've got?' And I'm not sure the guys today can because they have this guy sitting there all the time and that's all they do. And what you want to teach somebody comes from someone who's actually done it and knows what the feeling is coming down the stretch and how to close that out and I think you have to have been there to teach it and maybe still can't even teach it then. I mean Byron Nelson taught a lot of players but Byron had been there. Byron knew what he was doing. |
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Nicklaus with the coveted Claret Jug after winning the Brtisih Open at St Andrews in 1978.
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