On the afternoon of April 13, 1986, Jack Nicklaus walked onto the back nine at Augusta National four shots off the lead, 46 years old, and written off by most of golf as a sentimental former champion. Two hours later he had shot a final-round 65, claimed his sixth green jacket, and produced what many still consider the greatest closing nine the sport has ever seen. This article breaks down how that round unfolded, why it endures, and what modern players can still learn from it.
Setting the Stage: Nicklaus at 46
By the spring of 1986, Jack Nicklaus had not won a major championship in six years. He had not won any PGA Tour event in nearly two. He was 46 years old, a grandfather, and the consensus from the golf press was clear: the Golden Bear’s competitive days were behind him. One Atlanta columnist had famously written that Nicklaus was “done, washed up” and “should be put on the senior tour.” Nicklaus reportedly taped that column to the refrigerator at the rented Masters house and looked at it every morning before he left for the course.
The 1986 Masters field was stacked with players in their prime. Seve Ballesteros, Greg Norman, Tom Kite, Bernhard Langer, and Tom Watson were all in contention. Nicklaus had played reasonably well through the first three rounds but had drawn little attention. He sat tied for ninth heading into Sunday, four shots behind the leader Greg Norman. Even Nicklaus’s son Steve, caddying for him that week, was thinking realistically about a top-five finish, not victory.
The Saturday Position and Sunday Start
Nicklaus opened Sunday with a steady but unspectacular front nine of 35, one under par. He picked up a birdie on the second and made the turn quietly. Through the early part of the round, the leaderboard was busy at the top, with Ballesteros, Norman, and Kite jockeying for the lead. Nicklaus was an afterthought to most of the patrons walking the course and to the CBS broadcast team, which had its cameras trained on the contenders ahead of him.
Then Nicklaus rolled in a 25-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole, and something shifted. The roar that followed could be heard across Augusta National. CBS’s Verne Lundquist later said it was the moment the broadcast realized the day might not belong to the leaders after all.
The Back Nine: A Round for the Ages
Nicklaus’s back-nine 30 that afternoon is the most famous nine holes in Masters history. He played the inward stretch in six under par with an eagle and four birdies. Every patron on the course knew something special was unfolding by the time he reached the 13th tee. Most accounts agree the building roars from the back nine became deafening enough to disturb the players ahead.
The Eagle on 15
The 15th at Augusta is a reachable par five with a pond guarding the green. Nicklaus had bogeyed the 12th but birdied the 13th, and at the 15th tee he was within striking distance of the lead. He hit a perfect drive and faced a second shot of roughly 200 yards over water. He pulled a 4-iron and, in one of the most replayed moments in the tournament’s broadcast history, struck the ball flush. It landed softly on the green and rolled to within 12 feet of the cup. Nicklaus made the eagle putt, and as the ball dropped he raised his putter overhead. The roar from the gallery reportedly registered on a seismograph at the University of Georgia.
The Birdie on 16
The 16th is a par three of around 170 yards over water. Nicklaus pulled a 5-iron and struck the ball at the right line. He never looked up. As the ball was still in the air, he reached down to retrieve his tee and said to his son, “Be the right club.” The ball landed and tracked toward the hole, finishing inside three feet. He made the birdie putt without difficulty. He was now within one of the lead.
The Birdie Putt on 17
On the 17th, a par four with a tricky green, Nicklaus hit a pitching wedge from the fairway to about 12 feet above the hole. The putt was a slippery downhill left-to-right slider that, by the technical standards of Augusta’s Sunday greens, was very difficult. Nicklaus rolled it in with the famous oversized white MacGregor Response putter he had been using all week. He took the outright lead. CBS’s Jim Nantz later said it was the moment he understood he was watching history.
The Final Hole
The 18th at Augusta is a long uphill par four with a narrow tee shot bracketed by trees. Nicklaus drove safely and laid up well short of the green with his approach. He had a wedge in, hit it to roughly 40 feet, and lagged the par putt to gimme range. He tapped in for par to finish at 9 under, the clubhouse leader. Then he and his son walked off the green together, both already crying, while the players still on the course tried to catch him.
Greg Norman, Tom Kite, and Seve Ballesteros all had chances to tie or pass him on the closing holes. Ballesteros found water on the 15th. Kite missed a birdie putt on 18 that would have forced a playoff. Norman, two shots back with two to play, made a birdie on 17 to tie Nicklaus but blocked his approach on the 18th into the gallery and made bogey. Nicklaus had won his sixth Masters and 18th major championship.
Why This Round Endures
Many great rounds of championship golf have been played at Augusta. What makes Nicklaus’s 1986 Sunday different is the combination of circumstance, narrative, and execution. He was old by major-championship standards. He had been publicly written off. He was several shots back of younger, more in-form players. The closing nine was played under the loudest, most chaotic gallery noise the tournament had ever produced. He never made a mistake.
The round also lives because of how it was broadcast. Verne Lundquist’s call on the 17th birdie putt (“Maybe… yes sir!”) became one of the most quoted lines in sports television. Pat Summerall and Ken Venturi were on the 18th tower. The CBS broadcast that afternoon is regularly cited in lists of the greatest sports broadcasts ever produced. The story of Nicklaus’s win became larger than the win itself precisely because the medium captured it so completely.
For context on why Augusta itself is such a difficult venue for this kind of charge, the Amen Corner strategy guide walks through the strategic demands of the 11th, 12th, and 13th holes that Nicklaus navigated cleanly that Sunday. Many leaders have given up the tournament on those holes; Nicklaus played them in level par on his back-nine charge.
Technical Lessons from the Round
Beyond the drama, Nicklaus’s 1986 Sunday contains real lessons for any serious golfer. The first is patience. Through the first 11 holes of his final round, he played within himself, took the birdies that came, and resisted the temptation to chase. The shift came at the 9th, but he did not start trying to make the round happen until the course gave him a chance.
The second is club selection under pressure. The eagle on 15 came from a player who knew his yardages cold and trusted his decision to hit a 4-iron over water rather than an easier club from a safer angle. The third is the role of the short game. Nicklaus did not strike the ball perfectly all day. He scrambled for par on the 12th after a poor tee shot. His ability to limit damage when the swing was off is something every amateur can study. Players interested in pressure-resistant short game work may also enjoy the breakdown of Tom Watson’s chip-in at Pebble 17 in the 1982 US Open, another moment where short-game touch decided a major.
The fourth lesson is the long putter switch. Nicklaus famously played the 1986 Masters with a much larger-headed MacGregor Response ZT 615 putter, a design his son had suggested would help with alignment on Augusta’s fast greens. The choice to change a key tool at age 46, in the season’s first major, ran against everything most teaching pros would advise. It worked because the new tool fit the problem he was actually trying to solve.
Nicklaus’s Place in Major History
The 1986 Masters was Nicklaus’s 18th and final major championship, a record that has yet to be broken. Tiger Woods reached 15 before injuries slowed him. Rory McIlroy is on five. The number 18 still sets the ceiling against which every modern career is measured. The 1986 win also gave Nicklaus a record sixth green jacket, two ahead of Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods, who are both stuck on five. It is possible that record will eventually fall. It is much harder to imagine the 18-major total being matched in the era of modern travel, equipment, and competitive depth.
Nicklaus’s broader rivalry with Tom Watson, including the famous 1977 Open Championship between them, gets its own treatment in our piece on the Duel in the Sun at Turnberry. Read together, those two articles form a portrait of one of the most consistent major-championship competitors in any sport.
Final Thoughts
The 1986 Masters does not belong only to Jack Nicklaus. It belongs to the gallery whose roars carried through the pines, to the CBS production team who held the tension across 18 holes of competing storylines, and to a generation of golf fans who watched a 46-year-old player do something none of them thought was still possible. For everyone who plays the game now, the round is a permanent reminder that experience, patience, and well-timed boldness can still beat youth and form. Nicklaus walked off the 18th green that Sunday as the oldest Masters champion in history, a record he holds to this day.
If you ever doubt that the closing holes at Augusta can still produce something improbable, go back and watch the back nine from that afternoon. The pictures hold up. The roars hold up. And the lessons in patience, club selection, and trust in your own routine hold up for every golfer who has ever stood over a final-round putt with the tournament on the line.
