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May 28, 2025

the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday 2025 Honoree: Barbara Nicklaus

By Scott Tolley

Jim Nantz was navigating New York City workday traffic on his way to another event that begged for an appearance by one of sports’ most iconic broadcast voices. He had, literally, a New York minute to chat, but filled it by talking about Memorial Tournament Honoree Barbara Nicklaus. By the time he exited the Holland Tunnel, Nantz offered a bridge between the career of golf’s greatest champion, Jack Nicklaus, and the unparalleled impact of his equally legendary wife.

“Barbara is Jack's trophy wife,” Nantz carefully said, making sure not to confuse the description of a trophy wife used in today’s vernacular. “Of all the many trophies Jack Nicklaus has won, the only trophy he ever really cared about was Barbara. Having Barbara in his life.

“Jack had his career because Barbara was running the Nicklaus family and everything else. It allowed him the freedom and peace of mind, so he could go out and establish the greatest and most legendary golf career of all time. He did it, because Barbara always had his back and had their family covered. She gave him undying support.”

Although Nantz is an Emmy Award winner and a five-time National Sportscaster of the Year, the voice of golf on CBS Sports is a Captains Club newcomer. He and LPGA Tour legend and World Golf Hall of Fame member Karrie Webb were voted on to the Captains Club during the 2024 Memorial Tournament presented by Workday.

In that same meeting, the Captains Club voted on and announced that Barbara Nicklaus would be the Honoree for the 50^th playing of the Memorial in 2025.

The Captains Club is a highly distinguished group comprised of 26 international champions, administrators and influential individuals who have contributed significantly to the game of golf—and still do. Although Memorial Tournament Founder and Host Jack Nicklaus is not a member, he was the architect behind the creation of the Captains Club, so that they may act as advisors on the conduct and constitution of the Memorial, independent of him. While this “who’s who” of golf legends and influencers serve as the mainsail of the Memorial, they are also a strong voice on golf’s honored traditions, but more important, on the future and global growth of the game.

One of the Captains Club’s tasks is to choose the Memorial Honoree(s) each year. With the ilk and pedigree of past Honorees, it is not a task taken lightly nor without collective input.

But occasionally a seed is planted that sprouts into a spectacularly good decision.

Earlier in 2024, Gary Nicklaus—the fourth of Jack and Barbara’s five children—approached his father and asked if the Captains Club had ever considered “Mom” (or Mimi to the 24 grandchildren and seven great grandchildren, with two more on the way) as the Honoree.

Perhaps over the first 49 years of the Memorial, Jack had been so close to the situation that it simply blinded him, so he confessed, “Gary, it hadn’t dawned on me.”

But Jack had a natural bias that he wanted to quickly put aside, so he called Captains Club member Charlie Mechem—the former LPGA Tour commissioner—for his thoughts and advice, just as Nicklaus had done countless times over their friendship of almost six decades.

Mechem was “honored” by the call, but with the wisdom that comes with his almost 95 years on God’s earth, Mechem knew it was best to canvass the Captains Club for their feedback.

“I wanted to be sure that we were playing in the right court,” Mechem said, “and I talked to, oh, probably 10 or more members. They were all overwhelmingly supportive.”

Although Barbara Nicklaus had never swung a golf club in competition and could be viewed as technically outside the ropes and outside of the game, Hall-of-Fame Captains Club member Juli Inkster indicated that naming her Honoree was your basic no-brainer.

“Oh totally,” added the 2024 Memorial Honoree. “And totally overdue.

“I’m just glad I don’t have to follow her.”

Barbara Nicklaus is a tough act to follow in any arena. But Barbara, forever grounded and oozing humility, is also a reluctant Honoree.

Although she should not be.

Barbara has been recognized with the highest honors bestowed by golf’s governing bodies. In 1990, the PGA TOUR presented her with the Ambassador of Golf Award—23 years before Jack received the honor. Then, in 2015, the USGA presented her the Bob Jones Award. Four years later, the PGA of America honored Barbara with the Distinguished Service Award.

An enormous motivating factor behind receiving such accolades is Barbara’s passion for charity and impact on myriad causes—led by her tireless work to help children.

We know that the game of golf has been an amazing platform for philanthropy and is credited annually with close to $4 billion in charitable dollars raised ($4.6 billion in 2022, according to a National Golf Foundation report)—more than the other major professional sports combined.

Barbara, meanwhile, has mastered how to use her platform in the game to raise transformational dollars.

“To see Barbara just light up when she talks about giving back to the community—particularly to children—it’s remarkable,” said Captains Club member Aneel Bhusri, Co-Founder and Executive Chair for Workday, the Memorial Tournament presenting sponsor. “I'm not sure there's another person in sports, male or female, that's done what Barbara's done.”

Bhusri witnessed the power of Barbara first-hand when last year he went on a tour of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the primary beneficiary of the Memorial since Year One.

“I was blown away by the work that Jack and Barbara have done,” Bushri added, “and I know that Barbara really spearheads that work. I don't want to be disrespectful of Jack, but that's really Barbara who drives all that work, and it's one of the best children's hospitals in the country.

“Jack is an amazing human being and an amazing golfer. From my time with Barbara, she looks to take care of everyone, including me, when I'm there. She's just got such a huge heart. Jack took a front seat in the golf, and Barbara took a front seat in taking care of the community. And Jack follows her on all of that.”

Since Bhusri and Workday came on board as presenting sponsor in 2022, the Memorial has topped $4 million in giving each year. Last year, $4.8 million went to charities in Central Ohio and beyond, including $4.5 million for the Memorial’s collaborating charitable partners, Nationwide Children’s, Stephen and Ayesha Curry’s Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation and the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation.

One golf writer estimated Barbara’s impact on charity to be over $400 million.

If that is the case, more than half of that comes through being the co-founder, the heart and the heartbeat of the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation. Just as Nationwide Children’s has been the beneficiary of the Memorial since 1976, the move of the PGA TOUR’s Honda Classic (now the Cognizant Classic) inspired Barbara and Jack to create their Foundation in 2004.

Just over 20 years later, the Nicklaus Children’s Health Care Foundation has raised a staggering $220 million.

A decade ago, renowned Miami Children’s Hospital was rebranded to Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, and the hospital has treated children from over 120 countries and all 50 states. The Nicklaus Children’s Health System includes as many as 30 outpatient centers and urgent-care facilities spread across Florida.

“When you get a little older, you understand and grasp the fact that the very well-off people in our country, and oftentimes the people of some sort of celebrity, which is where I would put Barbara Nicklaus, use their resources for so much good,” said Captains Club member Judy Rankin, the 2019 Memorial Honoree and a World Golf Hall of Famer. “I don't think when you're 18 years old or even 28 years old you understand that people with influence and people with resources, the impact they have on our nation with philanthropy. As you grow up and grow older, you learn about so many people who do amazing things. Barbara Nicklaus in the world of golf and golf celebrity, stands out as much as anybody you can think of.”

That is why Barbara, in November 2021, was inducted into the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame during a ceremony at the State Supreme Court. Just four months later, she became just the third recipient of the Governor’s Medal of Freedom, the highest honor in the State of Florida and given to individuals who have made significant contributions to the state and its citizens.

Nationally, Barbara is on the Board of Children’s Miracle Network (CMN) Hospitals, and, along with Jack, the face of the Play Yellow campaign. Launched in 2019 with support from the PGA TOUR, Play Yellow is an effort to unify the golf industry to help raise money for the 170 or more CMN Hospitals throughout North America. It started with a goal to raise $100 million in five years. Play Yellow shattered that glass ceiling long ago and is now north of $130 million.

Barbara Nicklaus lives and loves to shine a light on children’s charities but works very hard to turn the spotlight away from herself.

“A remarkable thing about Barbara is, very often you hardly know she's there,” Rankin said. “She's very quiet, soft-spoken. She is not the one who wants to garner attention in the room, and the fact that she's been so impactful makes it even more special.”

Long before Jack and Barbara started their own Foundation, long before there was a hospital bearing the Nicklaus name, Barbara was impacting the world outside the ropes. And people paid attention.

Rewind a quarter century to 2000 when Barbara was the first winner of the Winnie Palmer Award, presented by the Met Golf Writers Association. Two years earlier, the PGA of America debuted the First Lady of Golf Award, and its inaugural winner in 1998 was Barbara.

“We were looking for ways to bring more women into the PGA, and we were thinking about how we honor women who have contributed to the game,” said Captains Club member Ken Lindsay, the PGA of America president in 1997-98. “I don’t remember who said it, but the comment was something like, ‘If you start off with somebody like Barbara Nicklaus, then the whole thing falls into place.’ And then we all looked around at one another, and it was automatic. Who better to represent what this award is about?”

The First Lady of Golf and forever the Memorial Tournament’s leading lady.

“Barbara’s fingerprints are on every aspect of the Memorial Tournament,” Mechem said. “If Jack is the heart of the Memorial Tournament, Barbara is the soul.”

During last year’s Captains Club meeting, Barbara excused herself from the room to take care of something. While she was gone, the Captains patched in Mechem via conference call and the group voted on the Honoree.

“It was not hard to get the other Captains to support Barbara, so it was easily done,” Mechem added.

The vote for Barbara was not a nod to Jack.

“No,” Bhusri said with passion, “it was and is about Barbara.”

“When Barbara came back into the room and we announced it,” Mechem said, “Jack and Barb both burst into tears. They were just really overwhelmed, as you can imagine.”

In the months since, Barbara has described her reaction as being in a state of shock and disbelief. Speechless the day she was named Honoree, Jack said his wife has been working for months on her Honoree Ceremony speech, hiding in her home office, which Jack refers to as “her closet.”

Barbara might remain a tad overwhelmed and certainly humbled and honored, right until the minute she steps to the podium on Wednesday of Memorial week.

“I know Barbara will accept this award with her customary humility and grace,” said Captains Club member Fred Ridley, the Chairman of Augusta National Golf Club. “Recognizing Barbara as the 2025 Memorial Tournament Honoree is fitting and well deserved.

“Barbara Nicklaus exudes class and elegance. She is one of the most thoughtful people I have ever met. She and Jack have had a marriage and partnership for more than 60 years that all who know them admire.  Although I have known Barbara for many years, our friendship has deepened during my tenure as a member of the Captains Club. Her personal notes after every Captains Club meeting are a highlight of being at the Memorial Tournament each year.”

The personal handwritten notes are a Barbara Nicklaus trademark.

Without prompting, Barbara has sent a personal handwritten letter to each First Lady of Golf Award recipient, and most often the letter has been read during the awards ceremony. When the PGA of America produced a video tribute to accompany her 2019 award, the opening scene was Barbara handwriting a letter.

She handwrites thank-you notes, letters of congratulations, birthday wishes, and get-well notes. It’s a lost art and not something lost on all who have received one.

“It’s super time-consuming, but unbelievably appreciated by all,” Inkster said. “I know I kept all of mine!”

Now that Captains Club member Andy North thinks about it, “I should have saved mine, too."

“The best thing that ever happened to Jack is Barbara Nicklaus, and we tell him that literally every day,” said North, the two-time U.S. Open champion and ESPN golf analyst. “You start talking about the great people in your lives, and they're obviously two of them. Jack is the competitor; Barbara is the fixer.

“There’s nobody more deserving of this honor. The fact we're able to honor Barbara the way we're honoring her is so special. What she's done in the game of golf—having never played the game—is amazing. You can’t say that about many in other sports. Perhaps there are some coaches that have had that kind of influence on people's lives, but nobody's been like Barbara. The friendships that Barbara has made over the years… I mean she knows everybody. She knows their name and birthdate. How many cards do you think she's written over the years? It's like Arnold signing his autograph.

“Every young wife that came on TOUR, she took them under her wing and tried to make them understand what the life out there was like.”

Barbara speaks often of the women who influenced her—from the early index-finger-in-her-face advice from Lloyd Mangrum's wife Eleta to the guidance and unshakable friendships of Winnie Palmer and Vivienne Player. Jack, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player will forever be known as the Big Three, but Barbara, Winnie and Vivienne were the cornerstone to the trio’s foundation.

“The greatest word that exists in any language is love,” said Captains Club member Gary Player, the winner of nine major championships. “You can take all the nuclear bombs and all their power and the noise they make, but love makes a greater noise and it's silent. When I think of love, and you talk about golf pros, I think about my dear friend and best friend, Jack Nicklaus, who has been, never mind the greatest player that ever lived, but the greatest gentleman I ever played with on a golf course. His father and his mother, who he honored, would be proud of him. I knew Barbara Nicklaus' mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Bash. They were such wonderful people, and Barbara is a product of her mother and father, as well.

“Jack Nicklaus attained great success, but I can tell you this, if he never married Barbara, he probably would have lost three majors. I think she gave him an extra three majors.”

Three, at least, Jack might say. After all, in his 2015 Congressional Gold Medal speech, he credited Barbara with 15 of his 18 professional majors and kidded that he somehow managed three on his own.

Over the decades of their friendship, Player has been quick to compliment Barbara, and even quicker to remind Jack what he has been blessed with for over 65 years.

“She epitomizes perfection in a wife,” Player added. “Always a smile, always makes you feel good. I pull her leg and say, ‘Listen, if Jack ever passes away, put me on your list. Because you are a darling.’

“Barbara Nicklaus, if anybody deserved this award, it is you, my sweetheart, my darling, my lady of perfection. God bless you and Jack for the rest of your lives.”

It is no surprise that when the PGA TOUR Wives Association was created in 1988, Barbara was one of the inspirations and leading voices. Now 37-plus years later, the Wives Association has given back almost $6 million to the TOUR’s communities and child-related charities. A year ago, the Wives Association renamed its highest honor the Barbara Nicklaus Award.

“Jack is Barbara’s husband,” Inkster said. “That’s the way I look at it.  What she’s done for TOUR wives, what she did for the younger wives coming out, I don’t know how she does it. How does she remember everybody’s name, their kids, their grandkids? She’s just a special lady who makes everybody feel like she’s their best friend.

“I know how it is, because I traveled with family, and it takes a village. Barbara was the rock to Jack so he could go play golf and be successful.”

Throughout the Captains Club, the uniqueness of Barbara’s impact on Jack’s success is an inescapable topic. It’s sort of the chicken-and-egg conversation. Which came first, golf’s greatest champion, or Barbara, the engine under the hood, the wizard behind the curtain?

“When talking about our great champions—and Jack Nicklaus is ultimately the best—you need to look behind the scenes … maybe not even behind the scenes, but you look right next to him, there’s Barbara Nicklaus,” said Captains Club member Hale Irwin, the three-time U.S. Open champion. “As far as I am concerned, I think Barbara's had as much to do with Jack's success as anything in his life. His family is very dear to him, but Barbara has been the linchpin. The glue.

“She's been the lady who has always been there, and I don't think there's anyone on the TOUR, particularly among the ladies—and I'll speak specifically of my wife, Sally, who respects and loves no one more than Sally does Barbara—and I think we all feel that way. She's just been the mother to all and set a terrific example for us all to follow.”

Barbara didn’t open her door and open her heart to just wives.

If a golfer needed a little Barbara Nicklaus counsel, they were first and foremost a friend. As actress Mindy Kaling said, real friends never have to tell you that they're your friends, and they’re “the ones who go into the forest to find you and bring you home.”

“One of the best pieces of advice I ever had was from Barbara Nicklaus,” said Captains Club member Tony Jacklin, whose wins in the 1969 Open Championship and 1970 U.S. Open, and his European Ryder Cup captaincy in the 80s, made him a generational legend in British golf. “Maybe 40 years ago, I was talking about where to live. I should have been living in America long ago after I won my major championships, and Barbara made a statement that said it all, really. She said, ‘England's quaint, but America is the place to live.’ There was nobody who ever made a clearer, on-point statement than that to me, as far as I'm concerned. She turned out to be spot on.”

The adjectives flow easily amid the Captains Club. From the pockets of their grey jackets, they pull out words like selfless, humble, giving, kind, loving, and a saint who possesses incredible strength packaged with an unmistakable soft touch.

But there is an absolutely endearing aspect of Barbara Nicklaus’ personality that some feel isn’t talked about enough, at least publicly, but is known to each and every Captain.

“Let me give you my take on Barbara,” said Captains Club member and eight-time major champion Tom Watson. “I think if you have to use an adjective about Barbara, I’d use fun and entertaining. And she's a prankster. It extends into her entire family. She has fun, and she, as Jack does, they needle their friends. There’s no more solid basis for a friendship than when you can make fun of your friends and make them feel that they can enter into the fun.

“Barbara's always been that way, with an ingratiating smile and this kind of impish look at you, when she's playing a prank. The head slightly bent forward, the eyes looking at you with this sheepish grin on her face. Barbara has the look of a prankster and that's one of the many things I love about her—that she has fun with people. That should be included in any bio on Barbara Nicklaus.”

Watson recalls the time(s) she put ants in his iced tea. Have no fear, they were plastic, Watson added.

Jack confirms that Barbara was notorious for traveling with plastic insects—from ants to cockroaches. On a trip to South Africa, she mixed a cockroach in with a friend’s morning oatmeal. Jack added that Barbara has put them in ice cream and has even asked chefs to work them into cakes.

And let it be known that Jack doesn’t get a pass.

For years, fellow PGA TOUR golfers playfully called Jack Nicklaus “Carnac the Magnificent,” referring to the character played by late-night show host Johnny Carson who knew the answers before the questions were asked. The genesis of the Carnac comparisons has been debated, but Irwin has his theory.

“Jack says I instigated him being called Carnac, but my recollection is that Barbara’s the one that instigated it at the 1981 Ryder Cup,” Irwin theorized. “I think I may have played along with it or had an equal hand in it, but it was with Barbara's direction that it came about—and lovingly so. We loved Johnny Carson and Carnac, and we love Jack and Barbara. Fortunately, he goes along with it very well. It's entertaining.”

Jack Nicklaus comes armed with a long needle, but he can also take a jab and be a good sport about it. Especially if Barbara is an accomplice.

“One of the funniest things ever happened early on in our senior careers,” North recalls. “Jack had been out there for 10 years, and Tom (Waston) and I were just starting out on the Senior Tour. Barbara invited us all to dinner one night, and it was one of those nights where we gave Jack so much grief, it was unbelievable. It was like everybody against Jack that night. We just killed him. I mean we killed him to where it was unmerciful. I guarantee no one on earth would think you could say the stuff to Jack that we were telling him that night. And after we finished, Barbara buys dinner. She then says, ‘Listen, anytime you guys want to do that to Jack, I'll buy!’ ”

If only every get-together was BYOB—Bring Your Own Barbara!

PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan, one of four Advisors to the Captains Club, stood at the podium at the 2022 Memorial Honoree Ceremony, and to sum up the impact of Barbara and Jack Nicklaus, called them “the greatest dynasty in American sports history.”

In this dynasty, this partnership, Jack Nicklaus brought the commitment to excellence and played the role of the fierce competitor inside the ropes, while Barbara Nicklaus brought the humanity outside the ropes. She defined the qualities you would want in the best version of people: kindness, compassion, sympathetic, generous, and with an unmistakable ability to love and be loved.

The stare of the steely blues famously associated with Jack Nicklaus have softened since he retired from championship golf in 2005. In the 20 years since, he’s been called a gentler Golden Bear, and the steely blues are quick to fill with tears of gratitude. Nantz called it a “sentimental valve” that opened up in Jack, and no one floods his heart more than Barbara.

“The love is just, it's so real,” Nantz said. “To see the two of them together and their love and admiration for each other, well, it still has that look of a blossoming, teenage romance. The way they look at each other. There's a twinkle in their eyes. I saw it recently in Houston. Jack just looks at her with so much love in his eyes, so much admiration. It's just incredibly sweet.

“Jack was always considered such a hardened competitor, impenetrable when it came to pressure or expectations or being distracted. His focus was real. And now, he wears his feelings. You see his feelings through his eyes. And when Barbara is the subject or Barbara walks into a room, you can see it in his eyes. There's a welling up. There's just a love, an appreciation, and an awe for his wife.”

The snapshots tell the love story.

There were the black-and-white images after they met their first week at The Ohio State University in 1957, followed by those photos in the 1960s of Jack hoisting a major championship trophy with the other arm around wrapped around Barbara.

And then there are today’s candid peeks. You know the ones. Jack leaning lovingly on Barbara on the 18^th green after the Memorial Tournament’s trophy ceremony. Him blowing into Barbara’s ear as they walked outside the Muirfield Village clubhouse.

Include any of the last few Honorary Starters Ceremonies at the Masters. Jack has a family tree of Nicklauses to pick from when he needs a caddie for that morning, yet he prefers to turn to his life caddie Barbara to carry the bag. The photo of Jack wrapping his arms around Barbara and her caddie whites is one that epitomizes two lives well lived and loved.

“It was a total partnership,” Nantz said in the final seconds of his New York minute. “Jack's the first to tell you that. And the thing I love about them is just it's such a strong bond.

“This game is such an alone sport. You're on your own. You're inside the ropes, with just your caddy to talk to. That's not to be minimized, but with Barbara, how much does it mean to have the most perfect support system of all time? That's what Jack had, and her fingerprints are on every one of those championship trophies.”