June 20, 1982

Having finished his round, Jack Nicklaus watches on television as Tom Watson, whom he's tied for the lead with, hits his two-iron tee shot into the heavy greenside rough on the par-three 17th hole of the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. "I knew I had no worse than a tie," Nicklaus says. "There was no way in the world he could save par there so I figured he'd have to birdie 18 just to get into a playoff."

Watson is thinking differently as surveys the challenge, a cut-shot wedge out of deep grass, 16 feet downhill to the pin on a green sloping away from him. When his caddy tells him to get it close, Watson replies, "I'm not going to get it close. I'm going to make it."

Watson's confidence is justified when he slices the ball and pops it in the air. It hits the fringe and, amazingly, rolls hard into the cup for one of the greatest shots in golfing history. The birdie gives him a one-shot lead and another birdie on 18 gives Watson his first U.S. Open, his 282 beating Nicklaus by two strokes.

"If you took 100 balls and pitched them by hand from there, you couldn't do any better," says British Open champ Bill Rogers, who is paired with Watson.

"Make it a 1,000 balls," Nicklaus says when told of Rogers' comment.

And when Watson finishes, Nicklaus is the first to offer his congratulations. "You're something else," he tells Watson. "I'm proud of you."