'I found a little lightning in the bottle': Why Jack Nicklaus’ 1986 Masters win remains so significant

AUGUSTA, Ga. — If you can, ask your father or grandfather about Jack Nicklaus’ Masters win 40 years ago in 1986. If you can’t, you can imagine what they’d say.

Greatest Masters ever. Greatest golf tournament ever. Among the greatest sports moments ever. Brought a tear to my eye.

When 46-year-old Nicklaus rolled in that long putt on the 17th hole to take the solo lead that long-ago April afternoon, when he donned his sixth green jacket, when he stared Father Time in the face and the clock blinked, he didn’t just win more accolades for himself.

With that 1986 Masters win, Jack Nicklaus created the greatest Dad Moment in American sports history. How many fathers, trapped between wanting to relive their own youth and wanting to pass on lessons to their children, connected with Nicklaus’ win? How many men and women alike could understand what it’s like to feel like you’ve got more to give, even when the rest of the world has decided you’re done?

“Obviously, '86 was the one that I wasn't expected to win,” Nicklaus said Thursday morning after his ceremonial tee shot to begin the 2026 Masters. “I was ‘over the hill’ and the whole routine, and I won. So that was very special.”

Back then, Nicklaus, now 86, had a line for the occasion: “I'm not as good a player as I once was,” he said in 1986. “I occasionally want to be as good as I once was.” Dismissed, disregarded, written off as too old, a relic of a past era, Nicklaus used some classic dad skills — wisdom, tenacity, steadfastness — to keep his head while everyone else lost theirs. And ever since, he’s been the perfect Dad role model — gracious, indulgent, just a tiny bit boastful when needed — as he’s recounted that miraculous day.

“I found a little lightning in the bottle, and it was kind of fun to find that,” he said. “At 46 I have my son Jackie on the bag, and my mother, my sister come to the Masters for the first time since 1959, all very special circumstances.”

How many days over the course of the last 40 years do you think Nicklaus hasn’t heard about his miraculous 1986 Masters victory? Ten? Five? Zero? Probably the only way Jack could escape a conversation about 1986 was aboard his fishing yacht Sea Bear … and only because CBS wasn’t broadcasting to fish back then.

The moments of that day have grown into legends, starting with an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article taped up on the refrigerator of Nicklaus’ Augusta rental home declaring him too old to win.

Jack Nicklaus receives the green jacket after winning the 1986 Masters. (David Cannon/Allsport)

(David Cannon via Getty Images)

“I kind of agreed with (the article), I’m afraid,” Nicklaus said in 1986 after his win. “I kept thinking all week, I said, Done, through, washed up, huh? … A lot of times you get a little something like that, it can spur you on, you know?”

With his son caddying, Nicklaus steadily improved each round, carding scores of 74, 71, 69 and 65. He finished the tournament at 9-under, then could only wait as his pursuers finished their rounds. Seve Ballesteros, Tom Kite and Greg Norman all fell off the pace or crumbled under the pressure. The green jacket belonged again to Nicklaus, and a nation of sports dads all cheered as one.

“The sound coming from green to tee was actually deafening,” Nicklaus said in 1986, his ears still ringing. “Really, I couldn't hear a thing. People were unbelievable. They got excited and charged up, and they got me charged up. I didn't have a clue what I was shooting the back nine. All I knew is I was hitting it on the green and making birdie, and I was going to keep on doing it.”

A postscript to that moment: In 1998, Nicklaus, at age 58, made one more run at the Masters, tying for sixth place and finishing ahead of the defending champion, a guy by the name of Tiger Woods.

“Nice going, Jack,” Nicklaus chuckled to himself on Thursday when told of that feat. “But I didn't win the tournament, no. … To me, wherever you finish in the tournament is really not that important unless you win.”

These days, the Golden Bear only plays golf about once a year. He had carpal tunnel surgery on his hands a few weeks ago, but healed up enough to swing a club. Early Thursday morning, before a small gathering around the first tee behind the Augusta National clubhouse, Nicklaus popped a teed-up-high ball over the heads of the gallery and about 100 yards down the first fairway. And with that, the 90th Masters was underway.

“It's such a nice ceremony, and it's a real honor to be invited,” he said. “I hope to be able to do it as long as I can not kill anybody.”

But before everyone thinks the Bear is declawed, Nicklaus can still flash a bit of fire every now and then. At the traditional press conference following the ceremonial tee shot, Nicklaus was deferential to his fellow honorary starters … up to a point.

“When I was a kid, I watched the Masters in '58, '60, '62, '64,” Tom Watson said, listing all of Arnold Palmer’s Augusta victories, “and then this guy came along and beat my king right here.”

Nicklaus just smiled and shrugged. “Sorry,” he said, but you know he wasn’t. Not a bit.

Still needling, still inspiring after all these years. That’s about as fine a legacy as you can get.