Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed The Golden Bear, is an American retired professional golfer. He is widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time, winning a record 18 career major championships, while producing 19 second-place and 9 third-place finishes, over a span of 25 years. Nicklaus focused on the major championships--Masters Tournament, U.S. Open, Open Championship and PGA Championship--and played a selective schedule of regular PGA Tour events, yet still finished with 73 victories, third on the all-time list behind Sam Snead (82) and Tiger Woods (79).

Between 1981 and 1985, Nicklaus accumulated seven more top-10 placements in major championships, including three runner-up performances. He won only twice on the PGA Tour during this period, the Colonial National Invitation in 1982 and his own Memorial Tournament in 1984 for the second time, defeating Andy Bean in a sudden-death playoff to become the tournament's first repeat champion.  In 1983, Nicklaus closed out the PGA Championship and World Series of Golf with brilliant final rounds in the mid-60's, and passed many players to move into contention, but finished runner-up in each to Player of the Year Hal Sutton and Nick Price, respectively, who dominated the tournaments from start to finish. Despite not winning a PGA Tour event in 1983, Nicklaus finished 10th on the PGA Tour money list, and passed a significant milestone by becoming the first player to eclipse the $4 million level in career earnings.  In 1985, Nicklaus finished second to Curtis Strange in the Canadian Open, which marked his seventh and final second-place finish in that tournament; this is a record for that event. These seven runner-up finishes came over the course of 21 events--or one second-place finish for every three tournaments played--and does not include a third-place finish in 1983, one shot out of the playoff between John Cook and Johnny Miller.  During the five-year period between 1981 and 1985, the Ryder Cup matches provided Nicklaus with two bright spots. He completed his competition as a player in style by contributing a perfect 4-0-0 record (inclusive of a 5 & 3 anchor singles match win over Eamonn Darcy) in 1981, and captained the United States team in 1983 to a one-point win over Europe.

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