Golden Bear Still Not Over Ford-Era Demons

I saw the headline to Robin Abcarian's story and thought, when did Jack Nicklaus ever lose to Doug Ford?

Turns out, it's Gerald Ford he's still upset about and it seems Mr. Nicklaus feels he kind of cost Ford a chance in 1976 by not campaigning for the former president in Ohio, thus explaining his desire to campaign for Mitt Romney this weekend.

 “He asked me to get involved and I didn’t,” Nicklaus said. “I said, ‘Mr. President, I’ve always stayed away from politics. I deal with people on both sides.’ And he respected that and he never had an issue with that, and we played a lot of golf after that. But I didn’t help him and he lost Ohio by several thousand votes. Had he won Ohio, he would have won the election. I’ve always had big regrets about that.

 “In spite of me not doing that, he paid me a great honor: I was a pallbearer at his funeral. He was such a good friend, such a nice man. That’s why I’ve gotten involved.”

Update on 2012-11-06 01:28 by Geoff

**golf.com crunched the numbers and concludes that even if Nicklaus had campaigned for Gerald Ford and made Ohioans swoon, the election still would have been lost to Jimmy Carter.

Update on 2012-11-06 03:24 by Geoff

**David Berman/Gazette image of Jack Nicklaus on the trail with Scott Hamilton.

Nicklaus said his company, golf course design firm Nicklaus Design, has lost more than 50 percent of its employees during the past four years — a clear condemnation of the economy under President Barack Obama.

“It’s why we got involved. It’s why we want to help get Mitt elected. ... Let’s get this thing on the road and in a few days, let’s get ourselves a new president,” he said to cheers.