ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- There's a country inn on the outskirts of town, backed by manicured gardens. A family runs it. They've done so for almost 60 years, knowing visitors by name, welcoming them at the door. There are nicer hotels, places with bigger rooms or fancier lobbies, bars with older scotches or restaurants with better food. But they're only hotels. Rufflets is a home. The guests are family.
This year, a family member is missing.
Used to be, they'd get calls before the Open Championship with the inevitable question: Is Jack Nicklaus staying there?
The answer was always, "No Comment."
This year, the answer is, "No."
The Open is back at St. Andrews, and Jack's not playing. The staff feels the hole. Something's different. Off. For every local Open since 1964, Nicklaus stayed here. He started off a single man, and, as the years passed, his party grew.
"Family is the key word," general manager Stephen Owen says. "He became a bit like family."
They got to know him. See him up close, when the cameras were off. They celebrated in the gardens with the Claret Jug in 1978, and they knew the family was mourning in 2005 after little Jake died. They saw Jack make the transition from fiery golfer to grandfather on a victory lap.
"He was very focused and very driven still in 1990," housekeeper Heather Rothery says. "He didn't chat. You could see he was focused on the task at hand. The last two in particular, Jack was a lot more relaxed. But 1995, he was very focused. He wanted to do well. He wanted to make the cut. In the morning, he got what he needed and that's it. He didn't really chat with anybody. You felt a difference by 2000."
The Nicklauses didn't need a lot of hand-holding. Barbara Nicklaus ran the show. The staff brought any questions or anything that needed signing to her. "We knew he ate reasonably light," Rothery says. "Porridge for breakfast. Lots of fruit. Lots of Diet Coke in his mini-bar."
Once, the owners got a call from another hotel.
"What's the trick to looking after Jack Nicklaus?" they asked.
They didn't hesitate.
"Look after Mrs. Nicklaus."
In 2005, on the last morning of his last major championship, Jack and Barbara sat in the familiar Room 11, the one with the turret, talking about their journey, so many years, so many places. They cried a little. They'd made it. It was almost over.
The last round was for everyone. He waved and the crowd whistled. Thousands of people jostled, leaned, cheered. Grown men wept, for Jack, for themselves, and Jack cried again, too. He made one last birdie and then he hugged his wife and he hugged his children. They left the Old Course, leaving behind the echoes, and returned to Rufflets. A camera crew followed them home, but it stopped at the front door. The last night was for them.
"When they came back," Rothery says, "it was just the family."
The next day, the staff saw the family off. The hotel folks sensed he wouldn't be back; they felt certain he had no interest in being a tourist. "It was quite sad," Rothery says. "There was a poignancy. There was a real sense of an end of an era."
The owner came and wanted a photo before everyone said goodbye. She took one first with Jack and Barbara, then with Jack Nicklaus, Jack Nicklaus II and Jack Nicklaus III. Everyone smiled for the camera, and that was it.
It's been five years, and those two photos are in tasteful frames on a table next to the fireplace. That's all that's left for the people who run a hotel that feels like home: photos and memories of a time gone past.
