Nicklaus plays his parting shot

They rose to him around the 18th green, just as an earlier generation had cheered him to the echo in British Open triumphs here on the Old Course. But Jack Nicklaus wasn't quite ready to depart. It was Friday, and champions don't quit on Fridays.

Unfortunately for the Bear, his golf game didn't match his ambition. A putting stroke, once the most formidable on tour, was now frail and unpredictable, denying him the chance of repairing the damage of an opening 77 on Thursday.

So, after a second-round 73 for 150, Nicklaus bade farewell to St Andrews, where he captured the Open title in 1970 and again in 1978. Though he insisted that "you never say never", he added: "The chances are that I have probably played my last hole in the British Open."

Hugh Campbell, the chairman of the championship committee, informed him that, largely with him in mind, the R and A planned to bring the Open back here again in 2005, when Nicklaus would be 65 and exempt for the last time. But the great man was in no mood to offer any guarantees. "I told him I wouldn't say no, but unless I was competitive, I wouldn't want to take up a spot," he said.

Rivals on tour once claimed that if the safety of their wife and family depended on a 10-foot putt going into the hole, the one man they would place absolute faith in to sink it, was Nicklaus. Not any more. The blade which wrought sufficient magic to capture 18 professional major titles, couldn't guide him through the cut.

When he played a wonderful three-wood of 238 yards on to the 18th green at Pebble Beach as his farewell to the US Open last month, the glorious possibility of an eagle dissolved into a depressing three-putt par. And when a parting birdie presented itself from five feet below the 18th hole yesterday, the blade let him down once more.

But for a 60-year-old, his problems are even more fundamental than those addressed by hip-replacement surgery 18 months ago. "The fact is that I'm having a hard time walking 18 holes right now," said Nicklaus. "And it looks as if I may need artificial joints in my feet if I'm ever to play serious competitive golf again."

Typically, he could talk calmly about such matters without even the hint of self-pity. No more than he expected sympathy when on the losing end of titanic golfing battles, like in falling to Tom Watson at Turnberry in 1977.

After walking over the Swilken Burn on the 18th, where he called his caddying son Steve to join him, Nicklaus confessed to contrasting emotions. "It was very nice, but not on Friday afternoon. The people let me know they appreciated the good years I've had in Scotland and they gave me a very nice farewell."

The Bear didn't show his emotions the way a tearful Arnold Palmer had done in his farewell to St Andrews five years ago. But the pair were always that way.

Meanwhile, there was at least one compensation: he and his wife Barbara will be able to have a proper celebration of their 40th wedding anniversary tomorrow. Or will they? When asked what his plans were for the day, Nicklaus replied: "I'll play golf. I played golf the day I got married. Barbara didn't mind then; she's certainly not going to mind now."

And as he went, one couldn't help thinking, if only that five-footer had dropped. But then Nicklaus was never one to expect favours from a notoriously demanding game.