The world has made plenty of concessions to COVID-19 over the course of the past year, and in pandemic-era golf, one of those necessary changes was a move of this week’s World Golf Championships event from Club de Golf Chapultepec in Mexico City, Mexico to The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, FL.
Though The Concession has never held a Ryder Cup, it’s link to the biennial matches is deep and undeniable. That's because the club's very name comes from an indelible act of sportsmanship that is the stuff of Ryder Cup lore.
To hear Jack Nicklaus tell the story, it was not something that was pre-planned - it just felt right in that moment.
At the 1969 Ryder Cup at Royal Birkdale, Nicklaus played Tony Jacklin in the final singles match. With the match tied on the 18th hole, Nicklaus had a chance to clinch the cup after Jacklin’s birdie putt came up 3 feet short, but instead he ran his own birdie attempt 5 feet past the hole.
Nicklaus made the come-backer and when he removed his ball from the hole, he picked up Jacklin’s mark, conceding the final putt and guaranteeing the matches end in a 16-16 tie for the first time ever in a Ryder Cup.
“The Concession” came to be viewed as one of the world’s greatest acts of sportsmanship and it was the inspiration for The Concession Golf Club, a design collaboration by none other than Nicklaus & Jacklin.
