Jack Nicklaus awarded honorary citizenship to St. Andrews

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Benjamin Franklin. Bobby Jones. Jack Nicklaus.

That’s the full extent of the Americans bestowed honorary citizenship in the Royal Burgh of St. Andrews.

It’s something special to be in company with Jones, the great amateur golfer who won the 1927 British Open here and boyhood hero of Nicklaus, and Franklin, known as the first American, the Newton of Electricity and the Prophet of Tolerance. It made Nicklaus, an 18-time major champion and three-time Champion Golfer of the Year, choked up and teary-eyed.

“When I won the Open in 1966 at Muirfield I couldn’t speak and I can’t speak right now,” said Nicklaus as he wiped away a tear with a handkerchief Tuesday at Younger Hall at St. Andrews University upon receiving the one-of-a-kind distinction.

Nicklaus, 82, won two of his British Open titles at The Old Course – in 1970 and 1978 – and played eight Opens in all here. He planned to walk across the famed Swilcan Burn Bridge, located on the course’s 18^th hole, one last time during the 2000 Open and for that to be his farewell to the championship until he asked then-executive director of the R&A Peter Dawson when the next Open would be held at St. Andrews.

When told it was slated for 2006, Nicklaus replied that was too bad. By then he would be 66, one year past the maximum age exemption permitted for past champions. Dawson wondered if Nicklaus would consider playing one more time if the Open was held there in 2005. “Be here in a heartbeat,” Nicklaus said.

And that’s all it took for the schedule to change to accommodate Nicklaus’s swan song in 2005. At age 65, he sank a birdie putt on the final hole to end his career at the Home of Golf.

“I declined to come back the last couple of times to St. Andrews,” Nicklaus explained. “I didn’t want to come back and dilute that for what it was.”

But he made an exception when his invitation arrived this time to be made an honorary citizen of St. Andrews.

“To follow Bobby Jones and Benjamin Franklin, I’ve got to come back,” he said. “We’re back actually at the same hotel room I was in, Barbara and I stayed in every time we’ve been at St. Andrews.”

The St. Andrews Community Council considered making Nicklaus an honorary citizen during the 2005 Open, but the measure failed to receive enough votes. When the resolution was proposed again, this time the council passed it unanimously.

Franklin received the Freedom of the City award in 1759 from the St….