Over his final 10 holes, Nicklaus ripped off six birdies and an eagle, including an eagle-birdie-birdie streak on Nos. 15, 16 and 17. His 30 on the back nine set the course record. But the math hardly reflects the human theater.

Anyone who was there heard Nicklaus’ charge long before the leaderboard could post another red number. The galleries raced just to catch the Nicklaus-Sandy Lyle pairing, if only for a glimpse of passing blond hair.

Nick Price, who set the course record with a 63 the day before and was in the middle of the hunt, came to No. 13 and estimated there were only 30 people lining the fairway at perhaps Augusta National’s most famous holes. He said later he felt like he was playing a Monday practice round.

The biggest shot of the day? History offers a virtual gallery of them, but Nicklaus has a strong opinion on the par 3 No. 12. He flew the green, wound up with his only bogey of the round and said, “That really got me going. I need to be more aggressive.”

His two-putt birdie on No. 13 drew him to within two shots of Ballesteros. On that green, Lyle tells a story that Nicklaus remarked that Jackie had just informed his father it was all becoming too much for his young heart to handle.

“What about me?” Nicklaus said. “I’m 46!”

At No. 15, after he eagled from 12 feet, the crowd’s roar was so deafening that Nicklaus said he couldn’t hear anything. At No. 16, he peered across the pond and summoned the young Jack again.

“I hit my shot, and it was the cockiest remark I’ve ever made,” Nicklaus said. “I hit the shot, looked at it in the air and I knew it was just perfect. Jackie said, ‘Be right, be right.’ And I said, ‘It is.’”

He nearly holed it out, tapped in his birdie putt was standing over his tee shot on No. 17 when an unsettled cry went out from the nearby 15th. Ballesteros had dropped his approach shot in the pond. Nicklaus had caught him and when he sunk a tricky 11-footer for a last birdie at 17 green, he had gained a one-shot lead on Ballesteros and Kite and a two-shot edge on Norman.