Fifty years ago this week, a young golf sensation named Jack Nicklaus came to New Hampshire for a charity exhibition at Manchester Country Club.

Then a husky 22-year-old fresh off capturing the 1962 U.S. Open, Nicklaus went on to become golf's greatest player, winning 18 professional majors. And although his appearance at the Donald Ross layout in Bedford is a footnote to a legendary career, it remains a memorable chapter in Granite State golf lore.

Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, Nicklaus had burst into prominence by finishing second to golf icon Arnold Palmer at the 1960 U.S. Open. He turned pro just months after winning a second U.S. Amateur in 1961 and the next June defeated Palmer in an 18-hole playoff to win the U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club outside Pittsburgh.

A month after Nicklaus upset golf's reigning king to earn his first major title, this newspaper reported that he would come to Manchester for an Aug. 15 clinic and exhibition to benefit the Easter Seal Agency of New Hampshire. A subsequent article announced that Boston Celtics basketball star Bob Cousy, actor Robert Sterling and Manchester Country Club champion Joe Grzywacz would join Nicklaus in the exhibition foursome. Tickets for the 2 p.m. affair cost $3 in advance and $5 at the gate.

After landing in Boston the morning of the event, Nicklaus boarded Manchester businessman Eddie Allard's Cessna 310 airplane for the short hop to the Queen City. As the pair flew north, however, they took a slight detour, recalls Allard's son, Ron.

“As they got close to Manchester, Jack looks at my father and says, 'Hey Eddie, would you take me over the golf course? I want to see some of the holes,'” said Allard, a 66-year-old Bedford resident whose father died in 2000. “And my dad took him over. ... Jack got a kick out of that.”

An estimated 1,200 fans assembled at Manchester Country Club for Nicklaus' appearance, according to a Union Leader account. After arriving at the club, which had hosted New Hampshire Women's Golf Association Championship matches that morning, Nicklaus offered a clinic along the first fairway before venturing out with Cousy, Sterling and Grzywacz.

A veteran point guard who was entering what would be his final National Basketball Association season, Cousy had sparked the Celtics to five championships in the previous six years. Sterling was a well-known film and TV actor, while Grzywacz had won the last three Manchester city golf titles and would go on to post New Hampshire Golf Association State Amateur victories in 1964 and '67.

Grzywacz died in 2002 and Sterling in 2006, but Cousy remembers meeting Nicklaus for the first time at the exhibition.

“For a few years I had been reading about 'Big Jack' Nicklaus,” said the 84-year-old Hall of Famer, who at 6 feet 2 was accustomed to being dwarfed by NBA giants. “We get there that day, and there's this 5 (feet) 10 kind of little pudgy guy. This was before he got into shape. He didn't fit my image of 'Big Jack' Nicklaus.”

A 15-year-old local caddie named Frank Piekos was on Nicklaus' bag for the exhibition. A sophomore-to-be at Manchester High School West who had caddied at Manchester since he was 9, Piekos drew the plum assignment from Joe Makara, the club's head pro.

“Joe said, 'Jack Nicklaus is coming, and we want you to caddie for him because you're the best caddie we have,'” said Piekos, now 65 and living outside Houston. “I was honored and thrilled.”

By his recollection, Piekos spent the morning of Aug. 15 caddying in the NHWGA Championship for a 16-year-old Portsmouth golfer named Janie Blalock, who would go on to win 27 LPGA titles. Come afternoon, he looped for Nicklaus.

Piekos remembers the Golden Bear making birdie on Manchester's par-5 second hole and running into trouble at No. 6, a straightaway par-4 with woods lining the left side.

“He said to me, 'Does it open up to the left?' And I said, 'No it doesn't,'” Piekos said. “And somebody standing behind me said, 'Yes, it opens up to the left.' Well, that's the last thing he heard. Of course he hit it in the woods on the left, (into) knee-deep rough, so he made a double bogey on that hole.”

Nicklaus bogeyed No. 7 before rebounding with birdies on Nos. 8 and 9, according to the Union Leader's account. With nine consecutive pars on the back nine, he finished with an even-par 72. (Manchester is a par-71 course today, but its par-4 17th hole played as a par-5 back then.)

Sterling finished with an 81 and Cousy an 82, the Union Leader reported, and although the paper did not report Grzywacz's score, Piekos remembers it being in the 70s.

After the round, Nicklaus signed Piekos' hat and gave him the glove and ball he had used. A half-century later, the former caddie still revels in the memory of his experience alongside a legend in the making.

“At the time, that was the biggest thrill of my life,” he said.

Cousy, who still carries an 11 handicap, has maintained a casual friendship with Nicklaus through the years and spends winters playing at Bear Lakes Country Club, home to two Nicklaus-designed courses in West Palm Beach, Fla.

“He made them too tough, and every time he comes by we let him know it,” Cousy said.

Mike Cullity's column on New Hampshire golf appears weekly during the golf season in the New Hampshire Sunday News. E-mail him at mcullity@unionleader.com.