CONTRIBUTED

Jack Nicklaus will be coming to the Sandhills, as will his writer friend, Jaime Diaz, Wednesday, Sept. 19, to present the first Ruth Pauley Lecture of the 2012-2013 season: "A Conversation on Golf."

The event will be held at 7:30 p.m. in Owens Auditorium on the Sandhills Community College campus in Pinehurst. Admission is free and open to the public, but tickets are required.

Tickets may be picked up Friday at Sandhills Community College's Boyd Library, Given Memorial Library in Pinehurst, and The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines. There is a limit of two tickets per person. No phone requests will be accepted.

Nicklaus, the "Golden Bear," is no stranger to Pinehurst. He won the North & South golf tournament in 1959, and his son Jackie won it in 1985. Their names are engraved on a long list of winners, and both have lockers in the Pine-hurst clubhouse.

Nicklaus has played in professional tournaments at Country Club of North Carolina, as well as Pinehurst, and was often accompanied by his wife, Barbara.

This time is different. These two friends - one of the most famous professional golfers in the modern world and the eminent senior writer for Golf Digest and editor-in-chief for Golf World - will engage in a dialogue that will range from the persons who shaped Nicklaus' life and the fantastic record he achieved - 118 professional tournament victories worldwide and a record 18 professional major championship titles - to his present passion as the pre-eminent designer and builder of some 370 courses in 36 countries, 65 of which have been rated among the top 100 courses in the world.

The give-and-take will be revealing, and those who attend are promised an exciting evening, organizers said.

Diaz has covered more than l00 major championships and has been awarded first place six times in the Golf Writers' Association of America's annual writing contest. In January, he was named the recipient of the prestigious PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism. He is the author of five books; the last one, in collaboration with Frank Harvey, "The Big Miss," was published in March.

Jack and Barbara Nicklaus have four sons and a daughter, who, with their spouses and 22 grandchildren, live close by in Florida. The Nicklauses are generous philanthropists. Their major project is the Nicklaus Children's Health Care Foundation, which supports numerous pediatric health care services in South Florida and across the country.

Among Jack's many honors as champion golfer and world-class course designer is the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to any U.S. civilian, presented by President George W. Bush in the White House in 2005.

In January 2008, he received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship in recognition of his executive leadership and business and public service around the world.

The Ruth Pauley Lecture Series is an effort of the League of Women Voters, the American Association of University Women, Sandhills Community College and the Moore County Schools.

The next lecture in the series will be Oct. 17, when foreign affairs expert Robert D. Kaplan will discuss "The Revenge of Geography."

For additional information, call (910) 245-3132.