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Matthew Patay's
Note of the Month
July 2006
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Map and flag images provided by Graphic Maps
This month's featured note
is from Scotland.
The denomination is 5 Pounds and the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money
(SCWPM) Number is P-365.
The note is dated 2005 and commemorates the final professional golf game played by Jack Nicklaus.
(front)
The banknote is black and dark blue on multicolored underprint.
Lord Llay, the first Governor (no
further information is available) is at right. Gold overprint symbolizing
Jack "The Golden Bear" Nicklaus is at left.
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The following information
was obtained from:
Wikipedia the
Free Encyclopedia
The Royal Bank of Scotland plc
(For
the full article, please refer to the link above.)
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC is one of Scotland's three national clearing banks and one of the oldest in the UK, founded in Edinburgh in 1727 by Royal Charter.
Today it is the largest bank in Scotland, the second largest in the UK and Europe, and the fifth largest in the world by market capitalisation being worth over £50Bn. Its shares have a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange.
The bank's registered head office is located at St Andrew's Square in Edinburgh. In 2005, Queen Elizabeth II opened the bank's new head office building in Gogarburn, Edinburgh. It has offices throughout Europe, America and Asia.
History of the Royal Bank of Scotland
The bank traces its origin to the Equivalent Society which was set up by investors in the failed Company of Scotland to protect the compensation they received as part of the arrangements of the 1707 Acts of Union. The Equivalent Society became the Equivalent Company in 1724, and the new company wished to move into banking. The British government received the request favourably as the "Old Bank", the Bank of Scotland, was suspected of having Jacobite sympathies. Accordingly the "New Bank" was chartered in 1727 as the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Competition between the Old and New Banks was fierce, and centred on the issue of banknotes. The policy of the Royal Bank was to either drive the Bank of Scotland out of business or to take it over on favourable terms.
The Royal Bank built up large holdings of the Bank of Scotland's notes, which it acquired in exchange for its own notes, and then suddenly presented them to the Bank of Scotland for payment. To pay for these notes the Bank of Scotland was forced to call in its loans and, in March 1728, to suspend payments. The suspension relieved the immediate pressure on the Bank of Scotland at the cost of substantial damage to its reputation, and gave the Royal Bank a clear space to expand its own business, although the Royal Banks' increased note issue also made it more vulnerable to the same tactics.
Despite talk of a merger with the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank did not possess the wherewithall to complete the deal. By September 1728 the Bank of Scotland was able to start redeeming its notes again, with interest, and in March 1729 it restarted lending. To prevent similar attacks in the future, the Bank of Scotland put an "option clause" on its notes, giving it the right to make the notes interest-bearing while delaying payment for six months; the Royal Bank followed suit. Both banks eventually decided that the policy they had followed was mutually self-destructive and a truce was arranged, but it still took until 1751 before the two banks agreed to accept each other's notes.
* 1727- founded in Edinburgh by Royal Charter
* 1783- first branch in Glasgow opens
* 1874- first London branch opens
* 1920- acquisition of various small English banks to form Williams Deacons Bank, later combined with Glyn Mills & Co. to form Williams and Glyn's Bank
* 1972- merger with National Commercial Bank of Scotland
* 1980- abortive hostile takeover bid by Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation fails
* 1985- established the Direct Line insurance brand
* 1985- Williams and Glyn's bank name merged with the Royal Bank of Scotland
* 1988- acquisition of Citizens Financial Group of Rhode Island
* 1997- Registrars department acquired by Australian share registry company Computershare
* 1997- develops internet banking
* 2000- acquisition of the National Westminster Bank after hostile takeover battle with the Bank of Scotland
* 2004 - acquisition of Peoples Credit Card Services, USA
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(back)
Jack Nicklaus is at center and St. Andrews is at left.
The following information
was obtained from:
Wikipedia the
Free Encyclopedia
Jack
Nicklaus
(January 21, 1940 to present)
(For
the full article, please refer to the link above.)
Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), also known as "The Golden Bear", was a major force in professional golf, first on the PGA Tour from the 1960s to the mid-to-late 1980s, then on the Champions Tour from the late 1980s to the 1990s. Nicklaus is widely regarded as the greatest golfer of all time.
Together with Arnold Palmer, he is credited with turning golf into the major spectator sport it has become. While Palmer brought golf into the television era, it was the developing Nicklaus-Palmer rivalry that drove subsequent interest.
Career highlights
Nicklaus was born in Columbus, Ohio. He was raised and attended public schools in the suburb of Upper Arlington. He took up golf at the age of ten, shooting 51 for his first nine holes. At 13 ,he broke 70. He won the first of six Ohio State Junior titles at the age of twelve. While attending Ohio State University, he won the U.S. Amateur title twice (1959, 1961), and an NCAA Championship (1961). At the 1960 U.S. Open, he shot a 282, finishing second by two strokes to Arnold Palmer, who won the tournament with a final round 65.
Nicklaus began his professional career in 1962, and his record of eighteen wins in major tournaments (three Open Championships, four U.S. Opens, five PGA Championships, and six Masters) is as yet unmatched. He is one of only five golfers to win all four current majors in a career (the "Career Grand Slam"), the first of only two (the other being Tiger Woods) to have won all four majors more than once, and the only golfer to win all four majors at least three times. In 1986, he became the oldest player to ever win The Masters. In all, Nicklaus racked up 48 top-3 finishes in majors (including 19 second-place finishes and nine third-places), 56 top-5 finishes, and 73 top-10 finishes.
Nicklaus's six wins at the Masters came in 1963, 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975 and 1986. Not only is his win tally a record, but he also finished as runner-up a record four times. In the decade of the 1970s, Jack finished in the top ten at Augusta every year. Over his career, he appeared in the event 45 times and made the cut 37 times. In 1998, at the age of 58, he finished an impressive sixth.
Nicklaus won the U.S. Open in 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1980, and is tied with Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, and Willie Anderson for most wins. He is the only player to win the title in three different decades, and also had four runner-up finishes in his 42 appearances. He made the cut 35 times.
Nicklaus won the Open Championship (British Open) in 1966, 1970, 1978, and was runner-up seven times. He made the cut in 32 out of 38 appearances, and from 1966 to 1980 he never finished worse than sixth. So revered is Nicklaus in the United Kingdom for his British Open exploits that in July 2005, the Royal Bank of Scotland announced that Nicklaus's image would be printed on a special issue of two million £5 notes. Apart from HM The Queen, he is the only living person to be featured on a Scottish banknote [1].
His five wins at the PGA Championship came in 1963, 1971, 1973, 1975 and 1980. He is tied with Walter Hagen for most wins. He made the cut 27 times in 37 finishes and was runner-up four times. His 1971 victory made him the first player to win the career Grand Slam twice, an achievement which was matched by Tiger Woods at the 2005 British Open.
Several of Nicklaus's epic defeats in major tournaments helped established the greatness of other players in the public's mind. Nicklaus suffered excruciating losses to, among others, Tom Watson and Lee Trevino that both raised the stature of those outstanding players and made Nicklaus a more sympathetic character (in contrast to Tiger Woods, who has won nearly every major in which he has ever led).
Nicklaus also won the prestigious PLAYERS Championship three times (though never at the TPC at Sawgrass, the current PLAYERS site and a course whose setup he harshly criticized, likening some of its approach shots to "stopping a 5-iron on the hood of a car"). He won various events around the globe as well, including six Australian Opens (1964, 1968, 1971, 1975, 1976 and 1978).
He is second to Sam Snead on the all-time list of players with most PGA Tour wins, having accumulated seventy-three titles. In seventeen consecutive seasons from 1962 to 1978 he always won at least one PGA Tour title and always finished in the top ten on the money list. He topped the PGA Tour money list eight times: 1964, 1965, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976.
In 1996, Nicklaus was the first person in the history of the PGA to win the same Senior PGA Tour (now the Champions Tour) event four times. He is the only person in the history of the PGA to win all of the major championships on both the PGA TOUR and Champions Tour. (Although he never won the Senior British Open, it was not recognized as a major in the United States until 2003, after he had stopped playing the Champions Tour.) He never played a full schedule on the Champions Tour, but he won ten Champions Tour events, including eight majors.
In 1978, he received Sports Illustrated magazine's "Sportsman of the Year" award. In 1980 he was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Overseas Personality Award.
Jack Nicklaus had an unusual playing style, combining being one of the greatest putters of all-time with being the longest hitter on the tour during his prime. He popularized the "power fade," which was his characteristic ball flight.
Nicklaus always played a limited schedule, entering only enough minor tournaments (usually less than ten) to prepare himself for the major tournaments each year. As a result, he never played in enough tournaments in any given year to qualify for the Vardon Trophy awarded annually to the Tour player with the lowest stroke average, although his stroke average was consistently the lowest on Tour during his prime.
In what could be seen as a symbolic passing of the torch from one golf great to another, Tiger Woods won each major in the year that Nicklaus last appeared in it as a player. In 2000, Nicklaus played in the U.S. Open and PGA Championship for the last time, with Woods winning both; Woods also won The Open Championship in that year, which Nicklaus originally intended as his last appearance in that event. In 2005, Nicklaus made his last Masters appearance, and decided to play The Open one last time. Woods won both events as well.
Jack Nicklaus has been inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame and the World Golf Hall of Fame.
Final tournament
Nicklaus played without much preparation in April 2005 at The Masters, a month after the drowning death of his 17-month-old grandson Jake (child of his son, Steve) on March 1, 2005. He and Steve played golf as therapy for their grief following the death. After days of playing, it was Steve who suggested his dad return to The Masters. He made that his last appearance in the tournament. The last competitive tournament in which Nicklaus played in the United States was the "Bayer Advantage Classic" in Overland Park, Kansas on June 13, 2005.
However, Nicklaus finished his professional career at The Open Championship at St. Andrews on July 15, 2005. He played with Luke Donald and Tom Watson in his final round. On the 18th hole, Nicklaus hit the final tee-shot of his career, and strolled to the Swilcan bridge and waved to the appreciative crowd (who gave him a ten-minute standing ovation). He then began posing for commemorative photographs with his son and caddy, Steve, as well as Donald and Watson. Afterwards, Nicklaus ended his illustrious career in style, making a fifteen-foot birdie putt and extending his putter and left arm in the air as he had done so many times to celebrate crucial putts. Jack wound up missing the 36-hole cut with a score of +3 (147).
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