A Look Into The Poll Question: Jack Nicklaus

Jack Nicklaus is probably still considered the greatest golf ever with his 18 Major Championship victories. He burst onto the scene after a great amateur and college career at Ohio State. His swing was considered extremely dynamic for his time for which the great Bobby Jones once stated 'he plays a game I am not familiar with.'










Nicklaus had a single shift golf swing that was eschewed by many instructors for having a 'flying right elbow.' In reality he was just working off the squared shoulder plane and still held the 3 imperatives of the golf swing that Homer Kelley talked about in 'The Golfing Machine.'

Probably the most dynamic part of Nicklaus' swing was his very wide takeaway, something that was not utilized much before he came along and is now frequently used by golfers on the Tour.



As a ballstriker, before the days of statistics, Nicklaus was consider a great driver of the ball since he was ungodly long at one time and had good accuracy off the tee for somebody of his prodigious length. His best clubs were the long irons, particularly the 1-iron which he could take out on tight holes and blast it past many golfers' drivers and hit the fairway time and time again.

However, when it came to his short iron game it was usually widely criticized by other plays. In fact, you would think that Jack was one of the worst ever short iron players according to many of his peers and Dave Pelz did not have much good to say about Nicklaus' bunker play. But if there was one thing that Nicklaus' critics could never deny was his smart play and hitting the big shots in the clutch. Like this shot, which got yours truly into playing the game religiously.






3JACK