Jack Nicklaus
Jack William Nicklaus, well known as “The Golden Bear,” was born on January 21, 1940 and may well be, as his fans will tell you, among the greatest pro golfers ever. Growing up in Columbus, Ohio, a pharmacist’s son, he was a student in Upper Arlington High School and beat a mild case of polio as a youth. Turning to golf at ten years old and shooting an amazing 51 for nine holes, he broke 70 at age 13 on eighteen holes.
As a junior player he won the Ohio Open in 1956 at sixteen years of age, the US Amateur twice (1959 and 1961), and an NCAA Championship in 1961. When Nicklaus played in the 1960 US Open he had a 282 and finished second behind golf great Arnold Palmer. He was also a part of and won the US Eisenhower Trophy with his team in 1960 with a four-round score of 269-this record still stands today.
By the close of 1961, Jack turned pro and in 1962, he played and won in one of his first major championship-The US Open. Beating Arnold Palmer, an achievement in itself, gave Nicklaus notice by fans and in 1966, he won the Masters Tournament for two consecutive years. He won the Open Championship as well in 1966, however, failed to win another until the Open Championship title again in 1970. During the years 1971-1980, he won nine major titles and overtook Bobby Jones’s record of thirteen titles. At 46 years of age, Jack won his 18th major championship, which was also his last, at the 1986 Masters Tournament-he was the oldest winner of this event.
He joined the Senior PGA Tour in 1990, where he racked up 10 wins by 1996 – eight of which were major tournament wins. His made his last Senior PGA tournament appearances in 2005. However, he has stayed active in the sport, writing on the subject, designing courses and even holding his own PGA tournament, the Memorial tournament. Hi runs one of the world’s leading golf course design firms and has written autobiographical titles as well as instructional works on playing the Nicklaus way.
Perhaps Nicklaus’ popularity came with golf’s popularity when he beat Arnold Palmer in 1962 at Oakmont in the US Open. With the emergence of television, Jack’s charisma, good looks, and true rivalry with Palmer attracted many viewers to golf-something they hadn’t seen before on TV. He won an unheard of prize money of $60,000 in 1962 and reached third place on the tour’s money list, and named Rookie of the Year. In 1963, one of his best years, he won the Masters and the PGA Championship.
In 1964, he won the British Open at St. Andrews and established a new record for lowest score in the last thirty-six holes-66-68. His Masters win in 1965 set a tourney record of 271-which stood until Tiger Woods shot 270 in 1997. In the 1968, The Golden Bear let his physical condition slip, which most felt affected his playing skills, but Jack improved in the fall of 1969 where he returned to top form. Sadly, he lost one of his biggest supporters and mentors, his father, Charlie Nicklaus in 1970.
Interviewed in 1970 after the death of his father, Nicklaus said: “I was playing good golf, but it really wasn’t that big a deal to me one way or the other. And then my father passed away and I sort of realized he had certainly lived his life through my golf game. I really hadn’t probably given him the best of that. So I sort of got myself back to work. So 1970 was an emotional one for me from that standpoint-it was a big boost.” Whatever the reason Nicklaus was certainly a record setter – he was the first player to win all four major tournaments twice in the course of his career.
In 1974, the PGA Player of the Year was given to Nicklaus for the third time and he was among the first to be inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. In 1975, he won his fifth Masters and his fourth PGA Championship. ABC named him Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year. Again, at the top of the money list in 1976, he played what he liked to call, “hang-back-and-hope golf.” In 1986, he won his sixth Masters-again and unbelievably was still going strong. His 1978 British Open win gave him a place in golf history where he won each major championship three times-a record finally tied by Tiger Woods in 2008. His Senior Tour wins include The Tradition (four times), the Senior Players Championship, and the US Senior Open. Along with his 100th career win (The Tradition) in 1996, he and his four sons and son-in-law had 299 courses open in 2005, an impressive 1% of all the courses in the world. Jack Nicklaus is The Golden Bear for record breaking, his playing style, and his off-the-course achievements and will remain one of golf’s greatest players of all time.
Get More Power from a Shorter Backswing
(This golf article is followed by a drill, and a link to that drill on video.)
Have you ever noticed that while the golf courses the pros play are getting longer, their golf swings are getting shorter? Tiger’s done it. Sergio’s done it. Phil’s done it. Why? How can players who depend on dominating long golf courses give up distance by shortening their golf swings? Well, guess what? They’re not. Not giving up distance that is.
One of the most important facts to remember when playing or learning golf is that the number one variable in swinging a golf club – that directly relates to distance – is clubhead speed. In my teaching experience most players either do not realize this, or wrongly associate size of swing with clubhead speed.
It’s really this simple: given that clubhead speed equals distance – with all else being the same – if my swing is big and slow and yours is small yet fast, you will get more distance than me. The bonus is that your shorter swing is likely to be more consistent than my big one.
In my writings I talk a lot about – and try to explain away – many golf myths. One such myth is the supposed need to get the club shaft to horizontal at the top of the golf swing. Why should the golf club get to horizontal? Why is this the ideal position? What is the scientific reasoning for this? Because it is parallel with mother earth? What if it is a little shy of horizontal? What if it goes beyond horizontal (see John Daly)? Getting the club to horizontal is an arbitrary instruction that unfortunately cripples many a player in their efforts to get it there, and distracts them from the primary ingredient of the golf swing: the downswing. What if someone came along and told you it did not matter if you got the club to horizontal or not? What if someone told you you do not need to be a contortionist while executing the backswing? Wouldn’t that lift some big burdens in playing golf?
There is an irony in the fact that most of us try to make a big backswing, while telling our buddies to slow down. What if you were told you could speed up? Should speed up? While many will say that even on the PGA Tour there’s nearly as many different golf swings as there is players, there is one undeniable common denominator among them, and that is acceleration.
All good players accelerate the golf club to impact. Many a struggling player makes such a large backswing that they either get into a position from which acceleration is difficult, or they are so out of control that they unintentionally decelerate in order to try to regain control by the time they reach impact. Either way the result does not produce the distance desired, or the contact required. Deceleration is contrary to centripetal force while acceleration contributes to it. Suffice to say, two swings that are 90 mph at impact are not the same if one was accelerating from 80 to 90, while the other was decelerating from 100 to 90 at impact. Consider the racecar driver (or you depending on your driving) who slows before a curve in the road, in order to accelerate into it. Then consider a time when you were going too fast for a curve and had to slow down. Remember how hard it was to maintain control of the vehicle as you took the turn? The golf swing is no different. A decelerating club cannot remain on its intended path and will veer wider than intended. This creates a wider arc, the bottom of which is now behind the ball. Hello fat shot. Even if your club was going 200 mph before it hit the ground, hitting the ground will slow it down incredibly, not to mention all the other negatives associated with hitting the big ball before the small ball. Slowing down is not the answer.
Acceleration is. Interestingly, while a big backswing tends to promote deceleration, a short backswing does the opposite. A short backswing promotes acceleration. Your ideal win-win. It’s as if you do not believe the short backswing will do the trick, so you accelerate to make up for it. Hello good shot. Being it was so good, you then become willing to try it again. And it works again. The next thing you know, rather than trying to attain difficult physical positions (such as getting the club to horizontal at the top of the backswing) you’re practicing accelerating the club. Imagine practicing something good. Bingo.
And there’s a bonus to the bonus. Practicing leads to muscle memory. And muscle memory leads to speed. Think of anything you do that requires muscle memory and that which you do on an ongoing basis. Whether it is tying your shoelaces, or your tie, or calling home, you do it faster now than when you first tried. I doubt that since you mastered phoning home, you started trying to phone home harder. I highly doubt that since you mastered tying your tie, you began trying to tie much bigger ties. And I highly doubt that since mastering tying your shoe laces, you began trying to tie bigger laces. Okay, so I am pushing the point. But I think you see the point I am trying to make.
Believe it or not PGA Tour players do not enjoy one luxury we do. They do not have the luxury to mess around with their swings. We can mess around and only our game suffers. They mess around and their day-to-day existence suffers. Tour players have learned that by shortening their swings and working on acceleration they can attain the same (or more) distance they used to, and gain accuracy and consistency – two staples to life on the Tour. That is why we have seen, and will continue to see a growing trend of shorter backswings on the long golf courses of the PGA Tour.
Clive Scarff is author of Hit Down Dammit! More information can be found at www.hitdowndammit.com.
Drill: Right Hand Thrust Drill
The Right Hand Thrust Drill is one of several found on “Hit Down Drills!” which is one of four DVDs in the Hit Down Dammit! DVD series. The goal of this drill is to learn to accelerate from a shortened backswing position. It’s harder than it looks, but the results will be surprising.
Swing your club back to waist-high, pause a split second, and then use your right hand to “thrust” the clubhead down toward the golf ball. You will find you have now created sufficient speed with the clubhead that it follows through to the target, naturally, putting you in a finish position wherein the clubhead is pointing at the target, the toe is up, and the shaft is roughly horizontal (waist-high) and parallel to the target line. This position should roughly mirror your top-of-backswing position.
As you get better at this exercise, you will create more clubhead speed, the momentum from which will see a follow-through position that “naturally” swings through a little higher than the height of your backswing. It’s important that this follow-through is natural, not forced or abbreviated.
(To see this drill demonstrated on Video, visit: http://www.hitdowndammit.com/#Drills)
For more articles on golf, or further information, contact Clive Scarff at clive@hitdowndammit.com