GolfLivesMatter
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Nicklaus....most majors ever. Unlikely anyone will surpass his record. Why isn't Jack's swing taught? Too hard? Curious.
Good Question - Why Don't We Teach His Swing?
Nicklaus over the last couple years makes me want to just, change the channel...
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No one swing will work for everyone. Look at Jim Furyk and Matt Wolff and you'll see that evidenced.
Tiger Woods was the most dominant player ever. No need to teach his swing to everyone. As long as the fundamentals are there, a swing can be very personal. Impact is really all that matters. How the player arrives there is immaterial.
Tiger Woods was the most dominant player ever. No need to teach his swing to everyone. As long as the fundamentals are there, a swing can be very personal. Impact is really all that matters. How the player arrives there is immaterial.
GolfLivesMatter
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You pick two off-beat weird swings and that is your basis to argue not teaching Jack's swing? I find that comical.
DG_1234
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Nicklaus has not played tournament golf for about 30 years. Back in the 60's and 70's lots of instructors were teaching a technique similar to Nicklaus.
These days instructors teach the style of whichever Tour player has been winning lately.
That said, from when he started golf at age 11 Nicklaus learned address fundamentals (grip-posture-alignment) from Jack Grout. And Grout's teaching philosophy would work as well today as it did 70 years ago.
Basically Grout taught Nicklaus how to grip the club and once that's done just rotate around a steady head. It can't get much simpler than that. The Nicklaus "flying elbow" was nothing Nicklaus was taught, it's just a result of Nicklaus body physique and was irrelevant to his swing and, or, shot results.
Here is a photo of Nicklaus at address with a wedge, driver, mid iron and wedge. If one wants to swing like Nicklaus did then adopting this address technique is the way to begin.
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Glad you got a good laugh. The point, since you glossed over it and missed it, is that swings are personal. As long as the impact position is sound, the method used to get there matters little.
You make a great point. Fundamentals are all the matter. I would at that the fundamentals of impact are all the matter. How you get there is really irrelevant and the ball does not care.
Morikawa may be the best ball striker on tour since tiger. Should we all jump to swinging like him? No, just work to get to a correct impact position.
GolfLivesMatter
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Of course swings are personal....but there is a fundamental baseline also. Tiger emulated Jack and despite all his accomplishments he could not reach Jack's major wins. I would love to emulate Tiger's swing if I had his DNA. Jack's swing is far more mainstream IMO. Picking out weird, one-off swings doesn't really apply to teaching golf fundamentals.
GolfLivesMatter
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What's that have to do with his swing?
GolfLivesMatter
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Oh yeah, let's all swing like a guy nobody ever heard of. And I would bet there's millions of folks who would disagree with you.
What? Who is the guy nobody has ever heard of?
There is no one way to swing and impact is all that matters..
razaar
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A couple of reasons I can think of - popular golf instruction doesn't teach a shut to open swing because it is unnatural and extremely difficult to teach. Golf instruction in the USA has a history of sticking with the country's original instructors who immigrated from Scotland. They taught an open to shut style which was suited to links golf.
What that has to do is, I don’t want to see, do or read anything about Nicklaus.
Regardless his 500 wins and perfect swing..
GolfLivesMatter
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Yes, impact positions are all very similar. If the back swing doesn't matter then why does anyone teach anything but the impact position?
GolfLivesMatter
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I don't know razaar. 18 majors and aside from Tiger is still the all-time best golfer, and Jack played with old blades and balata balls. If I watch Tiger's swing videos he squats so far down into the down swing to the point nobody but a very few can replicate.
There are for sure easier paths to get there. I am simply saying it is folly to try and take one mans swing and universally apply it.
All great ball strikers. No two a like. Some super weak grips, others really strong. Some really upright, others flat, Some set up open others closed. Some lift their heel, others keep it planted.
Swing your swing..
GolfLivesMatter
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I don't think the premise was to teach Jack's swing universally, just more why his swing is ignored vs. current golfers. I can't tell you how many people I know who try to emulate Tiger's swing and it's a huge cluster F. Couples swing is somewhat easier to teach IMO because he has very little lower body movement and practically picks the club up and sets it at the top. The harder part is the rest of the swing, but at least it's fairly simple.
I dont know man. Jacks swing was not perfect. It just worked for him.. I think some aspects are taught. I mean there was a book called golf my way by Jack. So it was taught to a certain extent.
I think really with the advent of launch monitors swing mirroring to really any extent went away. You just adjust to the numbers you want. And the numbers people want are not all the same. Some want to hit a draw, others fade etc. You cant "naturally" and regularly produce either with the same swing thoughts.
GolfLivesMatter
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Good points. Seems to me Jack's book was never as accepted like Hogan's book. You're right, what connects for you is what works. But that said, I see so many guys incessantly struggling trying to find any swing. And I'll say it again, the impact position is all that really matters. You can take a club up to the top, twirl it, look around and talk, but if you can get into a great impact position the back swing might be considered inconsequential. A pro out in a famous club in Palm Springs actually told me to forget the backswing, but get a backswing that gets me into impact position. My head is spinning.
I think part of this is equipment. You wouldn’t teach someone Ben Hogan or Byron Nelson’s swing today because they played with different clubs that requires a much different swing than today because I’d the lag in old hickory shafts. Modem equipment allows guys like DJ to bow there wrist, swing hard, and hold that face so that it doesn’t close to hit that long power fade.
As equipment had evolved so had the swing. If Bryson continues to play well you may see a bunch of younger guys swinging similar here in a few years.
I'd run fast and far away from any instructor who wanted me to copy somebody else's swing. I'm not Jack, Rory, Bryson or Tiger - I don't have their youth, flexibility, athleticism or natural talent. Trying to get my swing to look like theirs would be a disaster. I'd want to work with an instructor who would get the fundamentals into my swing, within my limitations, without trying to change it into somebody else's swing.
If you look closely Furyk's swing is not unlike many players where it counts most. Even his little helicopter deal at the top is pretty much like Trevino only more compact and on a different plane. Both are sort of tracing figure eights, but arrive at impact right on schedule. Both have sound fundamentals as far as I can see. As for Nicklaus, I had a flying elbow for years when I started out. It was just the way I started and did not know any better. "I wish I didn't know now, what I didn't know then".
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My guess is that Nicklaus's swing, like Moe Norman's is his own swing, and can't be duplicated with instruction.
No two pro swings are identical. What is pretty close to identical in the pro ranks, (as already stated in this thread) is the ball, club impact position. How a golfer gets to that correct impact position is not that important, as long as they get there.
Perhaps a correct ball, club impact position is what should be taught.
No two pro swings are identical. What is pretty close to identical in the pro ranks, (as already stated in this thread) is the ball, club impact position. How a golfer gets to that correct impact position is not that important, as long as they get there.
Perhaps a correct ball, club impact position is what should be taught.
Knot Right
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People trying to copy Jack's swing back in the day, hit some of the biggest banana slices you could ever see.
It used to be hilarious to watch.
It used to be hilarious to watch.