You’ll remember how I have said that Jack Nicklaus had a nearly optimal Classic Golf Swing at a time in his early years, and now that I’ve made the shoulder fix in my setup, I’m right back where I adjusted his stance.

The proper setup for the optimal action in the Classic Golf Swing, which would mean that it would be the setup in the MCS Classic Golf Swing, would be Nicklaus’ adjusted stance.

The one he used was perfectly good enough of course, Nicklaus being the greatest major champion of all time and 3rd all-time in Tour wins (which is impressive in itself considering he was a part-time golfer and played far fewer events between fishing trips than he could have).

However, if given a golf swing test where the question was, “How would you improve Nicklaus’ setup if you could?” the answer for me would have been for him to narrow his stance a touch:

That narrowed stance in the right image is, to me, virtually flawless looking face-on at that setup.

We know of course that Nicklaus’ setup viewed down the line was pretty near flawless as well:

In fact, except for the fact that Sam Snead had longer arms than Nicklaus, both of their setups are virtually alike, aside from the slightly angled foot-line that Snead adopted versus Nicklaus’ foot-line being square to his target line.

Snead’s setup face-on wasn’t too shabby either:

You know who was as long if not longer than Nicklaus and won more Tour events, 2nd behind Tiger Woods?

Yes, that would be Sam Snead.

Not a coincidence, either.

I tried to copy Nicklaus’ adjusted setup last summer but didn’t quite get it, because of my shoulder alignment and likely weight distribution issues, but I’m curious how close to it I’ll look with my new and now proper setup alignment and distribution/balance.

Looking forward to getting some video and making the comparison, but I won’t be recording video until I feel I’m on the money with my swing models.