I am tempted to say that if Jack Nicklaus had swung his entire career with just one adjustment to his 1963 swing model (narrowing the stance), he would likely have won everything under the sun much as Byron Nelson did before retiring in his prime.

Nelson, if you don’t know, had set the PGA Tour record for consecutive Tour wins (11) and wins in a single season (18), both in the 1945 season, at the end of which he retired to pursue his true love – farming.

That’s right – his motivation in winning all of those events was the prize money he was saving to buy a ranch, and when he had won enough, he was gone.

I still consider him to hold the record for most consecutive cuts – there weren’t any no-cut events at the time, so you played four rounds with a cut after the first two rounds.

I think it is ridiculous that Tiger Woods now holds the record for consecutive cuts made when dozens of events in his streak were no-cut WGC events and the like – how on earth you are considered to have made the cut in an event with no cuts, I don’t know – but the PGA Tour hype machine was in overdrive during the Tiger era, so whatever.

But I digress… let’s talk Jack Nicklaus.

While continuing my research on the optimal Classic Golf Swing, I have come across something fascinating about his ’63 stance that I’ve called “so close to optimal.”

Now, based upon what I’ve been looking into with regards to setup vs impact positions, bearing in mind my suggestion that he could have narrowed his stance slightly to something more like this:

… and if he had stayed with this model through his entire career going forward, I think he might well have won nearly every event he played.

It’s not as if the Golden Bear was a slouch however – let’s not forget that he won 18 majors and came runner-up in an astounding 19 more majors swinging with slightly differing models over his career, an incredible feat (37 top-two finishes in majors) that likely won’t be challenged even remotely.

For comparison – Tiger Woods has 15 major wins and 7 runner-up finishes for a total of 22 top-twos, and Phil Mickelson comes in with 6 major wins and 12 runner-up places for a total of 18 top-twos in the Modern Era, not even close.

Jack currently still stands 3rd all-time in Tour wins behind Tiger and Sam Snead – and Nicklaus was essentially a part-time player, playing the bare minimum of required events many seasons while he pursued his own passion – fishing in exotic locales.

Why do I think Jack would have won more majors and events with a narrower ’63-style stance?

It’s because, as I work on building that theoretical model, I can see how and why Nicklaus was able to play with a power fade that out-drove even long draw-ball swingers – his setup and grip made it virtually impossible to hook the ball.

If he wanted to hook or draw, he would have simply done so by changing his club face position relative to the target line and not by turning his hands over the way most swingers draw/hook the ball.

I’ve been thinking about this since yesterday when I made some changes to my model’s weight distribution and ball position, and when I found the position that I felt was optimal, I was standing in Jack’s adjusted stance.

I am going to spend a little time getting acquainted with this setup, upon which I’ll be taking it for a test run.

More to come.