Jack Nicklaus Once Again Shows The Way – My 2015 Setup & Swing

Once again, Jack Nicklaus has come to the table with his close-to-optimal setup from 1963, as he does time after time.

Once again, let me say this – there are endless ways to swing a golf club and probably countless variations that are pretty good – but there is only one optimal way to swing, and you’ll see what I mean below.

I have looked at golf swings and setups for so many years, and so many of them, that when I really like something – it is invariably because I’m seeing something I’ve seen elsewhere, and in a good way.

You’ll all remember that I thought Jack Nicklaus’ setup from 1963 was ever-so-close to optimal, but that his stance width was just too wide:

It is so wide that he looked as though he were leaning to his left, but in reality, when I crudely (I am not a photo-shop expert, don’t even know where to start with this) took his stance and narrowed it by moving his right leg closer to the left:

… you can see that he actually wasn’t leaning left and actually would have had a “Leaning A” position exactly the way I have isolated an optimal setup.

Now, I was thinking about my 2015 swing and setup again:

… the one that is the closest representation of my most current idea of the optimal setup and swing, because of the speed and power I was able to generate while also being so balanced – and this is going to be good, WAX Nation.

When I had the opportunity, I did another side-by-side as I do with adjusted Jack and other swingers including myself.

The result:

Not exactly alike, I will readily admit – but remember in my last posting, I mentioned two things among those that I would change and have now changed, those two things being my ball position and grip.

Grip was too strong, and the ball position had the driver shaft vertical instead of leaning backward slightly as with Jack’s above.

So, another crude fiddle with my own setup, and look at what happened when I drew a shaft line similar to Jack’s, moved my driver head and ball to fit that re-drawn shaft, and pasted Jack’s hands and weaker grip onto mine:

If I could magically turn my 2015 head to the same angle as Jack’s, what real difference would there be between our adjusted setups?

Very little, perhaps my stance could be narrowed a hair, but if anyone wondered why I could absolutely pound the ball swinging the way I have over the years, you can see why – I’ve always been sniffing around Jack’s adjusted setup in my MCS Golf Swing models.

Even my setup in 2016, which was pretty close to the 2015 setup, compared to a Nicklaus setup with an equally wide stance:

And I will tell all of you, I wasn’t trying to copy the Bear’s setup back in ’15 and ’16 – he was one of several swingers I had used to build my MCS Golf Swing model theory over the years starting in 2014, including Sam Snead, Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson.

I only began to suspect the adjusted 1963 Jack Nicklaus setup as the optimal one around spring of 2022, when I began to discuss it.

My nearly nailing Adjusted Jack back in ’15 and ’16, not very long after having begun to study the setups of the greatest swingers, is no coincidence.

I participated in sports my entire youth, and Jack Nicklaus was also an accomplished overall athlete before golf took the fore, and once I began to look at great swingers and use my own athletic intuition, I got very close to that mythical “optimal setup” I’ve been chasing over the years.

It was always there.

And boy, was I still pounding that ball in ’18 at the tender age of 48 years young:

It’s all in the setup.

What happened, then?  Why didn’t I get the rest of the way and not until now, with regards to optimal versus just pretty good?

I had my personal demons to conquer that were creating a lot of background noise, from my required adjustments to account for my scoliosis, my swinging left-dominant, having a problematic grip (with regards to optimal).

Or perhaps it’s the old saw – the first 90% comes very quickly, and the last 10% of the way, much like climbing Everest, is the hardest part to complete.

Either way, after years of grinding out this research, it could be that I’m finally at the summit, which of course is where everything falls into place below you as you gaze down.