I’m not talking about average drives here, but Jack Nicklaus has made a solid case that he’d likely have been able to drive the ball close to 400 yards with today’s equipment.
It’s not just the clubs that would make the difference, but the balls they use in the Modern Golf era.
I began to play golf in the mid-90’s, so I remember when ball technology really took off.
You can never compare eras, but Nicklaus was definitely the longest driver in his prime. He demolished courses with his power, leading Bobby Jones to say, watching him at the ’65 Masters, “He played a game with which I am unfamiliar.”
The Golfing Gazette’s Anthony Martin has the goods, about an interview Nicklaus did with the Good Good YouTube Channel, where he was asked how far he thought he’d drive it with today’s gear.
Nicklaus was a guest on the Good Good YouTube channel, and responded when he was asked how fast his club-head speed was back in the day.
The 18-time major champion said, “They never measured it. I would think I would be pretty much equivalent [to the modern player]. I was the longest on Tour when I played.“
“It says here ‘driving distance winner’. 341 yards, 17 inches. That was an 11 and a half degree, 1945, Tommy Armour driver with a dynamic edge shaft and a ribbed fibre insert,“ Nicklaus said after showing a money clip he won from a driving contest.
That’s right – Jack Nicklaus, in a driving contest back in the ’60’s, drove a ball 340 yards with a wound ball and persimmon driver with a fibre insert.
He was truly close to optimal in his prime, mechanics-wise.
So how does Jack calculate what he’d be doing today?
He said, “About 50 yards further. I think that’s the difference with the golf ball from when I played. I think the golf ball, if you ever try and take that old golf club that I used and hit today’s golf ball with it, you would hit it about 150 yards. It’s more the trampoline effect that anything else.
“The golf ball from 1930 until 1995 increased about five to seven yards because of the quality of how a manufacturer made it.
“From 1995 to 2005 until they finally put some kind of line in the sand it increased another 50 yards. That is 50 yards in 10 years.
“So I liken it to the old British small ball that we used to play and I hit that 50 yards further than what I hit the other one, it was unbelievable how far we hit it.
So there you have it – give Jack a modern driver and ball on the same day that he popped that 341 yard drive and he reckons he’d have gotten 50 yards more.
I fully accept his calculations and here’s why – now, I will repeat some of my exploits on the golf course, not to be boastful, but to illustrate my personal experience of what I was capable of doing a few years back, and to reinforce why I believe Jack’s calculations.
In 1995, the first year I ever picked up a golf club, I was absolutely thrilled the first time I drove a ball 250 yards with a cheap composite metal headed driver and a standard Top Flite ball. The only way I knew the distance was because I drove the ball right up to the 150 marker from the back tee of a 400 yard hole.
Two years later, after my first few lessons (who else started taking golf lessons after Tiger Woods’ first Masters win?), I hit a 330 yard drive with my instructor’s titanium driver that I borrowed for a round of golf and a ball that was either a Wilson Staff Titanium or a Top Flite Strata. I loved those two balls because of the soft feel with the putter.
Fast-forward a few years and, with a ProV-1 golf ball and a KZG PFT-300 titanium driver, I was hitting drives of 350 yards and beyond – this picture below is where my drive landed hole-high during a round on my course in 2009:
That was on the 350 yard par four 6th hole at Annandale Golf & Curling Club, which sadly no longer exists (the land is now occupied by an industrial park), and the longest drive I actually hit on that course was around 370 yards, as I have just confirmed from my old DJWattsGolf blog archive:
On the 520 yard par-5 eighth hole, I teed up the ball with the wind at my back and took a nice, hard rip with the driver. Right on impact, all four of us knew that it was going to be monster-long. I nailed it flush, it was a slight draw down the middle of the fairway, and had the perfect (for my drives) trajectory. I found the ball 3 yards inside the 150 marker about six feet off the fairway left. That’s over 370 yards.
Do you see my own progression in distances as my swing improved and the ball and club technology exploded?
Now, I am a bit bigger than Nicklaus, however – when I accomplished those feats whilst taking a season off of swing research just to play golf every day that I could, I was 39 years old.
So, if a 39 year old who had never even played professional golf could drive the ball these distances with the technology we had in the 2000’s, I fully believe Jack Nicklaus when he said he’d have gotten over 50 yards more on his drives back in his prime.
I have one quibble however with his comment on distances with modern balls and the old clubs – no way Jack just hits a modern ball 150 yards with his old driver – remember my round nearly 8 years ago when I reached a 600 yard par 5 hole in two, and my second shot was with a good ol’ Jack Nicklaus MacGregor persimmon 4 wood that I carried at least 270 yards (into a side bunker, not the green)?
That was at age 47.
Also, Rickie Fowler hit a 274 yard carry drive with a persimmon and modern ball:
I think Young Jack would still have banged it 300 yards with his old driver and a modern ball.
Can you imagine Young Jack, with his swing, playing on Tour today?
WAX Golf 
Jack would be setting course records every other week. Tom Watson in his last open gave a good preview of what Jack could of been like with modern clubs.Sadly for us, unless we get a portal to alternate worlds we’ll never see what could of been. I also think Jack could easily hit it 300 still.I managed to hit it 350 myself! (took 20 tries) But the modern ball isn’t suited to persimmons.
As someone who’s old enough to have seen the change, when did you first start to notice the difference in how people swung? Being 26 I’ve only experienced golf the way it is today with the mcus (mechanically unsound) swings and forgiving technology.Wish I had experienced golf when it was more pure,individualistic, and less commercialised and robotic.
I honestly couldn’t tell you, silly – I did go to a par 3 course at age 25, when a co-worker insisted that I go with him and another on a holiday when we weren’t working. I loved it instantly (I remember having a burger and pint at the pub afterward, saying I wanted to do it again), but I never took any lessons until I was 27. I didn’t know anything about Modern vs Classic at the time.
My 2nd and last instructor in 1998 was a big Moe Norman and Ben Hogan fan, and he taught the Modern Golf Swing – here’s how I was swinging back then, but I was still young and pliable at 28 so didn’t hurt myself:
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It was in my swing research years, around 2007, that I began to distinguish the difference between the Modern and Classic swing methodology, because before then, people either swung with a lifting heel or didn’t.
By 2009, I was a firm opponent of the Modern Golf Swing, and by then, everyone was swinging that way.
That is very modern swing! Interesting bit of history there about your golf journey. Curious that your instructor was a fan of Hogan and Norman but taught the modern swing.
Tell me about it, silly – but you know what, everyone back then and even now say that Hogan gave birth to the Modern Golf Swing when he never did.
It was a mistaken interpretation of his description of the pivot (I believe in his “Five Lessons”) where he said he restricted his right hip from moving on the pivot. He meant that he didn’t want it moving laterally:
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… but he was always a Classic Golf Swinger:
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… as I discovered for myself back in 2014 when I decided to actually look at and break his swing down. To my surprise (and delight), I saw that he had a near-perfect Classic Swing pivot, and I released my “The Ben Hogan Project” video that year to debunk the modern nonsense.
To this day, I think the optimal Classic Golf Swing is Jack Nicklaus’ setup as he describes it, with Ben Hogan’s “Perfect Pivot” action.
Basically, what I was doing here in 2015:
Yh,I’ve heard quite a few people say that too. (video does exist freely these days,you know guys) Yet no one who knew the man and saw him swing such as Knudson ever compared it to the modern swing.
PS – the Ben Hogan lesson was one I’ve never forgotten – do NOT take anyone’s word when it comes to something you can investigate for yourself.
For years, I ignored Hogan’s swing because I determined in ’09 that the Modern Golf Swing wasn’t proper and everyone said that Hogan swung that way. I finally took a look myself years later and, he didn’t.
So, just more garbage from the Modern Golf Swing industry, saying a Classic Golf Swinger didn’t pivot with a lifting heel. Now that anyone can see for themselves that Hogan swung Classic, you don’t hear anything about his swing anymore. It would contradict their BS.
I just took a look at Google Maps and there’s a heart-breaking piece of nostalgia – my former golf club Annandale, now occupied by an industrial park, but you can still see the remnants of many of the fairways at the time the photo was taken.
I imagine much of that ground is now developed as well:
Jack actually discussed this in a recent video (url was copied with exact time in the video)
Yes – that’s the Good Good YouTube channel the article references, silly – good find, straight from the Golden Bear’s mouth. 👍🏼