I love John Daly, but what a whopping take he had on the Tiger Woods vs Jack Nicklaus debate.
Again, even such a great player as Daly demonstrates the woeful lack of knowledge of golf history that abounds today.
Update: I accidentally inserted previous Jack-DJ comparison pics, apologies. The correct pics have now been inserted /update
Here we go, WAX Nation – I actually kept looking through my archives and, incredibly, I found a video clip from just two days after the May 14, 2015 clips that I had gone over, with a setup that matches Jack Nicklaus’ adjusted setup even more, this one from May16th.
Not only did I get very close, I recorded myself hitting a drive right down the pipe with a hang-time of 7.5 seconds.
For reference, the average PGA Tour hang time for a drive is 6.3 seconds.
That’s a blast!
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 always used to say that I hadn’t invented anything when developing the MCS Classic Golf Swing models that I have presented throughout the years.
All I did was compare the setups of the greatest champions of golf from the Classic Golf Swing eras (and some Classic swingers from this modern era), from which I took setup principles to apply to what I was currently developing.
Anyone who watched Tiger Woods dominate golf from 1997-2008 would know that it’s a very uncontroversial take to say that he could have and should have surpassed Jack Nicklaus’ 18 major titles, and easily.
I’ve said for years that Tiger probably should have won 25 majors due to his dominance, his talent, physical gifts and dedication to his craft
First off, let me say that the last two or three weeks have been amazing with regards to my swing research, notably the Jack Nicklaus-inspired setup and swing action.
The funny thing is you often don’t notice what other golfers are doing with their swings or setups until you have actually done or worked on similar things, and with Rory McIlroy, I noticed something at a glance looking at his setup and swing from this year’s Dubai Invitational event.
You’ll all by now be familiar with the concept upon which I’ve been working with regards to swing modeling – that is, swinging in a manner that emulates the Iron Byron or any other swinging machine or robot.
What this would entail is in reaching the optimal in three processes (the setup, back pivot and down swing) with maximum stability in the leading foot and head positions throughout.
I’ve taken Jack Nicklaus’ driver swing from the Masters in 1963 to illustrate the power of hip & leg action regarding the leveraging of the golf swing, something that has been lost with both the Modern Golf Swing models & the Flying Foot Syndrome.
It would likely surprise modern golf students to learn that what makes it so difficult to get a 90 degree shoulder turn at the top with a planted leading heel is also what makes the Classic Golf Swing so effortless in power production via leverage.
Back in June 2013, I posted the following on my old blog DJ Watts Golf (I’ve edited it slightly due to its age) about the ever-raging debate about who was greater, Jack Nicklaus or Tiger Woods:
Someone finally had the wherewithal to do some number-crunching to put to rest the old canard that even if he never wins 18 majors, Tiger Woods is still better than Jack Nicklaus because Tiger won his majors against “better players” and “deeper fields.”
I have been discussing Jack Nicklaus’ 1963 setup, swing and grip for some time as you all know, and I concluded that his grip in this setup was optimal.
The question however would be, is it optimal, period? Or was it optimal because of the way he set up over the ball, and would a stronger grip than his work as well in a slightly different setup?