Average in Most, Exceptional in a Few.
Jack Nicholas didn't waste time during his career chasing the perfect swing or for that matter the perfect all around stat game. Once he learned the basic swing from Jack Grout he received very little substantive instruction – yearly tune ups he called them. His focus was on golf, not golf swing. After Grout died Nicklaus visited another teacher but in essence it was a business relationship to endorse their golf schools – Nicklaus wasn’t taking lessons.
The Nicklaus game plan was built around his strengths. He used a three-wood off the tee for most of his career, and like Tiger, he excelled with the long and medium irons. He was also a great putter from 10 feet and one of the best lag putters of all time. This combination of skills allowed him to have an inferior short game and still become the greatest player ever.
Nicklaus didn’t waste years trying to perfect every phase of his game like Tiger has. Golfers don’t run out of talent, they run out of time thus it depends on your focus during your peak years – and you can waste a lot of time trying to be perfect. It’s hard for a 25 year old to understand that in a blink of an eye they’ll be 50.
To be a good player you must digitize your performance, create a skills package then bring your weaknesses up to average. Find out what you do well and then construct your approach to playing the game around your edge.
While it goes against all the hype talk, the winning formula is average in most, exceptional in a few.
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