| A birthday appreciation of Jack Nicklaus' remarkable career
Jack Nicklaus' 83rd birthday is not one of those round-number birthdays that garners all the attention, but it is an opportunity to revisit the many stories we’ve written, with and about, the Golden Bear. (And we do mean many. Too many to count really.)
To get a sense of who Nicklaus was, and how his perspective changed with time, we recommend a few reads that capture his recollections, wisdom and vision.
• Nicklaus’ most memorable career moments, according to Jack is a fun read because Dave Shedloski helped pull out from Nicklaus intriguing backstories about events you probably recall but didn’t truly appreciate the significance.
• Nicklaus’ birthday wisdom is a compilation of what Jack told Golf Digest when celebrating some of those past round-number birthdays. You’ll be impressed with how far into the future Nicklaus saw at a young age.
• At the height of Tiger mania in the 2000s, Jaime Diaz wrote a seminal piece comparing him to Nicklaus. Diaz gets deep into forensics on both golfers and in so doing provides the definitive look at Jack’s game and what made him the historic player he was.
There is, of course, plenty more. For a mind-boggling look at Jack’s on-course accomplishments, check out this compilation of 18 still remarkable stats from his illustrious career from Christopher Powers. And if you want to analyze Nicklaus’ greatness in a different light, check out this story from Dan Rapaport where we put his achievements into modern context and contextualize how he would have dominated modern-day golf too if he had the chance.
Nicklaus’ insight includes his thoughts about instruction, with his best tips in Golf Digest found here. Amazingly too, Nicklaus isn’t just a Hall of Fame golfer, but a Hall of Fame course designer. The best Nicklaus golf courses will have the golf geek in you captivated.
So once again, Happy Birthday Jack! And thanks for what you’ve done for golf. |
