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+--- Thread: Happy Birthday to My Childhood Hero: Jack Nicklaus (/thread-22860.html)
Happy Birthday to My Childhood Hero: Jack Nicklaus - Fan_in_Kettering - 01-21-2020
Jack Nicklaus turns 80 years old today and when I was growing up he was my childhood hero. I just turned 50 myself two weeks ago so I got to see Jack play and practice up close and personal at The Memorial Tournament near Columbus almost every spring. My father would sit me just behind the ropes on the Muirfield Village practice tee, get me a Coke, and told me to be quiet and watch everything Jack does. Often Jack would be working with his swing coaches, first Jack Grout then Rick Smith then Jim Flick, so I effectively sat in on many lessons Jack Nicklaus took.
WHAT AN EDUCATION THAT WAS!
Watching the GOAT take lessons was amazing because Jack always drove himself to get better. He wasn’t very tall — maybe 5’10” at best — nor very flexible but he was very efficient in his motion and strong as an ox. To this day I’ve never seen a golf ball hit so consistently clean, high, straight, and most of all far.
I patterned my swing after Jack Nicklaus and it paid off. I became a fairly good amateur player.
Eventually I got to meet Jack Nicklaus and he’s just a regular dude; complete salt of the earth. He has a memory like a steel trap, too, and every time I saw him at a tournament he always remembered my name.
Happy Birthday to Jack Nicklaus!
RE: Happy Birthday to My Childhood Hero: Jack Nicklaus - reuben.ahmed - 01-26-2020
Yes but be careful, the GOAT title is under attack! Seems like these evolutionary superior specimens are always extraordinarily good at something "else". Seems like all have perfect photographic memories (how else will they learn to conquer the next similar situation)? In Jordan's case he had/has 20/10 vision or something, too.