Jack Nicklaus once shared honest verdict on his career as Rick Shiels makes claim about his 18 majors

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Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championship wins looks like it will be safe for a long, long time.

Tiger Woods looked certain to break it after his dominant run. He got to 14 in 2008 with a US Open win on one leg, but then went 11 years without a major, leaving many to wonder if Woods had achieved his full potential in the sport. 

But did any player truly achieve all they could have in golf? Even Nicklaus, who won more than anyone, finished second in majors a record 19 times. Nicklaus struggled out of bunkers, which was his one true weakness that cost him a number of tournaments. 

Rick Shiels certainly thinks that he left majors on the table. Speaking on The Rick Shiels Golf Show recently, he said, “Did Jack Nicklaus not even fulfil his potential? I know that sounds ridiculous.

“He won 18 tournaments. The amount of times he came second was staggering, absolutely staggering. So could Jack Nicklaus have got to 25?” 

The great man himself weighed in on this debate in 2015, giving his take on whether he achieved everything he could have in his career.

Jack Nicklaus said whether he could have achieved more in his career

Nicklaus is the sport’s standard-bearer. Whenever a serial major winner arises in the sport, like Scottie Scheffler, they are compared to Nicklaus. “They can’t win as many as Jack, though, can they?” 

But even the man who holds a seemingly untouchable record thinks there was more on the table in his career. Speaking to Fox Sports in 2015, he said, “I think that if you feel you’re overachieving, or getting more out of what you should get, then you stop working. 

“I always feel like I’m never getting what I should be getting out of what I’m doing. So you’ve got to work harder to make sure you do that. I always wanted to climb a mountain. I always wanted to get better… So I just tried not to believe anything about what I would read or what I would hear or what I even thought.

“I still don’t think I achieved what I could have achieved in my career.”

There were a few majors that Nicklaus left on the table. At the 1971 US Open he took two shots to get out of bunkers on two straight holes, surrendering his lead in a playoff against Lee Trevino. 

But he won the tournament a year later by shooting +2 at Pebble Beach, and his competitors squandered real chances to beat him. Everything evens out. 

It’s not as if his career was littered with injuries that kept him out of contention like Woods. Yes, he could have won more, and as Shiels said, Nicklaus didn’t have the perfect career. But he came about as close as you can get. 

Jack Nicklaus thinks he should have 20 major championships

You’d think that 18 major championships would be enough for anybody, but Nicklaus thinks he’s been sold short with that number.

Earlier in the year, he explained that when he won The Masters in 1986 people said it was his 20th major, but they took two away from his years later. 

Nicklaus said, “First of all, when I won The Masters in ’86, they called that my 20th major. I had 20 majors for several years, and all of a sudden, it went to 18 because they eliminated my US Amateurs.”

He went on to say that the most important putt of Nicklaus’ career happened in an Amateur championship.

Nicklaus continued, “Frankly, my first US Amateur was one of my favourite wins because in 1959 I beat Charlie Coe, a Walker Cup captain at that time and defending champion. I holed about an eight-footer on the last hole to beat him at Broadmoor in a 36-hole match.

“That particular putt showed me at 19 years old that I had what it took. It was probably the most important putt I ever made. So, in many ways, that’s my favorite.”

So even someone with the resume of Nicklaus isn’t completely satisfied. What hope is there for the rest of us?!