Jack Nicklaus is an extremely important figure in the golfing world, due to his incredible record throughout his time at the top of the game.
Nicklaus won 117 professional events worldwide, including 73 PGA Tour tournaments and 15 major championships throughout his career.
During his prime years, Nicklaus was one of the best ‘closers’ when he had a chance to win golf tournaments.
The now 85-year-old is worshipped by fans, current PGA Tour pros and golf journalists alike.
Nicklaus is widely regarded as the best golfer to have ever graced the game.
And because of that, everything he says carries real weight in the golfing sphere.
Jack Nicklaus wanted to make a radical change to amateur golf
Back in 2008, Nicklaus shared his radical idea to drastically change the way that amateur golfers played the game.
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His reasoning for this was that he believed the game of golf was at risk of losing out on potential new players due to the amount of time it takes to complete a round of golf.
When speaking to Golf Digest, Nicklaus said: “I hope we’re not running people out of the game. As it has become an easier game to play for the pros, the trend toward more severe courses has made it harder for the amateur.
“In most cases, the farther the amateur is able to hit the ball, the farther the ball goes off line. The old average drive was in the 190-yard range, but now it’s more like 210 to 220. And on many of the newer courses, off line means searching for golf balls. It’s making the game slower, and a lot less fun.
“The game is more popular than ever among avid golfers with the income and leisure to play a lot, but most people have less free time than ever. The current generation of younger parents spends a lot more time supervising their kids than previous generations, and it means they find it harder to justify a weekend round of golf. Leaving for the course at 7 in the morning and coming back at 3 in the afternoon is a hard sell for a family man. But getting back in time for lunch wouldn’t be.
“That’s why we should consider the possibility of making 12 holes a standard round. It might mean breaking up 18-hole facilities into three segments of six holes. Of course it would meet resistance, but eventually it would be accepted because it would make sense in people’s lives.
“Those who say that my comments are intended to help my course-design business are wrong. As a designer, I benefit financially from more land used, more renovations, more penal features. As for people thinking I favor a rollback in equipment because I don’t want Tiger to break my record, going back to older-style equipment would help, not hurt, Tiger because his skill level would make a bigger difference. If we took equipment back today, he might win 30 majors instead of 20.
“I’m more interested in the game of golf than in my records. I did what I could do in my time, and it was the best I could do. Now I just want what’s best for the game.“
Amateur golfers have played 18-hole rounds since 1764 at St Andrews in Scotland, meaning that Nicklaus proposed change would bring an end to a system that has been in place for nearly 300 years!
Jack Nicklaus had another idea to address slow play
Back in 2018, Nicklaus went into real detail regarding a change that needed to be made in order to help speed up play for both professional and amateur golfers.
“The game is too long, and the golf ball is the biggest culprit of it. We used to play golf courses that were 6,500 yards, or 6,600 yards, and that was a championship golf course.
“Today they are 7,500 or 7,600 yards. The older golf courses, the tees, the greens, were very close together, but the golf courses built today, they spread them out for real estate purposes.
“I think it just takes longer to play now, and I don’t think that’s good. I think the golf ball is something that, if you bring it back 20 percent, that will bring it back to about what it was in about 1995 when we last played with a wound golf ball.
“When I was growing up, the best player at the club was the one who kept it down the middle, bumped it up around the green, and he’s the guy winning the club championships, and they are playing in about three hours, or three hours, 10 minutes. That doesn’t happen today.
“The game is a great game today the way it is. The game when I played was a great game. The game they played 20 years before me is a great game. However, as time changes, I think you need to change with the times. Today, people don’t have the time to spend playing five hours to play golf.
“A lot of people don’t have the money to be able to do that, and they find the game very frustrating and very difficult. So if the golf ball came back, it would solve I think a lot of those issues.
“For the good of the game, we need to play this game in about three and a half hours on a daily basis. All other sports on television and all other sports are played in three hours, usually three hours or less, except for a five-set tennis match, but all the other games are played in that time.
“It’s about the people watching the game and the people that are paying the tab. The people paying the tab are the people that are buying that television time and buying all the things that happen out there. Those are the people that you’ve got to start to look out for.
“And the growth of the game of golf? It’s not going to grow with the young kids. Young kids don’t have five hours to play golf. Young kids want instant gratification.
“But the game, we need to shorten it down, reduce the cost and reduce the difficulty for the average guy, not necessarily the pros. But that has to happen.
“I didn’t think that the game of golf should be dictated by how far a golf ball goes,” he added. “It’s how well you play the golf ball, not how far you hit it. And even though I was a long hitter, I always enjoyed shorter golf courses, frankly.
“I thought it took more skill to play them and I thought it was more reward to go work your way around rather than just pounding it out. I could pound it out obviously a long way because I hit it a long way, but that’s not what I really thought the game of golf was all about.“
Of course, Nicklaus’ idea is set to come into play in 2028 for professionals and in 2030 for amateur golfers.
Whether the golf ball rollback actually helps with the pace of play remains to be seen, though.
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