There are some fantastic old pictures of Jack Nicklaus launching a drive in the various archives, and some equally great shots of him standing over a putt in that unique hunched posture of his.
It’s hard, especially if you’re an equipment enthusiast, not to be drawn towards what clubs he was hitting. Back in his glory years, of course, he wasn’t playing with metal woods.
Incredibly, there was one club that Nicklaus used for 37 years and during all of his 18 Major championship victories. Yes, you read that correctly. And no, it wasn’t his putter, even if he did use one model for a very long time. The trusty club was his 3-wood – he used the same one for nearly four decades!
The MacGregor woods that Jack Nicklaus played with for most of his career
(Image credit: Future)
This fascinating fact was revealed on the eve of the 2024 Memorial Tournament, an event that Nicklaus hosts each year on the PGA Tour. Remarkably, that MacGregor 693 – which he had from 1958 – only got re-gripped once during that time.
That regrip came in 1983, and the club stayed in the bag until 1995, before being put on display in the Jack Nicklaus Room at the USGA’s museum at its Far Hills, N.J. headquarters; it’s something Golf Monthly’s Joe Ferguson talked about recently on the Kick Point golf gear show, something that completely blew his mind as an equipment tester.
Nicklaus won his last Major Championship in 1986, when he claimed his sixth Green Jacket; he did so using a 28-year-old 3-wood around Augusta National, which is hard to comprehend.
So, what else did the game’s greatest ever player have in the bag?
Four years ago, Golf Monthly’s deputy editor, Joel Tadman, played Jack Nicklaus’ club for a day, an experience he described as a “delight” and one you can watch in the video above. He even claims to have hit the odd stinger with Nicklaus’ 1-iron (Hmmm).
Back when Nicklaus was in his pomp, he was using persimmon drivers and pure blade irons. MacGregor was the established premium company at the time, and Nicklaus had these in the bag, as did the likes of Johnny Miller and Ben Crenshaw, as well as many other top players in that era.
Jack Nicklaus What’s In The Bag?
Jack Nicklaus in action at Augusta National where he won six times
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Nicklaus’ preferred…
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