I came across an article on Geoff Shackelford’s website yesterday written by Jaime Diaz for Golf Digest about how Jack Nicklaus. In the article, there are some interesting facts about Jack’s life; both personally and professionally.

The feature was based over a 90 minute interview taking place at Jack’s office in North Palm Beach. With Tiger Woods, Nicklaus’s greatest threat of breaking his majors record, temporarily derailed by scandal, a new appreciation and admiration has come upon Jack again. Steady as you like, Nicklaus has cast himself out of speculation and judgement, saying that it’s none of his business. (Something Tom Watson doesn’t seem to care about.)

With that in mind, Jack was very interested in what the story was going to be about, seemingly because whatever interview Nicklaus does these days is peppered with questions about Woods and what he thinks about Woods. And why not? As Diaz put it,

“…Nicklaus has long demonstrated an uncanny understanding of Woods as a golfer, which surely comes from having breathed the same air, Jack knows that for the foreseeable future, anything he says about his historical challenger will be read through the prism of rivalry.”

What really came as a shocker to Diaz was Jack’s interspection of his own career.

Nicklaus displays a new candor. He used to say, “My record is my record. I did all I could do.” Today, he casts a more analytical and sometimes critical eye on the nuances of his career, starting with a self-effacing haymaker: “If I were to look back on my work, I think I accomplished probably about 70 to 75 percent of what I could have. Maybe 60 percent. Somewhere in that area; two-thirds of what I could have accomplished. If I had been a really dedicated person, and really worked hard, I think I could have accomplished more.”

When he says he only accomplished two-thirds of what he thinks he could have done, that’s a little scary. I’m sure he looks at the 19 second place finishes in majors and sees five or ten more wins if he would have worked at it. He also talks about how later in his career, it was more difficult to keep that fire to win.

Perhaps it was he was chasing an undisclosed number. For Tiger, his whole life was about getting to 19, a definite goal that Nicklaus believes, once he reaches, he won’t go much past it.

For my generation, the 20-25 year-olds, we never saw Jack play really. Sure, there was the Masters in ’86, but I was still a year away from being born and no way I would have had that appreciation for Nicklaus at that young of an age. My point being, we see Tiger now with struggles off the tee, but he’s a great scrambler and short game player, no doubt in any one’s mind. For Nicklaus it was his short game. He admits in the article he never really worked hard at his short game because he hit so many greens and if he didn’t his mindset was to “slop” the ball up to eight or 10 feet and make the putt.

Lee Trevino also thinks the equipment and balls had something to do with it. Nicklaus was a long hitter then as well as an extremely good iron player. He would hit 14 or 15 greens a round, but they didn’t have the wedges for around the green like they did today. Trevino thinks that hampered his generation and especially Nicklaus.

“If Jack had had a wedge, no doubt in my mind, he would have won 30 majors,” says Lee Trevino, who won six — several at Jack’s expense. “I certainly would have had about three less majors; I’d maybe have gotten him only once. I mean, he was so good at everything else. I tell people all the time, ‘If Jack in his prime could have played the clubs and balls these guys are playing today, he would have hit the sumbitch 400 yards.’ I’m dead serious. I believe Tiger is going to catch him, but if Jack had had a short game, even Tiger wouldn’t have been able to touch him.”

Yeah, 30 majors will never be touched.