The argument for the greatest golfer that ever lived is always going to be tossed backwards and forwards between Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus. When you look at the greatest coach that ever lived, you look at those 2 players then who taught them.

Well Woods has had different golf coaches along the years but Nicklaus never did. Nicklaus had 1 golf coach, Jack Grout. He went to see him at the start of every season to make sure he was still swinging nicely. He checked the putting during the season.

Grout’s philosophy was built very much from the ground upwards, making sure that Nicklaus always has really good, solid footwork, then stretching up into the sky. In the time when Nicklaus was the longest hitter in the Tour, a lot of people tried to emulate his golf swing in terms of creating width and creating height.

Now, modern day teaching, we don’t really talk too much about ankle movement. We like to keep the ankles fairly solid. If you’re a golfer who struggles to create that flexibility to keep your ankles grounded, just be careful that you’re not lifting your ankles up into the air.

Grout and Nicklaus worked on this idea of rolling the ankle one way and then rolling the ankle back through the ball, that’s preferred than lifting the ankles up in the air too much. So if you want to try and create maximum power, we know we need plenty of width in the backswing. If you’re struggling to create width without sort of collapsing the knee and lifting the heel up, you can allow that heel just to sort of roll across a little bit this way, creating a lateral movement then turning back through.

Personally I would prefer that you get enough flexibility to be able to do that in one movement but who am I to argue with Jack Nicklaus’ coach?