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Nothing meaningful in this life is ever achieved without hard work, but one always needs a little bit of luck. John Jacobs deserves his success in golf, because he invested plenty of the former and, as he freely admits, was blessed with a little of the latter, too. His talent took care of the rest. His journey is extraordinary.

John started his professional golfing life in his father’s shop at Lindrick Golf Club in Yorkshire. He would stoke the fires in the grate on Monday mornings to burn out the snapped hickory shafts of clubs broken over the course of a weekend’s play. He grew up to become one of golf’s most influential figures – tournament winner, undefeated Ryder Cup player, captain of the Ryder Cup team, founder of the PGA Tour, OBE, past President of the PGA of Europe, a member of golf’s exclusive Hall of Fame and also the Teaching Hall of Fame (itself a rare double honour), and winner of the prestigious Geoffrey Dyson Award for Sporting Teaching Excellence in 2002. Most recently Jacobs was awarded honorary membership of the R&A. The list could go on further, were there space.

Above all, though, John Jacobs is one of golf’s all-time great teachers – a true legend of the game who is in the unique position of having taught hundreds of thousands of amateurs around the world how to play better golf, in-between passing on his words of wisdom to the world’s greatest players of the last 50 years. No other coach has had more success in making the best even better. The same could be said for his influence on today’s leading coaches.

John himself is far too modest to even suggest that a list of tributes from great players through the years be included in this book, but as his collaborator on this project I am happy to relieve him of this burden, for I think it is entirely appropriate that within the remit of this foreword there is scope for personal contributions which put in perspective John’s impact on the game of golf.

‘It is an unrelenting insistence on understanding and applying the fundamental objectives of the swing, plus his remarkable ability to explain them clearly, that makes John Jacobs such a great golf teacher. Because his logic is unarguable and his reasoning so understandable, his success rate with all levels of golfers from beginner to tournament player has been and continues to be outstanding.’

Jack Nicklaus

‘John Jacobs has been a friend of mine for many years. He is an outstanding teacher and has also been an excellent golfer and a fierce competitor on the course. However, of greatest importance for me is that he is a true gentleman and an asset to the game.’

Gary Player

‘John Jacobs has contributed a great deal to the game and he is considered one of golf’s premier teachers. In building my own career, he was certainly one of the instructors I studied and he has an outstanding ability to analyse golfers’ problems through their ball flight. He is one of the game’s real grandmasters.’

David Leadbetter

‘John is the nicest person I have met in my 25-year amateur and professional career. He really is a true friend. As a golf teacher he is without doubt The Master. Simplicity is the word I would use to describe his teaching. His theories on the golf swing and the lessons he gives are so crystal clear and understandable that he makes the game of golf seem easy. His advice helps bring better golf within everyone’s grasp.’

Jose Maria Olazabal

‘I was just 14 when I first saw John Jacobs on the practice ground at Dalmahoy. It was not his swing that caught my eye, or the way he addressed the ball, but rather the fact that he never had time to practise himself because so many of his colleagues kept asking for advice. As always it was given freely. John remains the supreme enthusiast gaining his pleasure from helping fellow pros and amateurs – thousands over the years – play the game better and enjoy it more. I seek out John two or three times a year to have a look at my swing and he has never let me down. Come to think of it, I’d question whether he has ever let anyone down.’

Bernard Gallacher

‘The two biggest influences are my dad and John Jacobs. I like the way John talks about the swing path all the time. The way he makes everything very simple and straightforward – that’s the way I like to teach.’

Butch Harmon

‘John’s achievements are endless as a player, teacher, writer, communicator, golf course designer, and executive director of the men’s European Tour. I can think of no better host, or better companion.’

Mickey Walker

John Jacobs isn’t just a great teacher, though. He could play a bit himself and was, at times, good enough to beat the best. He competed in the Ryder Cup and won tournaments, including the Dutch Open in 1957 and a memorable victory over Grand Slam winner Gary Player, in the final of the South African Matchplay Championship.

John had an equally significant influence on the administration of the game, having been instrumental in setting up what is now the European Tour. Indeed, John sees this as perhaps his greatest achievement, a view endorsed by Mark McCormack in his World of Professional Golf Annual in 1973. McCormack wrote of the haphazard affair that constituted the British Pro golf scene and the plan devised by John Jacobs to overcome the crisis situation.

‘The Jacobs plan worked. The crowds did come back. Public interest was reawakened. And the ultimate proof that golf was back in favour was that both the BBC and the independent companies returned coverage of PGA tournaments to their schedules. The outlook for pro golf, which had seemed so desolate twelve months previously, had taken a decided turn for the better. The mood among the players was buoyant. Golf had begun to believe in itself again. I for one do not doubt that 1972 was a year of high significance. It might be no more than slight exaggeration to say that these twelve months saw British golf progress by a quarter of a century. And that is quite a trick.’

John has also authored numerous bestselling books on how to play the game, many of which are still considered benchmark manuals, revered and studied decades after they first went into print. For the record, these include:

Golf, first published in 1963, with a foreword by Laddie Lucas. This was made up of a collection of articles which first appeared in the pages of Golfing magazine during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Play Better Golf, published in 1969, based on the manuscripts from the hugely popular Yorkshire TV series of the same name. John made a series of thirteen 30-minute programmes, followed by two further series, during which time the director suggested he write a book to go with it. It went on to sell well over half-a-million copies.

Practical Golf, first published in 1972 with a foreword by Tony Jacklin, went on to become a bestseller. John considers it ‘the most important book I wrote.’ It contained many articles from the first ten years of Golf World and was compiled by that magazine’s editor Ken Bowden, who later went on to edit Golf Digest in the US and write much of Jack Nicklaus’ published work.

John Jacobs Analyses Golf’s Superstars, published in 1974, in collaboration with Ken Bowden. This was perhaps the first book of its type, focusing as it did on the swings of the leading players of the day, with analysis from John and words of wisdom to help the average golfer learn from the greats.

Golf Doctor was first published in 1979 and entitled Curing Faults for Weekend Golfers in the US editions (a title which incidentally killed it from a sales perspective, because people thought it was simply a band-aid), with a foreword by Jack Nicklaus and co-written with Dick Aultman. John says he wrote this as much for the pro to teach, as for the pupils. However it is interpreted, there is no doubt that a quarter of a century after it first went into print, it remains golf’s ultimate ‘self help’ manual.

The Golf Swing Simplified, first published in 1993 and again co-written by Ken Bowden, was a wonderfully succinct study of the golf swing, devoted to its most critical component: the action required to strike the ball most effectively from the tee and then on to the green.

Golf in a Nutshell, first published in 1995, was written with the legendary golf journalist Peter Dobereiner. This project came about when Dobereiner wrote an article in Golf Digest magazine praising the talents of John Jacobs and highlighting the merits of Practical Golf, the bestselling golf book of all time until Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book. John suggested to Peter that they write their own little red book … and this was it.

The 50 Greatest Golf Lessons of the 20th Century is John’s most recent book, published in 1999, which I had the pleasure of collaborating on. Rather in the style of John’s earlier book on golf’s superstars, this work featured a biography on the great golfers of the 20th century with insightful analysis from John on the way they played the game and how we mere mortals can benefit.

This is an appropriate moment to go right back to the start, though, to John’s first ever instruction book, Golf, for it was in the foreword that John’s good friend and former Walker Cup captain Laddie Lucas wrote: ‘John teaches the skilled and the average, the illustrious and the humble, with a success which has earned him, deservedly, the pseudonym ‘Dr Golf’. I have a feeling that this substantial treatise is only the forerunner of what may flow from this fertile mind.’ How prophetic that statement proved to be.

Now for the first time ever, the collective works of John’s books, as listed above, are brought together in this one volume – 50 Years of Golfing Wisdom. It’s the best of the best, in every sense. It represents an unmissable opportunity for golfers of all abilities to benefit from one of the keenest, wisest, most knowledgeable minds in golf.

50 Years of Golfing Wisdom includes all of the lessons and advice that made John the original, and many say still the ultimate, golfing guru. Where appropriate, we’ve even included contemporary drawings from the relevant book. Every department of the game receives the Jacobs treatment – in other words, simple, easy to understand, effective advice on how to maximize your potential and play your best golf. From the fundamentals, to problem solving, and curing your bad shots, to instruction on hitting every shot from the longest drive to the most testing putt, and everything in between. There are also studies of some of the great players in history and what you can learn from them.

50 Years of Golfing Wisdom is so comprehensive, so packed full of good advice, it may just be the only instruction book you’ll ever need. As Tony Jacklin said in the foreword to Practical Golf, ‘Putting golf technique down on paper is extremely difficult. I think Jacobs does it superbly. This book is a wonderful distillation of an exceptional man’s knowledge, and I don’t see how it can fail to help any golfer play better.’ My sentiments exactly.

Steve Newell