Jack Grout

John Frederick Grout (March 24, 1910 – May 13, 1989) was an American professional golfer who competed on the PGA Tour from 1931 to 1953.

Though he taught many Hall of Fame players, he is best known as the 'first and only' golf teacher of Jack Nicklaus.

His golf career began in 1918 as a caddie at the old Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club.

Through Grout's association with Picard, he was exposed to new theories on golf technique that had been advanced in the 1920s and 1930s by Alex Morrison, a controversial West Coast professional.

It was Morrison's coaching which primarily took Picard to stardom.

In many respects, Morrison, who courted publicity, was well ahead of his time.

So, in his own quiet way, was Grout.

In 1927, at the age of seventeen, he was named the golf professional at Edgemere Country Club in Oklahoma City.

On October 30, 1929, just one day after the stock market collapsed, he was elected to membership in the PGA.

Several months later in February 1930 he and his older brother Dick moved from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth, Texas.

There, the older Grout began working as the head professional at Glen Garden Country Club.

It was at Glen Garden where Jack Grout, employed as his brother's assistant, became friends and playing partners with 18-year-old Byron Nelson and 17-year-old Ben Hogan.

Both would later become two of the top players in golf history.

Grout made his PGA Tour début on December 18, 1931, playing in the Pasadena Open at Brookside Park Golf Course.

Grout departed Fort Worth in early 1937 and spent the next three years at Hershey Country Club in Hershey, Pennsylvania, as an assistant to Henry Picard.

At that time, Picard was one of the top players on the tour.

In 1941, Grout's unofficial tournament earnings totaled over $4,200.

According to PGA Tour statistics, he ranked #25 with $2,389 in official money.

His best finish came in the St. Augustine Professional-Amateur where he and his partner Frank Allan placed second to Sam Snead and his partner Wilford Wehrle.

Other top ten finishes that year included: third (tie), Hershey Open; fourth (tie), Atlantic City Open; fifth, Thomasville Open; seventh (tie), Harlingen Open; eighth (tie), Florida West Coast Open; ninth (tie), Miami Open and ninth (tie) in the PGA Championship at Cherry Hills in Denver, Colorado.

Again, in 1942, he ranked #25 on the PGA Tour in official money.

In 1943, according to PGA Tour Player Rankings, he was ranked #18.

He remained a regular member on the pro circuit until 1945.

Though he had one of the finest swings in the game, he was never among the Tour's top money winners because of extreme near-sightedness as well as having a chronic back condition.

By 1950, at Scioto Country Club in Columbus, Ohio, when he started to work with the ten-year-old novice Jack Nicklaus, he had arrived at a very sound understanding of the golf swing –- a plexus of Morrison's ideas, Picard's ideas, and his own.

As Grout saw it, his Six Fundamentals were a base on which to build an outstanding swing.

He felt strongly that the absolute first thing you must have is a Good Grip on the club; a grip that will naturally - unconsciously - deliver the club face square to the target at impact.

Second, Set Up Correctly because that important maneuver determines how you will swing the club.

Third, maintain a Steady Head position throughout the swing.

His fourth fundamental was Proper Footwork because it promotes both good balance and full swinging.

The basis of footwork is rolling your ankles correctly while keeping your knees flexed at all times.

Fundamental 5 called for Full Extension.

A golfer should try to develop the widest possible arc by making a full shoulder turn and fully extending his arms on the backswing and downswing.

Grout's sixth fundamental was the importance of having Quiet Hands (passive hands) at the start of the downswing.

While the feet actually initiate the downswing, the arms -- not the hands -- must swing the club through the ball.

Asked about putting, later in his career, Grout stated that, if he had it to do over, he would have taught Nicklaus to putt cross-handed.

Nicklaus later quoted Grout and said that golfers new to the game should learn to putt left hand low (right-handed golfers).

Grout and Nicklaus worked together as coach and student from the time Nicklaus began golf in 1950.

He was inducted into the Golf Magazine World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame in 2016.

Grout was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.