What Was Jack Nicklaus' Scoring Average... And How Does It Compare To Scottie Scheffler?

In December, Scottie Scheffler was named the 2024 Player of the Year. Was there ever really any doubt? He was the first player to win the Players Championship, The Masters and the Tour Championship all in one season.

The 28-year-old officially earned a record $29,228,357 on Tour, not including the $25,000,000 bonus he banked for winning the FedExCup. In all, he won seven official PGA Tour events - plus a Gold Medal in Paris.

In summary, quite a year. No other player was seriously in the running for the Jack Nicklaus Award, not even Xander Schauffele, who won both the PGA Championship and The Open.

Talking of Jack, it’s the ‘Golden Bear’ who still owns most records in the game: most Major Championship titles (18), most runner-up finishes in Major Championships (19), most top-three finishes in Major Championships (46), most Masters titles (6)... the list goes on and on.

One record Nicklaus does not hold, however, is the lowest scoring average. This record doesn’t belong to Tiger Woods, either. You’ve probably already guessed who owns this one: Scottie Scheffler.

Scheffler’s 2024 scoring average (actual) was an incredible 68.01, the lowest of the "modern era" *. The Tour average was 70.29, which meant that Scheffler beat the average Tour player by more than eight shots in every tournament.

Jack Nicklaus Scoring Average

Enough about the current World No.1. What was Jack Nicklaus’ scoring average? There weren’t as many rankings being recorded when Nicklaus was in his prime, but we can still get a good idea of the kind of level he was performing at.

During his regular PGA Tour career, Nicklaus, who won 73 PGA Tour titles, finished top of the scoring average rankings eight times.

In the table below, you can see Nicklaus' scoring average from 1962 through to 1986, the year that he won his 18th and final Major Championship at Augusta National.

Nicklaus broke a scoring average of 70 on four occasions: 1964, 1968, 1973 and 1975. His best year for scoring average was 1973 (69.81), a season in which he claimed seven titles.

And he did this, of course, using very different equipment. Nicklaus' MacGregor golf clubs did not offer the same levels of forgiveness and workability that the best golf clubs do today.

So, as good as Scheffler's 68.01 is, perhaps with modern equipment, Nicklaus in his prime would have recorded something equally impressive.

* "Modern era" is defined from the year 1983 onward, when the PGA Tour adopted the "All-Exempt Tour" that exempted anyone in the top 125 of the FedExCup (then the money list) at the end of a season for the next year.