Nicklaus could produce draws if necessary. Trevino, because of the homemade swing, had a much worse time doing so.
Doing a little search, I came up with this hokey ad, which purports to quote a study showing the length benefits of a draw over a fade. As I understand it, they attribute it to the combination of swingplane and face angle at impact.
And there are no shortage of sites providing advice on how to “cure your slice” and “draw the ball like the pros.”
Me, whenever I think too much about swing planes and open or closed clubfaces, I tend to get confused pretty quickly.
And if you’re looking at a swing like Jim Furyk’s, it can make your brain melt.
He can draw the ball like that? How? It’s not consistent…is it? Gah!
Hell, even Fred Couples, with the way he drops the club on a second plane on the downswing.
Ok, for the record, since some seem to have misunderstood what I said:
I did NOT say that the Open produces fewer true champions than any other major championship.
I simply said that the claim of the USGA that their course set-up identifies true champions isn’t born out by their results.
Anyone who wins a golf tournament under any condition has, by definition, played the best golf that tournament. So I do not at any time denigrate the accomplishment of someone who wins any tournament. And Angel Cabrera hit some very masterful shots on Sunday, and also was the only player with two rounds under par for the tournament. He deserves the victory.
Why, then, does the Open produce a fair number of winners who don’t demonstrate greatness by winning other majors? I think the comparison with the Masters is enlightening. The Open plays at several courses, which negates the advantage of playing the same course yearly. By comparison, the Masters is well known for generally favoring those who have prior experience with the course and the undulations of its greens. Second, the Open’s insistence upon tall rough and overly speedy greens (often hard ones, too) actually accentuates the luck factor. Notice that the fairway’s hit stat for the Open this year doesn’t bear much relationship with the results, so having long rough isn’t forcing players to hit tee shots that stay in the fairway, which otherwise would be the point, one assumes. Only a slightly better correlation exists between placing and number of putts and placing and greens in regulation. So if you end up in the rough, the key question becomes how often does your lie end up so bad that you cannot hit it out, and how often does it end up sitting fine. Put out wider fairways, and the ball-striking ability of the top players comes to the fore, just as it does at Augusta National.
If you look at the list of major winners at that great Wikipedia link provided by Dinsdale, the Masters has had only six winners since 1980 that won only one major; the Open has had 8, the British Open nine, and the PGA Championship eleven. In that same time frame, the Masters adds three champions who only won at the Masters (Olazabal, Langer and Crenshaw), while the Open adds five (Goosen, Jansen, Irwin, Strange and North), the British Open only 1 (Norman), and the PGA none (you have to go back to Dave Stockton for the last multiple PGA winner who didn’t win another major ('70 and '76)). So since 1980, the Masters has 9 winners who only won there, the British has 10, the PGA has 11 and the Open has 13.
Clearly, the Masters excells in identifying winners who are able to go out and win other major championships. Clearly, the Open does not.
The Open is supposedly about harsh penalties and keeping it in the fairway. Putting good helps a lot. Perennial people that “should” do well in the Open are Verplank, Maggert, Cink, Pavin (if he’ll ever win another, it’ll be an Open), Faxon, Chad Campbell et al. (There are others that usually get lumped into this pile, but I can’t remember the others)
If you’re looking for a bigger name, I’d look to Sergio Garcia. Very good overall driver of the ball and if he gets hot at the right week with the flat stick…
Yeah - I realized you did not quite say what I had assumed when I was writing my response. Sorry I did not phrase/qualify my post better.
I just looked back at that list, and was surprised to see that Curtis Strange (2), and Hale Irwin (3 since 74) join Goosen, North, and Janzen as multiple major winners (in recent history) who have only won Opens. That is amazing to me. Of the 33 Opens since 74, 5 guys who didn’t win a single other major among them account for 11 of them.
(Man, we’re really stretching things trying to get this onto a 3d page, aren’t we?) 
So close…must…make third page…gasp
Was looking at the layout of the course I’m going to be playing tomorrow afternoon. Given this conversation, I couldn’t help but notice that several (6 or 7) of the holes cater to a draw, with only one - #18, turning noticeably to the left. My guess would be that that set-up is consistent with slices being more common among us hackers than fades.
That may be part of the allure for a course that’s never going to hold a PGA tournament, but the same thing follows on the Tour courses, too.
It has a pretty good slope rating . Some of those fairways may wrinkle out past 260 or so which means whatever shot gets you around the corner is correct. Heavy tree lining will just make you tee up on a different side of the box to keep your normal shot shape in play.
My course (designed by Hale Irwin) has 7 dogleg left holes, 3 dogleg right, 1 double dogleg, 3 straight, and 4 par threes. This seems to be about standard in my experience.
I’ve always been under the impression that the majority of pros hit a draw as their standard drive. Tiger’s goto shot is a low screaming punch-draw.
Furyk drops his club on plane on the downswing. He’s known for his accuracy off the tee, so yeah, it’s consistent.
As for the draw/fade debate, I think (though I’m not sure) that the conventional wisdom of a draw being “better” has broken down a bit over the last few years. Mickelson now hits a fade, and Tiger often does, too. For the amateur golfer, I think the best thing to do is learn to work with your natural shot shape and not to fight it-- whether it’s a fade or a draw. For me, I think I drew the ball once. I have no idea how that happened. 
Is it possible that the British Open (in recent years) and the U.S. Open produce more one time winners because of the size of the field? The Masters is (I think) less than half the size with a great many amateurs who have no chance at all. In addition until a year or two ago past Masters champs were automatic entrants, further cutting down on the chance a “hot” player might get in and win. The PGA, I know very little about but aren’t many of the entrants actual club pros and not PGA tour players?
That is I think his stinger. His tee shots nowadays are military. Right,left,right ,left. I do not know why they do not use the straight tee ball more. You can move by angles and do not have to drop it over trees and rough and bring it back. Also ,how often do they miss a green by 50 feet and the announcer says he overcooked his fade or hook.
Tom Kite was criticized for hitting the ball straight. They claimed he did not have all the shots needed to win. Yet at his prime he was the leading career money winner of all time.
And yet, he only won one major championship, and that one came late in his career (and was the result of a phenomenal round in some of the worst wind conditions ever; I know, I was there, saw the chip in at 7 in person). He was criticized all his career for his failure to do more than win the less important tournaments.
Someone will always criticize. I am a keep it simple stupid golfer. To shape shots and be able to control the amount of curve accurately requires a lot more golf than an amateur can ever play.
Last years I heard an interview with VJ. Singn. They asked why his shots during a tourney changed from day to day. He said when he practiced before tee off he played whatever shot was coming out most regularly on the range. He said it was easier than trying to change a swing quickly.
That’s the thing. It’s not a debate. A draw/hook gets more distance than a fade/slice.
So…he made a buttload of money and happened to win a major. What’s wrong with that?
Tiger hits his stinger with the 2-iron and/or the 3-wood pretty exclusively. I don’t doubt that he can do it with other clubs…hell, I can do it with other clubs.
He was considered in the 70’s as one of the possible “next Jack Nicklaus” candidates. He had a very steady game, he floated near the top of most tournaments and he had plenty of distance despite his relatively diminutive frame.
His failure to produce spectacular results was considered the first example of the lure of money over fame, brought on by the explosion of money in the game resulting from the Palmer/Nicklaus 60’s. It was felt that Kite didn’t care if he won; his goal was simply to play good golf and see where it took him. The feeling was that Nicklaus, Trevino, Palmer, et al., by comparison, would take risks, get pumped about winning, etc. so that they produced more major wins, more wins in general, etc. In this criticism, Kite became the first of a relatively long line of people dogged by the same criticism, including Greg Norman and David Duval.