A Whole New Ballgame

The relationship between teachers and pros has evolved as much as the swing itself

Leadbetter, who works with Wie now, started a revolution through his relationship with Faldo.
Photo: Dom Furore

Dom Furore

By Matthew Rudy

Photo By Ben Van Hook

May 12, 2006

Spend an hour with Bob Toski and it's clear after the first five minutes the legendary (and legendarily feisty) instructor wishes some things were the way they were in 1956, when he left the tour to teach full time. Or at least like they were in the mid-1970s, when he was renowned as the most famous teacher in the game for his work with Tom Kite, Judy Rankin and Pat Bradley, and for helping start the star-studded Golf Digest Schools with Davis Love Jr. and Jim Flick.

But one element of the modern business of golf instruction--especially as it relates to the celebrity that goes with teaching tour players--makes the 80-year-old Toski feel as if he was born 40 years too soon. "How much did you say David Leadbetter gets for a lesson, $10,000?" Toski asks, more than a bit wistfully. "I like to think I had something to do with that, bringing the profession to where it is now. Now, I don't think anybody's worth that as a teacher, but if you can get it, fine. I'd take it, but I'd feel like Jesse James."

The business model for the high-profile golf instructor changed forever in 1985, when Leadbetter started helping Nick Faldo make dramatic swing changes. And it happened because Faldo not only was determined to rip up his swing and start over--despite winning the money title in Europe two years before--but also was willing to give Leadbetter credit for helping. "Nick was a good player up to that time, but he just felt he wasn't getting any better," says Leadbetter, who had worked with Nick Price and Denis Watson before Faldo. "He wanted to win an Open, and he was prepared to go at it hammer and tongs--and get worse before he improved."

After more than two years of constant work, Faldo won the 1987 British Open at Muirfield and then collected two more, in 1990 and 1992, to go with three Masters titles. "There was so much publicity, given his move to redo everything in his swing," says Leadbetter, who now teaches Ernie Els, Michelle Wie and Ian Poulter, among other players. "It really chronicled a teacher-player relationship. I think a lot of players started to believe that if Nick Faldo could do it, they could, too. It became an established thing to have a teacher."

Teachers had always bumped into one immutable truth--there are only 14 or so hours of daylight at best. Aided by his new celebrity, Leadbetter changed the focus from volume--booking as many lessons as possible on his calendar, or getting more students to come through golf schools--to hourly rate. Instead of the $100 an hour top teachers were getting in the early 1980s, Leadbetter started charging multiples of that. As the potential for making money increased, better-trained and more-motivated teachers came into the business--often through demanding certification programs such as the one Leadbetter runs--and the average hourly rate steadily increased.

"I've seen so many more people around the game who are very knowledgeable--who understand biomechanics and physiology, along with the golf swing--in just the last 10 years," says Leadbetter, who has 12 assistants working with him at his base at ChampionsGate Golf Resort near Orlando. "I'm seeing people with that knowledge all over the world. It's great for the game, and for the average player, who has more access to good teaching than ever before."

Now, Leadbetter is at the hub of his own mini-industry. He works 200 days a year at ChampionsGate, teaching tour players and giving the occasional $10,000 morning lesson to celebrities, executives and retired dot.com billionaires. He spends the rest of his time on tour with his players, visiting the nearly two-dozen satellite academies he runs (or licenses to IMG) on three continents, hosting outings and giving speeches and promoting his line of videos and teaching aids. It is very safe to say that had Leadbetter's 2005 earnings been pegged to the PGA Tour money list, he would have kept his card, easily.

"I've never gone out to make a living on tour players. They're my PR," says Leadbetter, who tried unsuccessfully to play on the European and South African tours in the late 1970s before moving to Florida to start teaching in 1979. "Plus, teaching them is the next best thing to doing it yourself. That's certainly a part of it. The fact that I was able to associate with players like Nick Price and be involved in this kind of work, it's really just amazing. We basically started a whole industry--books, training aids and corporate outings to go along with the teaching. It's just remarkable to think how far this has come."