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Most Interesting Pro-Teacher Pairings
Lefty & Butch? Tiger & Hank? The dynamic between player and instructor can resemble a soap opera
Golf is hard.
No matter how easy somebody like Tiger Woods or Ernie Els makes it look, a golf swing is a complicated piece of machinery, and that's without all the mental and emotional baggage that comes with being in contention -- or just life in general. Tour players don't even have the luxury of being able to switch it off and simply react to the ball athletically like a tennis player can. After every shot, he has a good two- or three-minute walk-and-wait to think about what to do next.
That's what makes the relationship between tour players and their teachers so fascinating. I supervise Golf Digest's 50 Greatest Teachers survey, which appears in the August 2007 issue, and every time that magazine lands, I get outraged calls from teachers all over the country. They tell me how much more "stuff" they know than the guy who's 5th, 10th, 28th or 50th on the list. But the true genius of guys who have consistent success with tour players is the understanding that teaching elite athletes is more psychology than physics. Sure, they're helping with mechanical adjustments. But a tour player is, by nature, a sensitive and self-absorbed person who is looking for a way to feel complete confidence in what he's doing. I'd argue that getting a guy to have full confidence in faulty mechanics is a much better predictor for tournament success than getting a player to make a "perfect" swing. In other words, it's not "Let's try this and see if it works."
All these guys are solid ball-strikers. The mental game is what separates the top 10 from the bottom 130. Because there's so much psychology involved -- and the dollar stakes are so high -- it's incredibly entertaining to watch the dynamic between a player and his instructor. Which current duos have the most flavor? Here are my top five:
- 1. Phil Mickelson & Butch Harmon
Divorces and brand-new love affairs happen all the time in the world of player-teacher relationships, but rarely are they as intriguing as the Mickelson-Harmon-Rick Smith saga, which would qualify as its own Telemundo soap opera if those guys were better looking. Mickelson got a well-publicized "check-up" from Harmon at the Match Play early in the year, then finally threw long-time swing consigliere Smith over for Harmon just before the Players Championship. Mickelson promptly won at Sawgrass with a textbook final round, but hurt his wrist before he and Harmon could be validated as the best pairing since, well, Harmon and Tiger Woods. Harmon has always said he has no bad feelings about his own divorce from Woods in 2002, but does anybody seriously think Harmon isn't fantasizing about helping Mickelson dethrone Woods as the No. 1 player in the world? And is Harmon's brand of tough love going to work with Mickelson? This is fun to watch on so many levels.
- 2. Michelle Wie and David Leadbetter
Leadbetter probably thought his dealings with surly teenagers would be limited to making sure his son had the car back before curfew. However, he certainly has his hands full with college-freshman-to-be Wie, who in six months has gone from a can't-miss superstar to can't-finish-a-round-without-making-four-doubles-and- withdrawing head case. Wie still has the most raw talent of any woman in the game, but she's fighting injuries, annoying sponsors, and aggravating the LPGA rank and file with her, um, less-than-deferential comments. Leadbetter says he's happy with the work in progress on Wie's swing, but will she mature enough to collect the pile of trophies we set aside for her? Or will she be the only full-time Stanford junior with vestigial shoe and watch endorsement deals? For Leadbetter, when does the aggravation of dealing with Wie -- and all the questions about the squirrelly shots she's been hitting -- outweigh the tantalizing lure of shaping what could be the most dominant female player in history?
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