Can Hank Haney fix this swing?

Barkley started playing golf in the late 1980s, when he was at the height of his NBA powers in Philadelphia. Regular 36-hole matches with Philly sports anchor Neil Hartman shaved Barkley's handicap to a 10 -- a dangerous number for a player who routinely hit 320-yard tee shots and putted like a club champion. "By the time he got to Phoenix, in 1992, he was playing his best golf," says Hartman, who now anchors the SportsNite show on Comcast SportsNet. "I used to give him shots, and that summer, he just started kicking my ass. My wife told me I had to quit gambling, because it was like playing against the bank."

But Barkley's self-taught swing started to deteriorate as he lost flexibility from the series of back and leg injuries that would eventually force him to retire from the NBA in 2000. A mild version of the hitch showed up in 1995, but Barkley was confident he could play his way out of it, as he would a shooting slump on the court. "And that was my biggest mistake," Barkley says. "One of the worst sayings is that practice makes perfect. That doesn't work if you're practicing the wrong stuff. I'd go out there and hit balls for six or eight hours, but I was doing all the wrong stuff."

By the time Barkley and Haney hooked up, in early November of last year, what had started as a compensation for a steep backswing plane had morphed into full-blown full-swing yips. "The way I describe it, it's like driving your car to work on a certain route, day after day for years, and there's a stop sign you always stop for," says Haney, who documented his own case of severe driver yips in the August 2004 issue of Golf Digest. "It's awfully hard to all of a sudden drive that same route, but do it without stopping at that intersection."

Barkley's confidence disappeared, and he wasn't sure if he could ever play golf in front of a crowd again -- both out of embarrassment over the state of his game and concern for the spectators who lean over the ropes next to the tee to see the celebrities. "Everybody jokes about it, but it sucks to be on television and everybody making fun of you," says Barkley, who is now TNT's lead NBA television analyst. "It sucks to stand up over the ball and have no idea what's going to happen. I might shank the ball over here and hit this lady. I might whiff. And it's playing out in front of all these people."

The reconstruction project isn't a private affair, either, with half a dozen Golf Channel cameramen and sound people following the process for six months and recording every shank and whiff for the upcoming series. "I don't know how it's going to turn out," says Barkley. "That's the beauty of the show. I've sucked for 10 years, so I'd be an idiot to think I'm going to get fixed in a short period of time. But I'm putting the time in every single day, golf-wise. Even if it doesn't work, I can say I gave it my all."

Haney marvels at Barkley's willingness to work -- and look foolish on television, if necessary -- to fix his swing. "He's wired to compete and get better," says Haney. "A nonathlete couldn't do what he's doing. I've never had a student give the kind of effort he's giving, except for Tiger."

Barkley is rebuilding his body at the same time he rehabs his swing, losing 30 pounds by the halfway point of the program and increasing his flexibility with a stretching regimen designed by a specialist who works with the NFL's Arizona Cardinals. "The first time we worked together, Hank was trying to get me behind the ball, and I just couldn't do it," says Barkley. "First of all, I was fat. But my hamstrings were hurting. My groins were hurting. And when I turned, I thought my back was going to explode. Now I can do what he asks me to do without any pain."