We can all agree Rory McIlroy has one of the best swings in golf, but what are the specific elements that make it so effective?

In analyzing McIlroy, David Leadbetter discusses how the four-time major champion’s combination of flexibility and strength has made him one of the tour’s best drivers, and shares a few takeaways you can use to create a more fluid and powerful swing.

“It’s always interesting to me when you watch top players they always have some little movement, little trigger, little motion to get going,” Leadbetter says. For Rory, it’s a slight movement with his legs. Watch closely, and you’ll see Rory slightly sit into his stance, and then, he makes a slight bump, almost straightening his left leg.

“You need to have some trigger to start your swing,” Leadbetter says. It doesn’t matter what it is. The key is having a bit of motion before you take the club back. “You don’t want to start from a static position,” he explains.

Leadbetter also highlights how, in Rory’s takeaway, he keeps his clubhead outside his hands, which is a helpful tip for golfers who don’t want to the take club too far inside on the way back.

As for Rory’s distance, Leadbetter attributes his incredible power to ground force pressure. When examining his downswing, Leadbetter explains that his first move from the top is crucial. “Look at his change of direction, how he’s sort of sinking into it,” he says, “that is where you’re building up all this ground force pressure.”

“That is a tremendously powerful move,” Leadbetter says.

“He then sort of comes up out of it. Watch his right hip,” he instructs. Rory’s slight squat is a common move among many tour players used to generate speed in the downswing.

“By making that move, it creates the energy that the club actually whips through, so it’s not a case of him trying to feel that he’s got speed with his hands or speed with his arms,” Leadbetter explains.

Takeaways
To start, Leadbetter says to focus on your flow. “The more flow you have from start to finish, the more likely you are to hit a more solid shot,” he says. You also want to give yourself a good start. Leadbetter says to think: hands in, clubhead out.

The post Rory McIlroy Swing Analysis: A powerful move begins with a small trigger appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Matthew Rudy
Rory McIlroy wasn’t able to join the elite group of players who have won golf’s career Grand Slam, but another rare slam was completed on Sunday at the Masters. Claude Harmon III joined his father, Butch, David Leadbetter, Hank Haney, Pete Cowen and Jack Grout as the only coaches to have worked with players as they won each of the four major championships.

Dustin Johnson’s victory joined Brooks Koepka’s two U.S. Opens and PGAs and Ernie Els’ 2012 Open Championship on Harmon’s supervisory shelf—and the circumstances surrounding it might have made it the most meaningful. Harmon endured two separate 14-day quarantines—after student Brooks Koepka’s caddie, Ricky Elliott, tested positive for COVID-19 in June, then again after Johnson tested positive last month. That compressed preparation for Augusta into two weeks—two weeks to get back to the form that had seen Johnson win the Northern Trust and Tour Championship (and the FedEx Cup with it) and to recapture the World No. 1 ranking.

RELATED: Dustin Johnson’s play in 2020 redefines his golf legacy

“From a pandemic to Brooks’ injury early in the season to being on lockdown from Players to Colonial to travelling non-stop every week, it’s just been a crazy year,” said Harmon. “We all have had to adapt, and you have to make the most of the situation you’re dealt.”

Johnson shook off rust the previous week in Houston, tying for second, and came into the Masters a bit under the radar, as so much of the focus was on U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau. “You never say COVID is a good thing, but DJ came into Houston fresh mentally and physically from the time off,” Harmon said. “He was rusty on Thursday, but had good practice Friday and Saturday, and good practice early in the week in Augusta. He plays on confidence. Form is a huge thing for him. He felt—and all of us around him, A.J. [his caddie and brother], Joey D [Diovisalvi, his trainer] felt—that it wouldn’t be a surprise if he had an opportunity on Sunday.”

Masters week was peak Dustin Johnson. He set a tournament scoring record (20 under), another record for fewest bogeys (four), and tied a third for most greens hit (60). Cameron Smith got as close as two shots early on Sunday, but the outcome was never really in doubt. “Adam Scott told me something at Boston that sums up DJ pretty well—nobody makes the game look as easy as he does,” Harmon said. “What I saw last week was the result of five years of hard work. He’s a complete player now. He drives the s— out of it. His iron game is underrated. He’s done so much with his wedge game and short game. And he and A.J. are one of the best—if not the best—on tour in how they work together, make decisions and read greens.

RELATED: 15 Things You Need To Know About Dustin Johnson

Harmon thinks that the Masters win could set off a Mickelsonian run of mid-30s major championships for Johnson and said he’s looking forward to helping extend that run however he can.

“To be a part of the team behind DJ last week, and to know his name is going to be on the same trophy as my grandfather—that’s so gratifying,” said Harmon, who was taking Monday off before picking up his regular schedule of member lessons at The Floridian in Palm City, Fla.

“To see A.J. crying on the 18th green and DJ hugging him, I know the hard work that went into that. Lead[better], my dad, Hank—they’re icons of coaching. To be able to do something they did? And to be out here on tour with coaches like Cameron McCormick, Mark Blackburn, Mike Bender and Sean Foley, and younger guys like Drew Steckel? I’m proud to have success in this little sliver of the golf world, and I’m proud to be a part of the modern game.”

RELATED: Dustin Johnson’s emotional (seriously) interview wound up being the best part of Masters Sunday

The post Dustin Johnson made history at the Masters. So did his coach appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

That comforting quote greets you when you open the Leadbetter Golf Academy webpage. It’s an ethos championed by coach to the stars, David Leadbetter, and has spread to the Middle East where the Leadbetter Golf Academy Dubai opened at JA The Resort Golf Course in September 2018.

It’s especially comforting for parents looking for a golf programme for their children.

Join the JA The Resort Leadbetter Kids Programme today! 

Leadbetter Kids Golf is renowned the world over and not simply because of the name behind the brand. David Leadbetter has coached some of the game’s biggest names – Sir Nick Faldo, Ernie Els, Nick Price, Lydia Ko and Michelle Wie among them – but is especially passionate nowadays about junior development.

Leadbetter Kids Golf aims to develop healthy, self-motivated children with the skills necessary to become future champions in golf and in life. They’re dedicated to adding to that legacy at JA The Resort where a new junior coaching programme has just been announced.

Check out a sample of what is on offer in this fun video:

The 10-week course, which runs from October 2 to December 5, is for 5-16-year-olds and features 60-minute sessions on Fridays and Saturdays.

The Leadbetter Golf Academy Dubai is the first academy in the Middle East offering a holistic approach to premier golf instruction. At the junior level, kids learn physical, mental and social skills through combined activity stations of golf fundamentals, basic language skills, and other life skills training in a fun and safe environment.

The extensive programme costs just AED 1100 per term. For more information and to sign up, email: golf.teetimes@jaresorts.com or phone 04 814 5023.

The post Leadbetter Kids programme at JA the Resort set to develop future champions in ‘golf and in life’ appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Brandel was a journeyman tour player and has moved on to become a highly regarded TV pundit, at least in some quarters. His controversial comments can at times be quite refreshing, but personal attacks on people, players at times, and in this case, coaches, are cheap shots just meant to further his reputation as an outspoken analyst. I doubt that Brandel has ever given a golf lesson of any note in his life. I certainly have not heard of any tour players running around singing his praises as a coach.

Brandel should realise the time, passion, study, commitment and the amount of devotion that coaches put in to help their students succeed. I say this because I and my assistant Adam Schreiber spent countless hours in the late ’80s and early ’90s on the range helping Brandel to try to reach his goals. It certainly was not for the money, as I think the check is still in the mail.

Should there be some criticism of coaches? Absolutely. But that’s the same in any profession. I have faced criticism over the years, some justified and some not. It comes with the territory. I would say on balance, though, having taught seven World No. 1 players and players who have won 23 majors, that I would consider myself to have had a fairly successful career.

I’m with many of these coaches at tournaments, and although I do not necessarily agree with all of their philosophies, I can assure you there is not a more dedicated group of individuals who mainly do it for the love of it, and not the financial rewards.

So I would say to Brandel, in the future, before you are so quick to criticize, take time to research what you are commenting on. Have the players had an injury, or any personal issues that are affecting their performance? Do they just need a different viewpoint after having been with their coach for so many years? Even great caddies get fired if a change of scenery is needed! Are the parents of the player interfering busy-bodies who won’t let the coach do the job despite a lot of success?

Coaching is a specialised art and takes many years of experience. Teachers play a huge role in player development at all levels. The problem with Brandel’s comments, maybe unwittingly, is that he tars all coaches with the same brush. His comments can have a highly detrimental effect on the game as a whole, because the many dedicated PGA professionals who help thousands of amateur golfers enjoy the game more, are all put in a negative light—which is totally undeserved and unnecessary.

So Brandel, you are articulate, knowledgeable and obviously love the game, but there is no need to fire a low blow toward, in many instances, people you know very little about. You are observing them from 10,000 feet, instead of joining them on the ground and finding out the real story, which is what your viewers are entitled to, not some self-serving comments, which are only half-truths at best. You are better than this, Brandel.

David Leadbetter is a longtime Golf Digest teaching professional.

The post David Leadbetter’s open letter to Brandel Chamblee: You’re better than cheap shots appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
Patrick Reed has officially hired swing coach David Leadbetter, who said Monday during an interview on Brad Faxon’s radio show on SiriusXM that Reed asked him to join the team and that he has accepted.

The reigning Masters champ and 66-year-old instructor first worked together following Reed’s opening round at last week’s Valspar Championship, where Reed’s wife Justine sent a text to Leadbetter on Thursday afternoon asking if he could do a lesson with her husband before the second round.

Reed followed his opening-round 77 with a 75 to miss the cut by nine shots but returned to Innisbrook on Saturday for a second session with Leadbetter. The new hire isn’t expected to affect Reed’s relationship with longtime swing coach Kevin Kirk, however, with Reed telling GolfChannel.com on Friday, “KK and I are really close. That has nothing to do with it. Just trying to improve and get better every day.”

Though Reed has five top-25 finishes in nine worldwide starts this season, he hasn’t won since his Masters victory nearly a year ago and hasn’t cracked the top 10 on the PGA Tour since a T-7 at the WGC-HSBC Champions last October. Before the missed cut at the Valspar, he shot 78 in the final round of the Players Championship, where he finished T-47.

Reed has struggled with his driving as well as his ball-striking this year, ranking T-126 in strokes gained—off-the-tee and 149th in strokes gained—approach-the-green. He also ranks 160th in greens in regulation and barely is inside the top 200 in proximity to the hole at T-196.

Reed, who will head to Augusta National to defend his Masters title in two weeks, is in the field at this week’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas, where he’s grouped with Sergio Garcia, Shane Lowry and Michael Putnam for the first three rounds of pool play.

The post David Leadbetter confirms that he has joined the Patrick Reed team appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

with Kent Gray
My grandfather was an osteopath and he was blind. He had a really good feel for what he did and I don’t know whether some of that has been handed down to me but my instincts are really good. Even back in the day before biomechanics was fashionable, I had an instinct about how the body should work so I was lucky in that respect. I do things that are very much off the cuff, it’s not a strict technique from a purist standpoint. It’s instinct with me.

• • •

I’ve learned an awful lot about how the body works and how the mind works but in a sense, it hasn’t changed a tremendous amount [his coaching philosophy]. I wrote a book called ‘The Golf Swing’ in 1989 and if I look at that book, 95 per cent if it is what we do today. The wrapping may be a little different, and I can get the message across quicker.

• • •

When I started working with Faldo, he said ‘how long do you think this is going to take’ and I said, ‘well, you want to put your trust in me and you really want to do what you’re going to do, it’s going to take a couple of years’ and we probably weren’t too far off that, it was probably a month off two years. You couldn’t do that today. Today there’s too much riding on it, whether it be top 50, sponsors or whatever.

• • •

Nick was my greatest student because of the fact, he and I went at it together, he had a goal, I had a goal, we were driven and the energy levels were such that we knew that he was going to get it somehow, in same shape or form. We had no doubt and he stuck at it through hell and high water.

• • •

Peter Dazeley/Getty Images
Nick Faldo working with Leadbetter during the Suntory World Match Play Championship on the West Course at The Wentworth Club in October, 1989.

It was very special. It gave me a lot of credibilities. My career took off from that point because for the longest period of time, it was who is this idiot messing up our golden boy, especially from the U.K. and then we started winning and it was like, well maybe he knows something, And Nick was very generous in his praise and it was like we were a team, it was Faldo and Leds type of thing. You never know, it’s a bit of a mystery this game and who knows, if he hadn’t of one his first major at Muirfield in ’87, he mightn’t have won any. But that gave him the impetus to go on and really be a dominant player of his era.

• • •

A lot of it with amateurs is a pure, poor strategy. Not realising they’re limited to a certain extent, they’re not tour players. If you’re an 18 handicapper, your par is really 90, it’s not 72 and people play it as if they’re a scratch player. I’ve got to hit the fairway here and I’ve got to hit the green there and it’s like, no you don’t. Par-3s are par-4s, par-4s are par-5s and par-5s are par-6s if you look at it in simple terms. So I think it is playing within yourself, playing smart, not doing things that you are probably incapable of even if you might have done it on occasions. Playing the odds and learning to relax and realising golf is fun, it’s not meant to be that serious.

• • •

Some amateurs take it so seriously and they get frustrated and as soon as you get frustrated you get tight and as soon as you get tight tension creeps in there, you can’t swing anyway. How many times do you go ‘this is hopeless, now I’m just going to hit the ball’ and they just start playing well because they’ve actually let go.

• • •

Let your instincts come out. Most people have played other sports and have good instincts but they don’t let their instincts come into play because they’re trying so hard to control the situation. You can’t be a control freak playing golf.

• • •

Fortunately, that’s what keeps us in business, all the mistakes amateurs make. For starters, 90 per cent of amateur golfers grips the club incorrectly. Any golfer that wears a hole out in their glove, you can be certain that is their issue. And from there, steams a whole host of errors. One of my favourite sayings, which Ben Hogan coined the phrase many a year ago, is ‘good golf begins with a good grip”.

Photograph by Naveed Suraj

• • •

A clubs weights a pound or a half a kilo, whatever measurement you want to use. It’s not like a sledgehammer but you look at most people and they’re over-hitting it. You can see their veins are popping. Whose swing do people love? It’s Ernie Els. Why? Because it looks free, it looks flowing. Another one of my pet sayings…swing easy, hit hard instead of gripping it like you are strangling a snake.

• • •

We’ve always wanted to have an academy in Dubai and my association with Rafa Cabrera Bello, with his attachment here, it seemed to make sense. It’s a lovely little facility this [JA The Resort]. Obviously, there are a lot of top-notch courses here but this is …I like the practice area, the management is great, the hotels are close and it’s a little away from the maddening crowds so to speak so when you’re here, you’re here. They had an up and functioning academy with Stuart Fee here and we’ve just added something to what they already offer. It’s an amenity really that we’re offering the hotel guests and we’ve got some big plans for starting the Leadbetter kids program.

• • •

I’ve been doing this for a long time now and we’ve got certain protocols that we follow that enable us to get to the root cause of the problem in a very short space of time. Golf is a game where if you do follow some basics, get your technique down, no matter your age, you can improve. As I like to say, the golf ball doesn’t know how old you are.

• • •

I think if you are going to play golf, you should do it to the best of your ability and so there is a distinct lack of understanding about how you can play this game at a higher level and fulfil your potential. Our goal is to help people really understand their own game and give them a plan to improve as well. It’s an all-encompassing look. We’re not going to guarantee you in a week you’re going to be ready for the tour but they will certainly have a really good understanding. Not to belittle any other golf academy, there’s a lot of good coaches around, but I’ve been doing this for a long time and this is our 41st  academy that we’re opening and we’ve got proven success.

• • •

I wouldn’t say it’s a classic swing but I worked with him for a year and one of my favourites was Seve Ballesteros because you never knew what he was going to do. His ability to fashion a score from where he hit it was unbelievable. If you we just looking at a swing, you’d say ‘I love Adam Scott’s swing’, I love Rafa’s swing or I love Ernie’s swing’. But you look at a Seve…oh, this guy. Just his short game, the imagination. I got to see him when he was younger too and he’d hit it 320 into the next fairway and hit the next one to two feet, it was like…wow.

• • •

Greg Norman was another. Sure people would love to watch a Faldo because he was monotonously boring and just hit fairways and hit greens and he was like a machine. But with Greg Norman, he’d stand up there and he’d just smash it 300 with the old club down the middle, towering three irons. Those were the sort of charismatic players, they were definitely fun to watch.

• • •

I don’t think there was ever a finer player in his peak than Tiger. Look, there’s a case for everybody, Nicklaus, Watson, you name it, Johnny Miller hitting flags but obviously Tiger, for those 12 years, nobody could play this game better, that’s for sure.

• • •

I would get you hitting very few balls in the beginning if I had a blank canvas to teach an amateur. You want to learn the technique. Ultimately you learn the technique and then you make the swing and let the ball get in the way.

• • •

I see the game being very healthy in certain areas and unhealthy in others. It’s healthy at the top level and the junior level, it’s the middle area where it’s unhealthy where people are playing less golf. Golf’s time consuming and all these rules and regulations about equipment for amateurs are ridiculous. Hey, why not have illegal drivers that hit the ball further than normal? If they can hit one 280 yards if their longest drive ever is 250, how about it? That’s going to bring people back into the game.

Photograph by Naveed Suraj

• • •

They’ve got to bring in some innovations and make it exciting. Make it more of a World Tour too. There are too many tournaments out there that are…who cares. I mean the KLM Open or the Milwaukee Open…I mean who knows who won it? They need to have the top-notch players playing together more regularly. Just having the majors and four WGC events is not enough, there should be 20 events these guys are playing in and, hey, if you aspire to get into those events, the top 75 or whatever, then great.

• • •

My hero because I grew up in southern Africa was Gary Player and I still have a great relationship with him. Here’s a guy who didn’t have the physical skills of a Jack Nicklaus but just though self-determination and guts got to where he is. Yeah, he comes over a little strong at times but just the fact the guy is in his early 80s now and acts like he’s 25…still working out. He doesn’t only talk the talk, he walks the walk.

I don’t play that much now. I still enjoy playing but I’ve had a wrist injury and a foot injury and as you get older… My daughter works for Golf Digest in New York in the digital department and my eldest son teaches for us in China and my youngest just left university and he’s just turned pro and he’s going to give it a go and so we’ll see how he goes. So I enjoy playing with him and my wife, we play periodically, she was a very good player on tour for a number of years so it’s in the blood. I do miss playing but I’m pretty happy with my stock in life.   

• • •

The win that really stands out for me, because he’s such a good friend of mine, we grew up playing together, was Nick Price when he won the open at Turnberry in ‘94. He holed a tram liner across the green on 17 against Jesper Parnevik at the time, so that was great because he always wanted to win an Open. He didn’t actually have the ideal game for the Open but it was his week.

• • •

Nick’s one of those players we were constantly trying to get his stance wider so he had a better base. As the week went on his feet got narrower and narrower and I told him, geez if this tournament goes to Monday you’re going to be playing with your feet crossed. Get those damn feet wider, would you!

• • •

I’ve known Raf [Rafa Cabrera Bello] since he was 15. He used to play junior golf with my eldest son. It was probably six years ago now when he called me and he said ‘I don’t really think I reaching my potential’ even though I think he’s won the Austrian Open. He was really a good player, really determined and getting better in every area, whether it be his fitness, his nutrition or the mental side. It was quite interesting because in the start he was a little bit reluctant, he’s got a very strong mind and he’s only going to do what he wants to do so there was quite a bit of persuasion needed.

• • •

He’s always had this great rhythm but it covered up a lot of ills in his swing. It was fairly long, it was pretty loose and a lot relied on his timing. Over the years we’ve got his swing way more functional, efficient, shorter and he’s a really good ball striker now. His short game is getting better, that’s one thing we’ve worked on quite hard as well, a variety of shots around a green.

• • •

He’s a little bit of a perfectionist and that’s one thing that can hold a player back because this game, I always say the greats have two things in common, they handle adversity well and have short memories. You can’t let that stuff linger. He’s working at that, he knows he’s a little angry and his expectations are pretty high. Golf is so much between the ears so if you get that bit sorted out and tidy the rest and become a little more consistent with his putting…he’s got all the ingredients. • • •

I honestly feel his best golf is before him. He’s at a good age, 33-34, so for the next three, to four years I think it’s going to be his window where he really steps out and shows what he’s capable of.

The post Life Lessons: David Leadbetter is here to help your game appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Before he goes into detail of what he sees in Woods’ swing—and what he would suggest to further improve Tiger’s ball-striking, particularly consistency with the driver—Leadbetter says Woods has done a “remarkable job” calming down the things in his swing that contributed to wild tee shots and, perhaps, issues that led to surgeries on his back.

J.D. Cuban

J.D. Cuban

This is the starting point of where Leadbetter suggests Woods make an adjustment. “This look you see here in these two frames goes back to the big, wide backswings of Jack Nicklaus and Greg Norman,” David Leadbetter says. “The old theory for power used to be to extend the club back as far and as wide as possible with little wrist set. The more modern swing has less width, an earlier set of the wrists and a big coil with the torso. My feeling is that this wide takeaway you see here with Tiger is contributing to timing issues and indirectly placing more stress on his lower back.”

J.D. Cuban

J.D. Cuban

You’ll notice in these two frames that Woods doesn’t hinge the club upward until this late point in the backswing. “It’s a very late wrist set, and in my opinion, it’s where his timing issues start because his body stops turning noticeably sooner than his arms and club reach the top,” Leadbetter says.

J.D. Cuban

J.D. Cuban

Take a look at these two frames (above), they’re the most telling of what he would change, Leadbetter says. “In the first photo, Tiger’s upper body is fully complete with its coil. But look in the next frame how much farther his arms and club have run on. They’re no longer moving in sync with his body turn. They’re continuing the swing. What that means is that they will have to somehow catch up to his body on the downswing. Being a great athlete, Tiger can obviously do this. But this is where the inconsistency can really occur for anybody. If the lower body gets a little too quick and too far ahead, then the arms and club will be late, and there’s too much reliance on the hands and timing to square the face at impact. That lack of sync was the reason why Tiger used to complain a lot about being ‘stuck.’ ”

“I will say, however, that compared to a few years ago, his sync is way better now. I just think Tiger will have much more control—of his driver in particular—if his arms and body finish the backswing at roughly the same time. This is true for any player. What I’d like to see is less width starting back and an earlier wrist set. He doesn’t need all that extension for power. In fact, improving his synchronization would still help him maintain power while boosting accuracy.”

J.D. Cuban

J.D. Cuban

These two photos of Tiger in the downswing look really good, Leadbetter says. “But if he was off a degree or so, it would make a big difference in impact,” he says. “This syncing of the arms and body is one of the most important and misunderstood aspects of the golf swing. When the arms run on at the top independently, the body has to wait for them to catch up on the downswing. This is where the timing aspect comes in. Swinging the club at the speed Tiger does (120 miles per hour), it doesn’t take much for the club to come into impact a little open. That results in his trademark miss to the right, or with overcompensation, a miss to the left—especially under pressure in tournament play.”

J.D. Cuban

The way you can tell his syncing has improved is by looking at the level of his shoulders through impact, Leadbetter says. “In the past, his right shoulder would appear much lower here and tilted as he hung back to try to save the shot,” he says. “And that swing put more pressure on his lower back. But you can see here how his shoulders are rotating on a much more level plane. He doesn’t have that ‘stuck-and-under’ look of the past.”

J.D. Cuban

J.D. Cuban

J.D. Cuban

Another thing to note is that there is far less of a dip in Woods’ body from address to impact, Leadbetter says. “He’s still getting a lot of power from his lower body. In fact, his legs look fantastic as he changes direction. The knees separate, but there’s not as much squat. It’s got the look of Sam Snead’s swing.”

J.D. Cuban

All of this contributes to a textbook impact position, Leadbetter says. “He might have been a touch late syncing his swing on the way down, but this is the impact position of a person in great control of the club. I really like the straight line formed by the shaft and his left arm. It looks like he can shape the shot any way he wants from here.”

J.D. Cuban

Leadbetter’s parting shot on Woods’ swing has to do with-fittingly-the way he finishes the swing. For a number of years, Woods’ finish had a “manufactured” look, like a gymnast that lands on the mat off balance but then straightens up for the judges. Now his finish looks more natural. “It’s got the look of the classic, well balanced follow-through,” Leadbetter says. “This shows you he’s not far off from a technical standpoint.”

“Tiger is close to swinging at his very best. And my feeling is that if he synced up his swing better going back, which would require less timing coming down, you would see a big improvement in his driving consistency. But overall this is a very impressive golf swing. It’s a great sign for Tiger’s future.”

 

The post The small adjustment that could help Tiger Woods win another major appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Kent Gray
Fret not if you weren’t one of the fortunate few invited to the official opening of the Middle East’s first Leadbetter Golf Academy at JA The Resort Golf Course on Monday.

Sure, you missed quite the show as former Ryder Cupper Rafa Cabrera Bello ripped drivers deep into the newly extended range at the remodelled Jebel Ali nine-holer before Ladies European Tour stars Amy Boulden and Oliver Cowan wowed with a series of pure mid-iron swings and pin-point wedge shots respectively.

But David Leadbetter was the undoubted star of the clinic and shared one particular tip that you can try at home.

What the world renowned, England-born, South African-raised and U.S.-based coach wishes every amateur would do is to check the glove currently in their golf bag. Chances are there’s a worn patch in the palm of said glove, if not a gaping hole. If so, your grip, dear amateur, needs urgent attention.

Rafa Cabrera Bello launches into a drive.

“The biggest fundamental problem people have is the grip, it’s as simple as that,” Leadbetter said at the opening of his 40th academy worldwide and eighth in 2018 alone, a network now spanning 15 countries.

“Ninety percent of amateur golfers grip the club incorrectly and by that I mean, most amateurs, a right handed golfer, they grip the club too much in the palm of the left hand. Any golfer that wears a hole out in the glove, you can be certain that is their issue.

“And from there steams a whole host of errors. One of my favourite sayings – Ben Hogan coined the phrase many a year ago –  is ‘Good golf begins with a good grip.

“The way you place the hands on the club, controls the club. Yes, the body moves and the power comes from your body but it goes through your arms and your hands and finally into the club, so if your hands are in the wrong position, first of all the club doesn’t swing, you have to forcibly get the club swinging.”

Leadbetter shared another one of his “pet sayings” as the freebie lesson continued.

LET star Olivia Cowan showed a deft touch with her sand wedge.

“The dog wags the tail, the tail does not wag the dog. Meaning that the body actually controls the swing but if you’re going to control the swing you’ve got to grip it properly.

“You see time after time how players grip it up in the palm, wear a hole out in their glove, create so much tension, they lock their shoulders in, their upper body and arms, create the movement back, create the movement down and before you know it , you haven’t got a swing, you’ve got a hit.”

If you find exhibit A on your glove, Leadbetter now has a solution in Dubai. They come in the form of JA The Resort Golf Course’s long-serving head pro Stuart Fee who has just completed his Leadbetter Academy accreditation and former European and Asian Tour pro Yasin Ali who is part way through his.

But with so many big name coaching academies in the emirate now, what will set Jebel Ali apart?

“I’ve been doing this for a long time now so we’ve got certain protocols we follow that enable us to get to the root cause of the problem in a very short space of time,” Leadbetter said.

“I think if you’re going to play golf you should do it to the best of your ability and there is a distinct lack of understanding about how you can play this game at a higher level and fulfil your potential. So our goal really is to help people understand their game and give them a plan for future improvement as well.”

That help extends to even the youngest, budding Rafa’s, Amy’s or Olivia’s across Dubai.

“We’ve got some neat plans for starting a ‘Leadbetter Kids’ program looking at kids from a very young age which we’re starting to do all over the world now. Lots of academies work with your older juniors and your older golfers but very few really focus on the really young kids, the say, four to 10 year olds which if you can establish the passion and the seed of success at a young age, you’re going to capture them for life in some form or shape.”

Chances are, the grip will form a very significant part of any early learning at Jebel Ali.

The post David Leadbetter wants you to get a (proper) grip as he opens his first Middle East academy in Dubai appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Appropriately enough, crazy is how Ko tends to look at those who approach her wondering if she’s worried about the long-term impact of the 2017 season. “I feel like it was better than what everybody else thinks,” Ko says. “[Everyone is] like, ‘Lydia is in a slump.’ But I feel like I played solid. I’ve had a bunch of top-10s to kind of prove that theory.

True enough, Ko wrapped up the year with 11 top-10 finishes, and five top-fives. While relinquishing her No. 1 ranking after 85 straight weeks in June—and falling all the way to No. 9—she still earned $1.17 million and finished the year with a 69.864 stroke average. To many on the tour, that looks like the kind of slump they could get used to.

Appreciating, though, that the zero in the win column is something new for the 14-time tour winner with two majors, and that her ranking in greens in regulation was 26th compared to seventh and second in 2014 and 2015, Ko expanded on why the year wasn’t quite the disaster it might have appeared.

“It’s a season that obviously I learned a lot from. And I think it wasn’t the ‘game’ aspect that I learned, but the mental aspect of saying, ‘Hey, get over the bads and kind of move on.’ Confidence and patience were probably the two big keys for me this end stretch of the season.”

Her swing coach, Gary Gilchrist, stands beside Ko in her assessment of 2017. Winning, or the lack there of, is something they never have talked about since Ko replaced her former coach, David Leadbetter, with Gilchrist in December 2016. There’s been no need, insists the new instructor, given the motivation she displayed every time they talked or worked together.

But what explains the drop off? Besides changing coaches, Ko changed her equipment, leaving Callaway for PXG and putting 14 new clubs in the bag. She also changed her caddie—several times actually—eventually landing on Pete Godfrey from late April through the end of the season. About the only think Ko didn’t change was her ball. Or at least not until the season finale at Tiburon Golf Club, when she played a new Callaway offering and finished T-16.

Related: Lydia Ko opens up about all her caddie changes

“I knew it was going to be a challenge because I knew she’d struggle,” Gilchrist said. “She won five times and a major [in 2015] and four times [in 2016]—those are unbelievable years. And then she was going to change everything, so I knew, if [Ko and her family] was going to come to me and think everything is going to work out in two or three months, that wasn’t going to happen.”

When they began working together, Ko hoped to return her swing to the form she had started her pro career so successfully with in 2014 but had departed from when she and Leadbetter made swing changes in 2016. Gilchrist obliged, working with Ko to quiet her lower body during the backswing and have her clubhead fall back in line with her hands rather than allow the clubhead to drift outside. More recently, Ko has gotten away from the crisp turn going back and has a slight slide motion initiating the backswing that they’re working on.

David Cannon Seeking out Gilchrist (right) to help with her swing was among the bigger changes Ko made in 2017.

In re-learning her old swing, the most difficult challenge was the inconsistency from week to week. Where it became most alarming was her performance in major championships. A respectable T-11 at the ANA Inspiration was followed by T-59 at the KPMG Women’s PGA, T-33 at the U.S. Women’s Open and another T-59 at the Ricoh Women’s British Open. She did finish the major season on a high note, finishing third in the rain-shortened Evian Championship.

The way Ko explains it, her on-course performance had less to do with her physical game and more with the mental aspect of trying to absorb the changes while maintaining her status among the LPGA’s top players. “I think to me I wasn’t playing good because I feel like I lost confidence in myself more than everything that I had changed,” Ko said.

While there may have been moments this season where Ko struggled to have confidence in herself, Gilchrist has nothing but confidence in her preparation and work ethic, something that he believes will return Ko to regular contention on the LPGA Tour soon.

“We’ll be out working,” Gilchrist says, “out there for eight hours, and I’ll be getting tired and she’s just still walking around with her head up, still going at every shot with high energy.”

It’s funny, because you don’t really watch Ko and think of her as a high-energy person. She’s not one to throw down huge fist pumps when she makes a putt; she doesn’t show a ton of emotion in general. But if you look beyond those outward, flashy ways that some players show energy and passion, you see Ko demonstrates it in a different way. When she’s done with her round, she stays and signs every autograph—she even took the hat off her head and gave it to a young fan after her final round on Sunday at Tiburon Golf Club. She stays around to speak with the media, taking her time to be thoughtful with her answers. And then she’s off to the putting green or range to work some more.

Ko puts so much energy into the game, Gilchrist said, that the most important thing she could do for herself in the off season would be to take some time off and rest. Ko says she’s going to comply with his latest assignment, taking a full four weeks away from her clubs.

“I think it’s good obviously physically just to not be in that repetitive motion,” Ko says. “I think it’s more the mental side where you just get away from it and have some fun outside of golf.”

Though Ko’s season had uncharacteristic highs and lows, she can hold strong found a bit of her usual form at the Indy Women in Tech Championship in September, where she shot 65-64-72 in the three-round tournament to finish in second behind Lexi Thompson. A week later came her T-3 showing at Evian.

Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
While winless, Ko still had 11 top-10s in 26 starts and earned $1.17 million this past season.

“I realised, ‘Hey, patience is such a big key.’ Week in, week out, the talent doesn’t change that much, but if you feel confident and you’re out there committing to your shots, then you’re able to play the best golf you can,” Ko said. “So, Indy really helped with that. You know, obviously I would’ve loved to be the one that was the champion, but I felt like I learned a big lesson from that even outside all the results.”

With patience comes acceptance as well. Ko isn’t ever going to blow the ball by many of her competitors on tour. She averages 243 yards off the tee, ranking her 137th on tour. Instead she must be a strategist on the course, something the cerebral Ko has and should continue to excel at.

“It’s like she’s playing chess,” Gilchrist says. “She’ll outlast you.”

As Gilchrist watched from outside the ropes during Ko’s Saturday round in Naples, he insists all the pieces are there. Ko was hitting the ball well and getting comfortable. Ultimately, she needs more putts to fall.

“Golf is such a confidence game,” Ko said. “If you start making birdies or putts and playing well, it builds up. That momentum kind of carries on.”

With 187 yards in on the 18th hole of Ko’s final round of the season on Sunday, she hit her hybrid to about 12 feet. Her last putt of the season was a downhill, breaking putt on a fast green that didn’t give up many one-putts throughout the day.

It rolled in.

Ko winning again, it’s a moment waiting to happen.

The post You say Lydia Ko had a bad year in 2017? Funny, she sees it differently appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.