Tony Manzoni Is Not Keeping Secrets

When it comes to the golf swing, good secrets are hard to keep. Ben Hogan was said to have known the ultimate secret, but there's little evidence that he really knew one at all. In fact, he sold a very not so secret-secret to Life magazine way back in 1955 and then led the golf world along to the existence of others up until the late 1980s, when he gave his final interviews.

The problem with golf secrets is that no matter how well suited they may be to one player, they are likely just as unsuited to the next. Once you've been around this game long enough you come to realize that it is very difficult to come up with a genuine principle, something that is true for all players at every level.

Quite by accident, I met a man who has developed just such a fundamental. He's a one time PGA tour player who has been the golf coach at College of the Desert for the last decade. His teams are always formidable and he was named Foothill Conference Coach of the Year in 2004.

About a year ago, while visiting the desert, I picked up a local desert golf magazine that had an article on Tony Manzoni that alluded to his swing theory. The article was pretty sparse, and didn't really get to the essence of what Manzoni was saying, but there was just enough there to pique my interest.

So, I decided to drop him an email, not really expecting to hear back. To my surprise, I did hear back and Manzoni was happy to describe what he had learned about the swing in painstaking detail. Here is the biggest secret: The weight shift almost universally associated with the back swing is useless and while some players do employ one, it only makes the swing that much harder and predicated on precise timing than it needs to be. The key for Manzoni is to simplify the back swing by eliminating the pivot, or shift, which is necessitated by any moving of weight onto the back foot. Simple. But, simple doesn't mean easy.

Manzoni and I kept up our correspondence and finally decided to work on a book together. Now, I love reading golf instructional books. There's something simultaneously funny and sad about the millions of words being devoted to a physical process that lasts less than 2 seconds. With the handicap of the average American golfer unchanged over the last half century I state unequivocally that most golf instructional books are not worth the paper they're printed on. That said, I truly believe that Tony Manzoni has something to offer and am honored to be a small part of it.

You would think that after spending hundreds of hours editing Manzoni's work I would have long since embraced his technique. But, I found it more important to deal with it primarily as an editing challenge and actively avoided applying his method to my game. As confident as I was that Manzoni was right, I was so focused on making certain that he said what he had to say in the best possible way that I really didn't have to time to try it for myself.

But, now I have and the results have been quite rewarding. When I was in high school I tore some ligaments in my right knee playing football. I had to wear a plaster cast that went from just above my ankle to the middle of my thigh for 8 weeks. Fun. One day I went with my father to the local driving range and though I started out just watching him, I quickly got bored and started to hit a few balls myself.

The fact that I couldn't bend my right knee, and that I was hesitant to put very much weight on it, created some interesting sensations. It was as if the club had to rotate more directly behind me on the back swing rather than backward on the ball line. Then, as the club moved forward it seemed as if my stance was much more solid than it was when both of my legs were healthy. Best of all, I was crushing the ball. No matter how hard I went at the ball it just flew straight, with maybe just a hint of fade right at the end.

It was a sense and a ball flight that I had not experienced before but am finding myself enjoying again after all these years. Though I am sure that mere minutes after reading this Tony Manzoni will be on the phone telling me that I didn't quite get it right, here's how it works and feels to me:

So far, I am getting the most benefit when hitting driver. I make my stance just a touch wider than usual and set my right leg almost straight at address. This helps me to keep my weight forward (actually centered) as the club moves back. The most critical point and sense is that of the right side almost pushing forward from the knee (really, it's only resisting rearward movement). It feels like my weight wants to go onto my right side but the angle of the right knee keeps the weight more toward the center of my stance. That helps creates the feeling of the swing being centered on a stationary axis that is solidly grounded. When I do it correctly, my right leg feels rather like a stake that's driven into the ground at an angle that prevents the center of the swing from moving as the club moves rearward. The result? Long and straight. Sometimes. Remember that we are still talking about my game.

There's nothing easier than making a process more complicated. I fear that most of the millions of words written about the golf swing have done exactly that. A simple, instinctive process, a swing, has become something to be studied rather than enjoyed. It's true that Tony Manzoni's upcoming book will add a few more words to all of those already written about the golf swing. Still, I have every confidence that his will make the game easier and more enjoyable for players around the world.

It's been a lot of fun being a part of it.

The Masters That Got In The Way

Too bad the 2009 Masters got in the way of The Phil and Tiger show. It would have been fun to have forgotten all about Kenny Perry and send those two back on the course for Sudden Death. Talk about what the fans really want to see.

It was heartening to see Angel Cabrera pull it off, a little sad to watch Chad Campbell bow out of the playoff by missing a relatively easy par putt and more than a little gratifying to know that Kenny Perry is still without a major. Anyone who passes on playing in majors (the 2007 British Open), or even worse who won't even attempt to qualify for the US Open, really doesn't deserve the kind of career capper that a win at Augusta would create. Since we're both the same age, Perry will get no sympathy from me when he says that this was likely his last chance to win a major. There's just a bit too much quit in that sentiment...

Angel Cabrera is much easier to like. He has that kind of old fashioned, home made looking but monstrously powerful swing that almost makes you feel sorry for the ball. His game is delightfully loose, but not as prone to outright disaster as Mickelson's. He now seems to have the majors figured out and it would not surprise me at all to see him win more of them, maybe even this year. Best of all, his win must have been an especially soothing one for his countryman, Roberto De Vincenzo.

I am convinced that the Phil Mickelson we saw on the front nine Sunday was the very best of him that we'll see for quite some time. I am equally convinced that the weaknesses that created his tee shot on 12, and those short missed putts, will remain all too common. Phil, it seems, will always be Phil.

Tiger Woods was obviously fighting his swing and his amazing capacity to adjust on the fly and play with what he called his band-aid swing is an ability known only to him. His failings flow only from a lack of competitive play and I am sure that by the time the US Open rolls around he'll be very different player.

The kinder gentler Augusta National didn't quite do its job this year. There were more roars but fewer of the groans caused by tragic and watery misses at 13, 15 and 16. The roars only mean something if there is just as much ignominy as glory. Still, 12 under seems like a reasonable winning score though all those red numbers just have me looking forward to the blood-letting that will be the US Open.

Now that's a major championship.

It's Time

It's time to wake up, time to really start the golf season. Oh sure, there have been a few tournaments and Tiger Woods has even done one of his now long patented make a birdie on 18 to win Arnie's tournament at Bay Hill. The LPGA even has their first major under the belt, you know, the one that so and so just won.

So and so? Of course I know that the Dinah (sorry, The Kraft Nabisco) was won by Brittany Lincicome. She's one of my favorite players on the LPGA Tour. Lincicome's major win is just the latest example to the oh so well funded Camp Wie of just how far she has been left behind. Still, as important as the win is for Lincicome it didn't quite kick-start the season for me, but this weekend will.

For my money, the only real majors are the US and British Opens. The PGA, with its warm and fuzzy inclusion of the club pros and the sometimes comedic choice of venue (can you say, Valhalla?), isn't even on par with a WGC event. The Masters lives on the laurels of Spring, marvelous TV coverage and legend. Still, I find the Masters to be at something of a crossroads.

Why? Simply put, the 2009 Masters will be the place where Tiger Woods either plants his flag of dominance yet again, crushing the hopes and dreams of the rank and file tour players (defending champion Trevor Immelman, included), or he swings open the door to those very same players.

That open door would well suit this economic era. Your 401K is probably worth about 30% of what it used to be worth and your interest in professional golf will be missing about 70% of its vigor, too. Tiger has insulated us and the tour from reality for so long, but I'm just not sure that even he can keep it up. Time may have finally caught up with him in the very same way that it caught up with the economy.

Is this a stretch? Maybe. But, consider how a non-Tiger dominated season would affect the interest of tour sponsors, especially during this economy. The term is malaise, and golf is slow enough as it is. This Masters season reminds me of just how much we have come to rely on Tiger Woods to keep the men's game vital. As I have said again and again, in his 12 years on tour there's been no other player to arrive on tour to generate the kind of appeal that he does. There is no Tom Watson to this Jack Nicklaus, not even a Johnny Miller.

Me? I'm looking for Tiger to replant his flag, but am afraid that he may just leave the door open just wide enough that an interloper may start the season off with a yawn.

2009 Preview

It's not hard to look ahead to 2009 and see some significant question marks. Golf is a trickle-down game, in a lot respects, and it will be interesting to see how the economic tumult of the last part of 2008 affects 2009 on the links. The first question is just how much will Tiger Woods play? My guess is that he'll play a little more than most of us expect but less than the tour needs. For the last dozen years, the tour (all of the tours, in fact) have hitched a ride on Woods' glory train. Every too well funded tour, underachieving player (again, on every tour) owes over half his earning to Woods, and that's more than a little scary.

If the tour continues to function to Tiger Woods as the Washington Generals do for the Harlem Globetrotters it's going to start getting hard to find sponsors for events where Woods is not likely to play. The CEOs of all those federally bailed-out insurance companies that used to prop up the tour will be far too busy hiding the way they're spending all that tax payer cash and making sure they can still upgrade to a Gulfstream G650 this year to worry about dumping money into the tour's coffers.

And then what? Well, maybe this will actually be a good thing. Maybe golf is really not as important as we imagined. Maybe the tour is really less relevant to the world, and even to the golf world, than we thought. Maybe a downsizing of the tour would really be the best thing and 2009 will be the year that it happens. It's all up to Woods.

The Living Legacy of Ballesteros

A long retired Seve Ballesteros is gravely ill, far too ill for a man so little past 50. But, illness doesn't always respect relative youth and it never respects life. As we face the possibility of losing Ballesteros, it's right to reflect on what his style as a player has meant to the game.

For those of you who aren't old enough, his was a game of daring. He knew his true masterpiece was the totality of his game not the individual victories. In his prime, he was an artist who didn't fear the occasional missed brush stroke or smudge on his canvas. In the end, he became lost in a maze of his own creation, a man who embodied Bruce Springsteen's darkest proclamation:

God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of...

Watching Seve walk down the stairs from his inspired heights to his personal basement of doubt was very hard. He grasped blindly at theory after theory, seeking to restore his art with an alchemy of bad science and he failed.

But he can still teach us all. American players have the most to learn for their worship at the alter of technology and science is far more devout than that of the Europeans, at least for now. The Europeans have the most to lose. Right now, it is that tour that is producing the more interesting players but if they make the mistake of blindly following the sorry path of the technically correct to the exclusion of all else pro golfer, they run the risk of losing their golfing souls as well. They can start by not fleeing their home continent to live in Florida, but I digress.

Seve's lesson? Play. Take a chance. Celebrate the uniqueness of your game. Let go of the belief in the one right way, small world, view of the game.

In fact, take it a step further and apply Seve's Lesson to your entire life...

A Good Score Would Have Solved Everything

Nothing could do more to get me back to my blog than the non-surprise of Michelle Wie accepting another sponsor's exemption to Reno-Tahoe. She may be unrealistic but Wie does know how to pick an event. With the real tour players at the WGC event in Akron, Ohio Wie faced a field that gave her some kind of shot of making her first cut in 8 attempts on the PGA Tour. Alas, Wie fell short. Happily, though, she said that she learned alot so I guess it was all worth it.

Where Tiger Woods succeeded in bringing fans of other sports to golf Michelle Wie succeeds largely in bringing fans of no sports to the golf events where she shows up. Think about it. Every Wie-Fan at Reno-Tahoe was not at home watching the Women's British Open. They choose to cheer for one young woman rather than women's golf as a whole.

I think that fact says more about Michelle Wie than it does even about her fans. Rather than suffer the potential ignominy of failing to qualify for the Women's British, she choose the road to easy adulation. She is the only player on the planet who thinks that the PGA Tour is a great place to work on your game while going to college. The problem is that there are just enough decidedly minor events on the tour calender to assure that this dubious path will continue for as long as she cares to walk it.

Perhaps Wie would be wise to create a Michelle Wie Tour to showcase her now stagnating talents to her rapt audience? That would get her off the pesky hook of qualifying for whatever tour she most aspires to and would even put her in the Ka-Ching Friendly position to accept some fat appearance fees to augment her meager earnings (from playing, at least).

The real question is just what is Wie's point? Is she into learning to play at the highest level possible? If that were the case, she would have been wise to maintain her amateur status and do a couple years of college golf before taking the LPGA Tour by storm. A guy named Woods followed that plan and it has worked out fairly well for him. If she wants to play against the men, she's free to head to Q-School and take her shot. If she's already truly a professional in her head, why not give up the Stanford pretense and head to the LPGA Q-School?

For a person who said that a good score will solve everything, Michelle Wie would appear to be distinctly uninterested in doing the work to post a good score on any tour.

My Two Minutes with Monty

Of course, I have to start out by saying that I have always wanted to heckle Colin Montgomery. I am almost embarrassed to admit that, but not quite. The man who has been called Mrs Doubtfire by a fellow member of the European Tour is simply the perfect target of derision and sarcasm. Now that he and I are both getting a little older I became concerned that I might never get the chance or, worse, that he would suddenly become a mature adult.

I needn't have worried.

I went to the US Open on Friday and once the course started to get crowded I set out in search of interesting groups, but ones that may not be around for the weekend. Monty, David Toms and Rory Sabbatini were together and Rory was putting a nice round together. I saw them tee off on a par 4 and Sabbatini put the ball in the deep rough with his 3 wood. It was a nasty lie and the marshalls had to drop the yellow gallery rope to give him a free swipe at it. All the while, Monty stood with a borderline glare on his always less than sanguine face. Once Sabbatini hit, the marshall made the mistake of taking no more than 20 seconds getting the steel rods that support the yellow rope back in place. Monty's semi-glare bloomed into the full Montyesque glare that we have always hoped he reserved for the most vociferous and inebriated hecklers.

The marshall was just about done when Monty finally shakes his head ruefully and then calls out, "OK, laddie. That's fine. You've done enough. You're done." The guy looked up, and knowing that the rod was still not in place, meekly held it up while Monty addressed his approach. Once he a hit, I could not help but say, "Wow, only two minutes with Monty and he's already been an asshole to a volunteer. Is that a record?" With that, another guy calls out, "Hey Monty. Have a safe trip home."

Now, this was really pretty funny. It really made the trip to Torrey worth it al by itself. But after a while I began to reflect on a professional athlete who needed to behave this way despite his talent, wealth and age. The man simply cannot be all there. His expression was one that shifted from bemusement to outright annoyance. He would talk to Toms and Sabbatini, but would never look at anyone in the decidedly laid back SoCal gallery.

Golf has always had its share of jerks and surely not all of them have been found inside the ropes. The problem is that Monty pretty much seems to have given up. He's definitely given up on being the kind of player that the golf lovers of the world would like him to be. But, it seems that he has also given up on his physical condition and the best parts of his game. Sure, he was 10 over but so was most of the field. It was no excuse for his attitude or his uninspired, John Daly After a Bender style of play.

In the end, I was almost sorry to have seen Monty. I would have rather lived having never watched him play in person than to have my darkest suspicions about his character confirmed so quickly and so totally.

You almost have to pity the guy, but not quite.