At the Masters, the player/coach relationship is important. And different
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The head coach of your favorite golf stars offers this: “You hear this more at Augusta than anywhere else: ‘I can’t get my distance game on the course.’
These are not pre-tournament comments. It’s what you hear after Thursday’s rounds are posted.
There is a reason for that as there is a reason for everything. The championship practice range at Augusta is about 300 yards wide, flatter than the famous club fairway behind it, with only twelve pins and target pines. On the course itself, once you’re off the tee, there are a few flat lies, lots of pine grass, greens leaning from side to side – and a nervous system in overdrive. So in that sense, the competition courses – Thursday, Friday, weekend – are on different planets.
But there is more going on at the Masters, the first Grand Slam event of the year, than anywhere else. At 4:30 on Thursday afternoon, there were six players in the classroom and six teachers. There were two players who were placed on the green with the teachers. There was another player in green, his coach behind him. As the afternoon progressed, more players came to this practice temple for a post-round session, all the last (but one) accompanied by a teacher. Every coach had a phone or tablet in hand and many players had Trackman devices that analyzed their every turn.
This is a new development, the player and the coach continue to work together after the start of the tournament. In the 1990s, you often saw Ernie Els and sometimes Tiger Woods on the range without an instructor having a tournament going on. (Every blue moon, you’ll see Els or Woods alone on the range, the caddy sending them home all day. It’s amazing to watch.) But over the past 10 or 15 years, and you see this more at Augusta intra-tournament than anywhere else, the professional golfer has gone from lonely cowboy to CEO of Team Your Name Here.
In 2015, Jordan Spieth won the Masters. In 2016, he was the third-round leader after a lackluster 73 on Saturday. He was traveling alone that week. On Saturday night, he made an emergency call to his pitching coach, Cameron McCormick, seeking help with a short rights offense. McCormick arrived Sunday morning. Whatever they were working on worked, until it didn’t. Spieth shot a 73 on Sunday and Danny Willett won by three. Over the past decade on the Augusta course, you see the player, you see the instructor and the gizmo.
“It’s probably become a real thing in the last 10 or 15 years,” Adam Scott said Thursday. He is 45 years old and has been a professional tour operator playing all over the world for 25 years. There aren’t 85 coaches this week, but someone like Pete Cowen has a bunch of guys, and I’m not just saying that [swing] coaches. There are chip coaches, putting coaches, psychologists. There are many coaches.”
But only one coach is allowed on the course with a player at Augusta and it’s always the senior swing coach. It’s good for business. The golf coach at the Masters is often out of sight, but when you’re in it’s a desirable place to be.
“The best thing is to plan everything before you get here,” said Scott, who shot a first-round 72. “I feel that most of the time when I had a coach here, they just watched and didn’t talk much. I didn’t feel well today, but I don’t think it’s bad. WHAT DO YOU THINK? ‘There is nothing wrong with it. Go hit 20 balls and come back tomorrow.’ But it seems like everyone wants to be perfect.”
Augusta National is not a course that lends itself to perfection. Things are not going well. The main game, because Augusta National, the club, sells the pursuit of perfection, but things do not go well from Thursday morning to Sunday night, for every last player.
And that’s the mental coach’s point that isn’t mentioned here – the players want to be perfect in the distance as the tournament progresses, and that’s counterproductive. The real work, the mental coach said, should be between the player and the caddy, because the player and the caddy are out there together. You can’t make a lifeline call in tournament golf.
“At the beginning of my career, there was a phase where the coach wasn’t there a lot, and I think that was good,” Scott said. “When I was 21, I didn’t know how bad golf was, I just went out and played.
“Over time, it was about taking it to the next level, more eyes on it. That’s how it worked for me, it worked well. Now I have a little bit of that. I’m talking to Trevor [Immelman] often with how I feel and my swing but I don’t have someone watching me all the time. There are categories.”
Rory McIlroy, for example. There were times in his career when his lifelong skating coach followed him every time he went to the range. Then last year, when McIlroy won the Masters. There was no mention of his team, no discussion of we did this and we did this. He and his card, Harry Diamond, were on this list. He and Diamond were 18 on Sunday night. McIlroy signed his playoff scorecard. The only signature needed was his opponent.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
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