ATLANTA – My most valuable lesson about interviewing came while asking questions to Ben Hogan in his Fort Worth office in early 1992. My first three questions to the 79-year-old Hogan were so good that he gave no answers worth writing down. Oh-for-three and desperate because he was granting only 15 minutes, I then winged it with this: Do you miss hittiing balls?
Neon went on. Bells rang. Suddenly the man who said virtually nothing beamed and talked profusely. He talked about how he dearly missed hitting golf balls, something he loved more than anything else. He talked about there never being enough daylight for him. He talked about a deep desire to prove and disprove swing theories while digging shots out of the dirt. He talked about hitting balls into a hotel room chair to the point all the thumping led his neighbors to complain to the front desk.
The man of few words couldn’t talk enough about this one topic, his topic: Hitting a golf ball.
It dawned on me much later that the key to interviewing is hitting the interviewee where he lives, discussing the thing that makes him tick, delving into his passion.
Usually that works wonders in getting someone to open up. It certainly has with the Hogan of modern times, Vijay Singh. Like Hogan, Singh has been known as a workaholic ball beater as well as tough interview, one who doesn’t open up, someone prickly with the press.
But a couple of the best interviews I’ve ever done in golf were with Singh. We discussed his hot-button subjects, the swing and exercise and his attempts to get better with both.
At the end of his nine-victory 2004 season, Singh took his mask off and talked passionately about his desire to win on the PGA Tour when he’s 55. About stretching the standards of success for older golfers. About the fact he couldn’t “wait to go out there and compete.” About his feeling that “nobody could beat him.” About being inspired by his close friend and then-trainer, Joey Diovisalvi. He said his pal’s intense eyes inspired him during workouts. He talked about love for the trainer and for the process.
At the end of last year, when he won only once after 17 titles in 2003-05, he talked candidly with me here at East Lake about how he wasn’t as focused or committed in 2006 as in the past. He said “mental interference” and “personal problems” got in the way. He was “drained” down the stretch. His knee and hips hurt him. He said his mind wasn’t clear. He talked about distractions sapping his energy. He said he often fought and didn’t trust his swing. He said he had trouble taking his fade-producing swing from range to course.
It was terrific stuff from Singh, a man not known for opening up. But when his game is the topic, when his passion for hitting a golf ball is the subject, Singh spews forth.
It follows that I sought him out the other day, near the end of yet another season, to talk about the state of his 2007. In case you haven’t noticed, he has been in probably the worst slump since he started winning on the PGA Tour.
The numbers are stunning, really. So un-Singh-like. In his last five Tour starts, Singh has missed two cuts and has a best finish of T-56. He has shot over par in 13 of his last 16 rounds. Eight of those were 74 or higher. By comparison, Singh had only a dozen scores of 74 or higher in 100 medal rounds last year.
He won twice early in the year but then suffered ankle and elbow injuries. Then his back went out and he took a cortisone shot before the first FedEx Cup playoff event, the Barclays.
Singh, though, says the slump traces to two things: a poor takeaway and, as a result, a swing change made in late August. After missing consecutive cuts, Singh viewed videotape of his swing and discovered he was taking the club back too far outside and was in a poor position at the top. “When you do that,” he said, “you’re going against the grain coming down.”
He also saw that he was dropping the club too far inside and flipping with his hands. “You do that, you don’t know where the ball’s going,” Singh said. The problem gradually got worse and worse.
So the last three weeks he has worked on a backswing that starts more inside. And he’s tried to fix his putting. He figures he hasn’t putted well in part because he's focused so much on his swing.
You listen to him and realize even someone with Singh’s skill can become something of a mental case.
“The thoughts are creating mishits, creating doubts in my mind,” he said. "I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, but thoughts aren’t letting me do that. But when I get it right it’s better than I’ve ever hit it. It’s very good. It’s coming.
“I’m disappointed the way I’m playing, but I’m not disappointed about learning. I’ve learned a lot of good things trying to change my swing.”
Singh knows it’s not easy playing golf while changing a swing. In his case, it was particularly difficult because when he trotted the new swing out, he was paired with the game’s two top drawing cards the first two days at the Deutsche Bank Championship just before Labor Day.
There was nowhere to hide. No safe haven for experimentation.
“I got on the golf course to try it and I’m playing with Tiger (Woods) and Phil (Mickelson),” Singh said. “You know, go figure.”
That’s precisely what he’s doing on the range now, hours at a time. Trying to figure it out. Just like Hogan did.
Posted: 9/12/2007
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