By ALISTAIR TAIT
Senior Writer
VIRGINIA WATER, England – Baseball fans quiver whenever they hear their star fastball pitcher working on a forkball. It sometimes signals rapid decline.
Ernie Els’ fans hope the golfing equivalent doesn’t apply to their man.
Els will tee it up in the BMW PGA Championship hoping that recent swing changes finally can bring him success in the PGA European Tour’s flagship event.
The South African recently changed swing coaches when he left longtime tutor David Leadbetter in favor of Butch Harmon. Els won the Honda Classic in March, but hasn’t played anywhere near that potential since.
“I got a little bent out of shape,” Els said. “I got into really bad habits. My ball positioning went out. My alignment went out. My swing got really very loose and very long.
“I played like a 7-handicapper for a good two, three weeks. I needed to change.”
Els missed the cut at the PODS Championship and then finished 75th in the WGC-CA Championship (74-75-73-74). That’s when he decided it was time to seek fresh advice.
But it wasn’t easy.
“David Leadbetter is a great friend of mine,” Els said. “We’ve worked together for 18 years. It’s very tough to tell David Leadbetter ‘I want to listen to somebody else for a while. Let me go a different direction.’ ”
Els has known Harmon since the coach helped Greg Norman to prominence. Plus, Els decided Harmon was the man to help him out of the doldrums.
“I saw what Butch has done with Adam Scott,” he said. “I think he’s got probably the best swing in golf right now.
“He’s got a pretty good track record.”
Els is trying to find his way back to the top with the help of some swing aids.
“We’ve got some tools now,” he said. “It’s just little white sticks that we put on the ground and check my body alignment, my ball to target alignment. I’ve got a little thing you strap onto your right arm to shorten the backswing a little bit with a full shoulder turn.”
Whether the changes will be embedded deep enough for Els to contend here at Wentworth is a moot point. Certainly the South African didn’t exactly hint at a runaway victory.
“It still feels a little uncomfortable now and again, but I’m a lot better than I have been,” said Els, who is coming off a T-6 at The Players Championship.
Els has a home at Wentworth and is a member of the exclusive club. It’s a mystery to Els’ fans that he has managed to win seven World Match Play titles around the par-72, 7,320-yard West Course, but not the Tour’s flagship event.
Els had three second-places finishes here in the 1990s, and three other top 10s. However, in the last three years he has finished T-39, T-19 and T-24.
With the exception of Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter, the European Tour elite is on show this week to contend for the first-place check of 750,000 euros.
• • •
Alistair Tait is a
Golfweek senior writer. To reach him e-mail
atait@golfweek.com.
Posted: 5/21/2008
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