DANNY WILLETT

THE 2016 Masters champion has had a tough time since his maiden major victory but here he tells us why he’s hoping a change of coach and swing will prolong his career and get him back in the winner’s circle.

1

Is it fair to say things haven’t quite gone to plan since the Masters in 2016? Yeah, I’d say it’s been very on and off. There have been a good few changes going on within the camp and I’ve started working with Sean Foley as my swing coach. Why Sean? Well, because when I wasn’t swinging well I started looking for answers. I ended up watching YouTube videos of other players’ swings that I liked and I came to the conclusion that the things that Sean Foley was doing would be a good fit for me, both professionally and personally.

2

What have you learnt from the challenges you’ve faced? I got to the stage at the end of 2016 where I just didn’t want to be playing golf, which was ridiculous. So it has been hard but I think I’ll end up being better for having gone through the last 12 months. You end up being a better player, you know yourself better and you know not to take it too much to heart if you go through a good spell or a bad spell. Golf is a strange sport because when you’re playing well, it seems very easy but when you’re struggling it feels like all the time on the range makes no difference out on the course. That can be a hard challenge to deal with mentally, especially when you’re travelling week-to-week and trying to find that form against some of the best players and toughest courses in the world.

But things can turn around pretty quickly anyway. In the long run, I feel like it will help.

3

Where do you feel your game is right now? We’re going through a lot of changes. Practicing feels pretty good but then you go to the golf course and you’re obviously trying to implement the changes on the course and it’s very tricky at times because it feels very, very different. It’s just that one of trying to get things bedded in in tournament play, which is why I’ve played a lot of events in the last few months.

4

How difficult is it to make the decision to change coaches and change your swing when you’ve won a major doing it the previous way? There’s always going to be a spell where you play worse but we’ve done a lot of work with Foley and I think the benefits are that I’m going to elongate my career because my body will hold up better under the new things we’re doing. That was one of the main reasons why we did what we did. We’ll just have to wait and see how it will pan out. No one’s got a crystal ball and no one can guarantee it, but it feels less strenuous within how the back works from what we’ve felt so far, which is what we were going for.

5

What have you changed within your swing? It’s a funny one because what I feel I’m doing is very different and what you actually see on a video is very minimal. I’ve played this game for a lot of years now and when other people are watching they can’t always see what you’re doing, but for me, it feels like I’m changing the world. We’re trying to get a lot more rotation and depth in the hips and get the arm plane a bit deeper into the body to make sure it all stays together a little easier. For a long time I had a tendency to pick it up a little bit and then hit a bit of a slash cut. Obviously, there’s no denying it has worked fantastically well but it’s the strain you put on your body with minimal rotation in the lower half meaning that all the movement had to come from the upper half and that’s where the back troubles came from. We hope it means we can elongate the career because I’m only 30 and there’s still a lot of golf to be played. I want to compete at the top level for the next 20-odd years.

I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT THE THINGS THAT SEAN FOLEY WAS DOING WOULD BE A GOOD FIT FOR ME.