Willett plans time out to search for his lost mojo
FOR 12 months Danny Willett has acted with commendable grace at every tour stop where journalists have gathered and asked variations on the same question: what on earth has happened to last year’s Masters champion?
to be fair, he has often asked himself the same question. At each downward turn he has tried to fall back on things that worked in the past when he has been struggling, all without success.
Now, he concedes that it might need something radical. Once this week’s US PGA Championship is out of the way, Willett will retreat to his Sheffield home and will not return to tour life until he has worked out a new way forward.
‘It might need a drastic change,’ he admitted. ‘Swing-wise, everything — I’m going to have a proper think. I don’t want to make rash decisions but quite clearly it can’t go on any longer like this.
‘After the PGA I’ve only got one tournament in six weeks and that might go as well if I don’t feel right again. At the moment, everything feels wrong.
‘My back’s not great and my brain isn’t either. I’m hitting a lot of bad shots with bad technique that cause injury. then, when you do make a decent move, it doesn’t matter because you’re so far off the pace.’
Just how far Willett is out of sync was clear last week at the Bridgestone Invitational, where he finished DFL (dead and last are the first and third words) once more.
tournaments with no halfway cut might sound nice on paper but they do serve to emphasise the scale of your problems when you finish 37 shots behind the winner, Hideki Matsuyama. Willett began 2017 rated 11th in the world but will almost certainly fall out of the all-important top 50 when the rankings are published next Monday.
Another spanner in the works has been seeing his long-time manager, Chubby Chandler, fall out with the company’s best-known client, Lee Westwood.
‘It has been unsettling, something else to chuck into the mix,’ said 29-year-old Willett. ‘I’ve seen all the speculation but nothing’s come out properly yet where I can make the right call. to be fair, it’s not making a massive difference golfwise, not when you’re finishing 76th out of 76 players.’
that dry wit might be the only thing keeping him going right now. His father Steve, a retired vicar, was with him last week, and Willett has spoken often in the past about how his dad had helped him retain his perspective in the fantasy world inhabited by top golfers.
‘I’m way past anyone being able to help me in that regard just now,’ said Willett, with a wry grin. ‘No, he appreciates how hard I work and how seriously I take it and he just wants to see me happy.’
While Jordan Spieth, the man he beat at the Masters, is the focus of attention this week with his attempt to become the youngest golfer to complete the career Grand Slam, Willett is playing almost under a sense of duty. A box to tick.
For him, the next chapter of his professional life begins in earnest once the tournament ends. Let’s hope he finds his way back.