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at the BMW PGA Championship. “It’s been a bit disappointing from where the game felt like it was before lockdown, and we put in some good work during lockdown, but it’s just not quite seemed to spark the same. I’m working hard but things just don’t seem to be matching up. We’re still doing our bits and hoping that we get a few good vibes back and we can get some results.
“It’s been relatively up and down [since winning the Masters]. There was a good amount of time down and then some nice sparks of some great things in there. It’s not been great for the last few months, but it’s not just golf, there are a lot of other things going on in the world right now.”
Major changes
Of course, winning The Masters is a life-changing accomplishment, and Willett is the first to admit not all the adjustments are positive. “The best thing is being able to call yourself a Major Champion and go back to Augusta every year for the rest of your life and be part of that amazing group of 30-odd people who are still alive that get to go to the Champion’s Dinner, and all the things that go with it are pretty amazing,” he says. “On the negative side, things changed in terms of expectations. People are obviously watching a bit more of what
you’re doing. Your life
gets opened up a bit and being able to do things under the radar wasn’t so easy for a while. It’d be interesting with where I am mentally and maturity-wise within golf now to see what would happen if I won one now and how I’d react differently. It changes everything really. It’s definitely been different.”
One of the massive positives that came along with being a Major Champion was a Ryder Cup debut later in 2016 at Hazeltine. As has often been the case for Willett, things didn’t go according to plan. Europe lost and he was defeated in all three of his matches after his brother’s incendiary anti-american column in a British magazine resulted in last-minute changes to his pairings and playing schedule. At the time, he described the experience as “really sh*t”.
Four years on, he still isn’t able to reflect on the week with any fondness. “I wasn’t feeling great, my body wasn’t great, my mind wasn’t great, my golf game wasn’t great, so it still wasn’t an amazing experience. Obviously, losing as well. Being away from home and playing in America is pretty tough anyway for rookies, and for where I was with my game and the expectations I was put under for what we’d achieved that year, things just didn’t quite marry up with how I envisioned it going. It was more disappointment on my behalf of not playing well.”
So does the 33-year-old feel like he has a score to settle in the Ryder Cup? “No, it’s one of them where you just want to go there playing well. All you want is to go there fully fit and playing the game that you can play that got you into it, because you’ve got to have been playing some great golf to get in the Ryder Cup. Hopefully you continue that form. We’re going to work as hard as we can in the hope that we can get some results and be part of that team [in 2021].”
A new start
The physical discomfort at the Ryder Cup was a warning sign and his back continued to deteriorate, ultimately casing the loss of form. “I was on a lot of painkillers and on the physio bench two or three hours
every day, so I couldn’t hit loads of balls and practise how I wanted to,” Willett reveals. “Travel was difficult – I was travelling a lot because I was a Major Champion trying to play around the world. I didn’t really take any time out for myself to get myself correct. I got pulled from pillar to post and I played a good bit, and then the injuries got worse and I started playing badly.
“That puts more pressure on things and stress comes in, so it was just a big old spiral, really. It took something pretty drastic, like the downturn in form that we had, to get rid of everything that we were doing and start again. It’s been an interesting journey the last two-and-a-half years.”
A big part of that journey was employing Sean Foley as his swing coach and Kevin Duffy as a strength and conditioning coach. “The big thing was to get my body right with Kevin and try to create a swing and do some movement stuff around that, so I wasn’t going to keep injuring myself. It feels like I changed a lot. I look at swings and there is a big difference in the move. There were obviously a lot of good things that I was doing before, but the body couldn’t handle what I was doing. It’s more of a fluid movement now.”
The changes have brought their rewards. He won the DP World Tour Championship at the end of 2018 to jump back into the top 100 in the world and regained his place in the top 50 with his impressive triumph in the European Tour’s flagship event at Wentworth last September.
Fine margins
Perhaps no other player in recent years has experienced the extremes of highs and lows that Willett has. We often hear about how fine the margins between success and failure are in elite sport, but does that ring true when you’re in those situations? “They don’t feel very fine at times, but I imagine they probably are. You look at the difference in a couple of putts or shots here and there that could go differently, and the margins look really close. But unfortunately, when you’re in those moments it feels worlds apart,” he admits.
“That’s the difficulty, realising what’s good and what’s bad, what you need to work on and trying not to get too caught up in things that you don’t need to. That’s easier said than done at times, when you’re putting the work in and things aren’t going your way.”
Sadly, it seems Willett is once again in one of those times, coming into Wentworth off the back of five consecutive missed cuts. Although he did finish tied-4th at the Rocket Mortgage Classic on the PGA Tour in July. Despite this run, he refuses to blame the pandemic and instead chooses to focus on the positives.
“I don’t think you can ever tell if lockdown stopped my momentum. I don’t think anyone can say ‘I was playing great before but didn’t play great after’, like that would make a difference. We’re in very different times right now with how everyone is having to lead their lives, away from tournaments and at tournaments with no fans. Things are just different,” he says.
“I think lockdown was really good for being at home and seeing the kids grow up at such a good age. We had more than 12 weeks in the States where we didn’t see any family or friends, so it was just me, Nic [his wife] and the boys at the house. It was different, but it was amazing to go through everyday life and see the kids grow and develop. They learned how to ride their bikes and swim in that time, all sorts of different things that usually we would miss being on the road so much. It was really nice.”
Back to business
If any golfer knows how to regain form, it’s Willett, and while he enjoyed spending that time with his family, he’s grateful for the opportunity to be back out competing again – even without fans in attendance. “It’s been strange,” he says. “Obviously, it’s very different for us. It’s like playing a practice round back at home with the lads. But you’re trying to then get into the mindset that you’re playing for a hell of a lot of world ranking points and money. It does feel a little bit flat at times. But like I said, we’re in very different times and we’re really fortunate to be playing still, doing our jobs and competing.”
Willett is excited about visiting the locations of his biggest wins in the coming months – Wentworth and Augusta before you’re reading this, Dubai in December and Augusta again in April. With one Major already tucked away, he knows how good he can be. He’s doing all he can to get back to the top of his game.
“I’m just trying to do my work, day-in and day-out, and trying to get as good as I can and get back to a place where the game is competitive. I’m looking forward to the journey of playing as well as possible and seeing where I can get to. I got to ninth in the world before and I think my good golf is better now than it was then. We’ve just got to get the stuff that’s not so good a bit better and take a few things on board and you never know.”
Danny Willett’s career has already been one hell of a ride
– and it’s far from being over. You never know, indeed.
“The best thing is being able to call yourself a Major Champion and go back to Augusta every year”
ecords, as they say, are there to be broken. One day, someone will go lower than Jim Furyk’s 58; Matteo Manassero won’t remain the youngest ever winner on the European Tour forever; and Seve’s 50 victories will be bettered… eventually. Other records appear insurmountable. It’s inconceivable that someone will ever spend a longer period on top of the world than Tiger Woods, just as it is that anyone will come close to occupying the 26 consecutive years Phil Mickelson spent inside the world’s top 50.
In part, it’s because the game has changed. These records are truly mind-boggling, but in the modern era, where the strength in depth throughout the game is so much greater, it’s hard to imagine any player dominating for an extended period of time. Consistency is a factor, too. The greats have all encountered their own struggles – be it technical ones, injuries or testing times away from the course – yet somehow maintained their performance levels.
Many of Woods’ records appear impenetrable; he’s left an indelible impression on the record books: 18 World Golf Championship victories, 82 PGA Tour titles (tied with Sam Snead) and 52 straight rounds of par or better. When he calls it quits, will we ever again witness such remarkable consistency?
Never is a long time, but here are seven records that, well… let’s just say they’ll still be talking about a hundred years from now…