If It Ain't Broke

The pros love to tinker, but full-blown swing changes have failed more often than they have succeeded

Colin Montgomerie felt he needed to draw the ball to conquer Augusta National

In recent history Martin Kaymer is another who's tried to change in search of a draw and, after a spell in the wilderness, has thankfully also re-found his old game. Not so Matteo Manassero, the brilliant but short-hitting Italian, who is the youngest winner of The Amateur Championship, the youngest winner on the European Tour, the first teenager to win three times and the youngest winner of the BMW PGA Championship a month after his 20th birthday. Despite such unparalleled success he has listened to all the 'experts' who said that at the highest level he had to be able to hit the ball further and is now undergoing a brutally public humiliation as he finds parts of golf courses that even the latter-day Saint Ballesteros wouldn't have recognised.

To be fair, he is being guided along the rainbow by his long time coach Alberto Binaghi and not some cocky young 'swing consultant', but whether he will ever find the pot of gold he seeks remains seriously open to doubt; apparently he currently inhabits a very dark place. There are those amongst my commentary colleagues who believe (in hushed tones, behind closed mics) that despite all his enormous talent and potential, he may be beyond repair and fit only for the recycling bin. We can only hope they are wrong. European golf desperately needs Manny and his ilk.

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Written by Julian Tutt

Photography by AFP

Click here to see the published article.

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