When Lydia Ko first came out and started lighting up the scoreboards and beating the heck out of a lot of good players she was barely a teenager.  And I said then her swing is perfect.  It is identical to Hogan’s, Annika’s and Langer’s, she just looks different doing it then those players.  I sent her coach Guy Wilson an email and said your doing a fantastic job with her….keep it going.  Then after awhile, Horror, she said that she is leaving Guy and hooking up with David Leadbetter.  She said I have to leave because Guy does not want to move to America and I need someone with me in the states.  First of all, baloney, with a swing like hers you would only need a tune up about every 6 months and we have something called the internet and phones nowadays to stay in touch and keep working on fundamentals.   She went to Leadbetter like ALL his players because she was being handled by IMG.  I just love how he said she did not come to him because of this management group, which means she did.  Also he said and I quote “her swing is perfect, it’s like the Mona Lisa, we will not change a thing”.  And he didn’t……for a year and then he came out with this book called the A-swing.  A complete book of misinformation about how there is an alternate swing out there for all players.  And he has the gall to use Calvin Peete as his model of how good it works.  First of all he has no clue what Calvin did in the swing.  Just a little history on Calvin.  I had the opportunity to work with two of his friends Jim Dent and Leonard Thompson, a couple of great players that hit the ball farther than any one on Tour at the time.  They met Calvin, fell in love with the guy and started him in golf, gave him lessons and took him out all the time, Calvin was such a natural he was beating those two guys in 1 year!!  The rest is history, Calvin became the statistical leader in ball striking ever on the PGA Tour.

One day during an event on Tour David Leadbetter came up to Jim Dent while he was hitting balls at the range and started telling Jim that he thinks his swing is good but he can change a couple things and make it better.  Well Jim being Jim, had to have a little fun before telling him to go pound sand.  First Jim asked him as you change direction what happens first, the pull or the slide?  Well of course Leadbetter gave him the wrong answer and Jim then went on to say you need to show me and gave him a 7 iron and said hit some.  Well David went on to shanking a couple topping a couple and then hitting a couple that actually got in the air.  Jim grabbed his club back and said “you can’t show me nothing……move along”  Needless to say, Leadbetter never came up to Jim Dent ever again.

Here is Lydia taking the club back while working on the A-swing.  Just look at how poor this position is, it’s now across her, not in front of her.

Now because of the awful position halfway back she is now across the line at the top and completely out of position not to mention the twist because of it.

Now here is the resulting finish from this garbage information…..the club across her, divot going left ball going right and just a huge wipe.  THANK GOD this girl woke up with the help of her father and dumped the A-swing, David Leadbetter and his team.  While she was working on this crap I sent Guy Wilson another email and encouraged him to get a hold of her to see if she would like to come back.  He told me that he is just going to let it go and see what happens.

I sure hope she calls him and they get back together, he can fix her quickly, or she might be able to do it herself. What really makes me sick is that David Leadbetter is blaming Lydia’s father on the break up, saying that he was confusing her.  Wrong buddy, he knew that what she was working on was destroying her……I don’t even know if the guy play’s golf, but he sure knows more about the swing than this guy.

Leadbetter was run off of the PGA Tour years ago for completely destroying some of the best swings in the game.   I guess Mike Weir didn’t get the memo. He came to him with a horrible swing 5 years ago…..and it has gotten worse.  In 2003 the year he won the Masters, he damn near won two other Majors that year as well.  I used to use his swing as a model of perfection.   This picture is of him hitting balls last year, after 4 years of working with Leadbetter.  Just look at this position, huge block with the resulting left side hanging back.  The poor guy is so confused he just can’t play.  This position hurts my back just looking at it.  The sad thing is, he could be fixed in a week of hard work and make the cut this year at the Masters plus win a tournament or two before getting on the Champions tour.  If he does not get help, if he thinks he’s going to do anything but lose money on the Senior Tour, he is sorely mistaken…..those guys can still play!!!

Tiger has nothing to do with Leadbetter other than getting the same kind of bad information from a different source  Just look at this big wipe position, look familiar? Yep, this is exactly where Lydia Ko is when doing the A-swing above. That is why he can’t hang with other players on a tough course like Torrey Pines.  He would have a chance if he played a simple course like the one in Phoenix, I know they have made it a little tougher but heck even I was 5 under there 10 years ago and I get out about once a month and don’t practice much.  Yes, I made everything for once and played one tee up as well!! Anyway, this is very hard on his back so don’t be surprised if he goes down with another back injury soon if he keeps doing this.

Good luck to Michelle Wie, David has a lot more time for you now!!