It's impossible to know how long Mike Weir had been thinking about making a major change in the game that won him a major championship -- the 2003 Masters -- because he hasn't been talking about it publicly. But whether he had been coy, typically private or defensive, he decided to reveal yesterday on his website that he is changing swing coaches.
-- /Summary --> I'm heading into the off-season, an important time to accomplish goals in preparation for next season, so if a change was to be made, now was the right time, Weir said without revealing specific reasons.
Maybe the change was overdue, or maybe it wasn't necessary. Time will tell.
Weir's dramatic shift takes him from Mike Wilson, with whom he's worked since December of 1995. He'll work with Andy Plummer and Mike Bennett, who have been hot this year when it comes to helping players win. Plummer and Bennett are based in the Philadelphia area and have worked with four first-time winners this year, including Weir's former college roommate, Dean Wilson, who used to work with Wilson, and Eric Axley.
Axley, like Weir, is a left-handed golfer. The 32-year-old PGA Tour rookie has shortened his swing and moved his weight more forward while working with Plummer and Bennett. They've worked with Axley since April.
Axley said after his Texas Open win in September that he's made tremendous strides in his game since starting with Plummer and Bennett.
Weir, meanwhile, is 36 and should be in the prime of his career. Tom Kite once said that a golfer doesn't mature until he's about 35.
But Weir's best golf came in 2003, when he won the Masters and two other PGA Tour events. He also won the 2004 Nissan Open in Los Angeles, successfully defending the title he'd won the year before.
He's been off form since, especially this year.
He's had chances to win, but has faltered badly in final rounds, where his stroke average is 72.53; that's 172nd on the PGA Tour. He's not come up with the goods when he's most needed to call on his swing, which was once so reliable.
If Weir planned to release Wilson, he gave no indication of it as recently as last week. In an interview from the Chrysler Championship in Tampa, Weir said Wilson was with him and that things were looking promising.
Weir was tied for ninth place heading into the final round last week, in position to make the $150,000 or so he needed to move into the top 30 money winners and qualify for this week's season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta.
He shot 73 and slipped into a tie for 25th.
The week before, Weir was in a similarly excellent position after three rounds at the Funai Classic in Orlando. He'd shot 70-66-67, but tumbled into a tie for 30th place with 72 on Sunday.
Weir didn't want to speak yesterday about his split with Wilson, out of deference to his former coach. A representative of the management company IMG in Toronto, having just spoken with Weir, said, He's hoping [a discussion] could be closer to the start of the new season so it could be more of an emphasis on the positives in his game as a result of the new coaching rather than appear to be dumping on his old coach.
It's hard to imagine Weir dumping on Wilson in public.
That's not his style. He's a fiercely loyal person, and sometimes to his detriment. It's interesting that he's chosen to drop his swing coach.
His team also includes his caddy and friend Brennan Little, mental coach Dr. Rich Gordon and strength and conditioning coach Jeff Handler. He turned to Handler after leaving his former trainer, Janet Alexander.
Weir was working with Alexander when he won the Masters.
There's no way of predicting whether the change will help Weir. David Posen, a physician in Oakville, Ont.
, and a stress-management expert, wrote a book called Always Change a Losing Game and used golf as an example.
But change can also make a player worse. Golf's tough to master, and tour golfers are sometimes shockingly frail creatures who are susceptible to advice from many quarters.
The danger is that a golfer might completely lose his game by risking a change. It's all too easy to lose one's feel. The game can carve up a golfer just like that, and he can be gone, just like that.
Weir knows how to make a great swing. Who knows why he hasn't been making it more often? He's concluded that it's swing mechanics.
Wilson, who is based in La Quinta, Calif., couldn't be reached yesterday to comment on the change, but he has to feel hurt.
Is Weir taking a risk in making his change?
Of course he is, which isn't to say he's wrong. Bruce Lietzke, the 1978 and 1982 Canadian Open winner, who is on the Champions Tour now, provides a cautionary note.
Lietzke has never changed his swing and has stuck with one instructor, his brother Duane.
He's said that there's always news of players who change teachers and do well, but that the pro game is littered with golfers who switched and got worse and were never heard of again.
Weir's next competition will be the Grand Slam of Golf on Nov. 21 and 22 in Poipu Bay, Hawaii.
He'll tee it up against Tiger Woods, U.S. Open winner Geoff Ogilvy and Jim Furyk, the leading point-getter in this year's majors among non-winners of the championships.
Weir got in as the second best point-getter when Masters winner Phil Mickelson elected not to play.
That's a good opportunity, Weir said last week. Maybe he meant it would be a good opportunity to see how he would play under the guidance of new teachers.
He's challenged himself, he's challenged Plummer and Bennett and he's set off in a new direction, one that's both hopeful and dangerous.
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