At the top of his game - Interview with David Leadbetter

First things first: how much did you see of the Ryder Cup?
Quite a bit, actually. It was fascinating. From a European perspective the match was a lot closer than the score line ultimately suggested, too. For a moment there on Sunday it was on a knife-edge. Once the game was decided, with Jim Furyk closing out Miguel Angel Jimenez 2&1, the remaining matches on the course were essentially meaningless, so the true score can never really be established. But the US team was irresistible. At the K Club it looked like the Europeans holed every putt they looked at while the USA missed. In Valhalla it was the other way around. It's funny the way the momentum can build in a Ryder Cup – there's a sort of karma that infuses a side, and once it gets started it's tough to resist.

It won't surprise you to learn that Nick is taking a lot of flak on this side of the Atlantic. What did you make of his performance?
Nick is a loner, that's the way he does things. We all know that. He made it clear that he didn't want a string of lieutenants, and I guess certain criticisms could be levelled at simply not having enough pairs of eyes on the course – but I didn't hear of too much grumbling from the players. But the explanation is actually pretty simple: the Europeans were out-played, and there's not much a captain can do about that. Things got off on the wrong foot with the ‘sandwich list' debacle – the element of surprise was gone. Six months down the road it will all be forgotten. It would have been very interesting had it come down to the last few matches on Sunday. It's easy with hindsight to say that Nick should have put stronger players out earlier, but then again you expect Sergio Garcia to rise to the occasion – which he's always done before. Europe's so-called stalwarts – Westwood, Harrington and Garcia – all played poorly by their standards and barely scraped a point between them. Ian Poulter and Justin Rose combined for more than half the points. At the end of it all I don't think it would have mattered who was captain given the way the US played – the pendulum was ultimately going to swing back in favour of the US and, unfortunately for Nick, it was this year.

Did the US team play better as a team because of the fact Tiger was absent?
As a bunch they certainly seemed a lot more inspired than they have before. Paul Azinger did a great job in that regard. It may sound silly to say this but people like Phil Mickelson and Justin Leonard, and one or two other players who you might regard as the veterans of the US side, they all stood up to the plate – maybe they felt able to do that a little easier with Tiger. When Tiger is on the team Tiger is the leader of the team. Some of the others may find that hard to deal with. Whatever the reasons, the US responded this year. It's good for the Ryder Cup – Seve got his wish!

Q. This season will be remembered for Tiger's performance at Torrey Pines and his enforced absence thereafter. As a coach, what's your assessment of the injury and did you see this coming?
I think we all knew that Tiger has a history of a left knee problem – by all accounts that was one of the reasons he wanted to change his swing. Certainly the way he extended it and ‘locked' that knee through impact, with the amount of force being applied, he really was doing a number on it over a period of time. I remember seeing Tiger when he was just 16 or so and even then he was locking the left leg the way a lot of long hitters do. As we continue learning about biomechanics and injury prevention, strengthening that area is something we will see more players doing. It's a pretty serious injury. Ernie [Els] had a similar operation where you take a part of the hamstring and implant it into the joint to replace the tendon within the joint. The danger is that it becomes a mental battle – always that niggle at the back of your mind. But Tiger's a different animal. He has such a strong mind that in all probability we will see him come back and move to a new level in his career. All this time off will get him thinking about the game and fresh for the challenge ahead.

Q. Do you think Tiger will come back stronger or is there a real danger that we have seen the best of him?
You'd put nothing beyond Tiger. The guy's a freak of nature. He's still a young man and the great thing about him is that when you look at his career, he hasn't overplayed. He paces himself well, plays a minimal amount of tournaments, he's a well-rounded individual and has other things in his life. He hasn't taken the approach he has to work at golf 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year. I don't think it will take long before he gets right back on track and be as good – if not better – than ever.

Q. What has impressed you most with the way Hank Haney has worked on changing Tiger's swing, and what has he to do now to protect the knee?
Any coach/player relationship is a marriage of sorts, it requires a certain chemistry. Hank has an inquisitive mind and he has a lot of knowledge about what he feels makes the swing tick, and obviously he gets on well with Tiger – not only on an instructional level but on a personal level, which is very important. Obviously he's done a great job. I feel he has given Tiger an understanding of clubface awareness during his swing – as you would expect as Haney is a devotee of Ben Hogan. But whatever we might believe about Hank Haney's theories, the fact is that Tiger makes it work. Going forward, my understanding is they are working on trying to eliminate a lot of the excessive locking out of the left leg that I talked about a moment ago, and I expect to see more softness in the left knee, keeping the flex through the hitting area. But you know, when you go as hard as Tiger does, at times it's hard to retain that flex. The golf swing is an evolution anyway and so who's to say that there might not be a new phase. Hank and Tiger are continually ‘tweaking', as Nick Faldo might say.

Q. Would the fact that you have not had the opportunity to work with Tiger be one of your regrets in a career that has seen you work with the majority of the game's top-ranked players over the last 20 years?
Not really. I did give him that brief lesson when he was 16. Tiger had won the US Junior, I think, and Arnold Palmer invited him to play at Bay Hill. His father asked me to take a look. Tiger was having some problems with a big hook. I went over and spent an hour with him and gave my opinion. Here was a very skinny kid with explosive speed. He was hooking his wedge shots, which actually takes some doing. He had that look about him, that focus that set him apart.

Q. Has Tiger's swing or method over the last 10 years influenced your own thinking on the swing and your approach to teaching good players?
No, I wouldn't say so directly. What is his method, anyway? It's a very athletic movement, that's for sure, and there's no question that Tiger's style of play has attracted more and more active athletic-type players into the sport. The emphasis now is on keeping fit, working out and so on – that's the evolution I mentioned a moment ago. Equipment changes have been huge, too, don't forget. That's what enables Tiger to do what he does. He has influenced a whole new generation of golfers and he is a great role model. But his has not influenced my teaching. As a coach or teacher a lot of things influence you. I would say, though, that my teaching has been influenced by the fact that if you are going to succeed in this day and age of professional golf, then just like Tiger you need to be an athlete, have a great work ethic and be extremely fit. I believe Lee Westwood, for example, is benefitting from this approach

Q. Looking back, do you feel that the ‘Leadbetter Method', as it became known, was perhaps a little too heavily associated with Faldo's swing change and do you feel the public at large have a one-dimensional view of you as a fairly mechanical coach?
That was around 20 years ago, and if anything it's more apropos today, because people are more technical. All coaches are looking at video cameras and using computer models to analyse a player's technique. We actually relied much more on feel 20 years ago. You could say the book Ben Hogan brought out 50 years ago was way ahead of its time – The Modern Fundamentals of Golf provided a fascinating insight into Hogan's quite analytical and mechanical approach to the game. You have to have some benchmark or reference points. People often ask me how I would change my original book, The Golf Swing, but in many respects it's still very much the way I think about the swing today – what the body is doing, what the arms are doing and so on. The way forward is a greater understanding of biomechanics and how that information helps us develop a person's strengths and weaknesses to a point where they really can reach their potential to play their best golf.

Q. Is there a danger that golfers – and I'm including amateurs along with the pros here – can get too technical and lose touch with the art of the game?
That is certainly a danger. When I was out there full time with Faldo et al, what, there might have been two or three other full time coaches out there. Now there are as many coaches as players on the range – not just swing coaches but performance psychologists, physio's, nutritionalists and so on. It's mind blowing. I was speaking with Melissa Reid's caddie the other day – the young lady with a great future in the game who has been taken on by Clive Woodward's team – and he was telling me she has 13 people in her entourage. I mean, how do you get to that number? What's going on there has to be some sort of experiment to prove how applying the sort of regimen and training associated with Olympic athletes can work in golf. But Melissa has to be careful she doesn't get her instincts for golf trained out of her. Not everyone has that mindset. You have to strike the right balance. Golf at the highest level is still an art form and not a pure science.

Q. For most of us amateurs the time element just doesn't allow for that kind of scrutiny.
Absolutely right. These days people are just too busy. Gone are the days when you could sneak off for a couple of hours practice without anyone knowing where you are. These days everyone knows your whereabouts. My improvement as a teacher over the years has been in distilling the mechanics of the swing into bitesize chunks of information that the average player can understand. It doesn't worry me that I've been labelled a mechanical teacher, and there are dozens of coaches who I trained and who worked for me – many of whom write in your magazine – who have the benefits of understanding mechanics, because as a teacher if you understand the detail it makes it easier to teach it simpler. And if a teacher is sensible, he keeps that knowledge to himself and gives away a distilled version. The one to avoid is the over-enthusiastic teacher who likes to spout too much knowledge – they are likely to be detrimental to your game.

Q. What are your thoughts on the debate regarding technology in golf? Is the art of shaping the ball and controlling trajectory as big a part of your job today as it was in the 1980s?
Well, the driver has changed the way the game is played. There's no getting away from that. Being involved with Callaway and the R&D, I find it all very interesting. The modern driver may look like a fairly simple piece of kit, but if you talked to the engineers about the design and the materials involved in its production well, you are literally blown away with the technology. But the thing I have always maintained is that years ago – back in the 1980s, the Faldo era – coaching was very much based around the iron swing, and then you adapted that for the driver. And bear in mind that in those days if you found a good-looking driver, one with a half-decent sweetspot, you kept hold of it! That has all changed. Today I would say technique is based around the driver and adapted to irons. You look at the driver, the size of the head, the length of the shaft – the stability of the club is such that guys go at it really hard. The mentality is to smash it out there. There are very few short hitters on tour. Modern equipment has taken the pure artistry out of the game to some extent. The ball is spinning less, players are not required to do as much with the ball to work it, and so those skills are diminishing. Take the conditions at Birkdale, for instance, and you see where Padraig is a little old school, growing up in Ireland, he can move the ball about. I walked a few holes in practice with Greg Norman, Aaron Baddeley and Camilo Villegas and these young players were marvelling at some of the shots Greg was hitting: 5-irons from 140 yards. Wonderful shot-making and control. But a lot of that has gone out of the game. These days, if you hit it a long way and have a half-decent short game you're probably going to have some success. But I think a lot of people would like to see the artistry come back. Look at Faldo's ability to move the ball, and you just don't see that anymore. The good news though is that modern equipment is so much more user-friendly, and this makes the game much more fun for the average player.

Q. Would you say that today's equipment flatters a lot of players?
I wouldn't say flatters. Today's players are certainly bigger and stronger and have just adapted to modern equipment. Take Nick Price, my good friend and student for many years who is now a very average hitter with a driver. In his early years, the '80s and '90s, Nick was actually quite long, but what he was able to do with the old balata ball was control the spin, actually take spin off the ball so that as a result he would hit these ‘boring' shots that went a long way. But now, with balls that spin less, there is not that same advantage. So regardless of how they might be hitting it, players are not spinning the ball and losing distance/control the way they would do. They're getting more carry, more roll, and so on. It's interesting how the game has changed. In 20 years it's gone from a control game to a power game. The upside for the club player is that all this knowledge and technology has created new equipment that makes the game more playable for less talented golfers.

Q. And is there a new wave, a new generation coming along that will redefine the way the game is played?
Well, try this on. We have two boys coming up through the DLGA in Orlando who generate ball speed of 200mph. Toby and Gipper Finau are brothers, with a father from Tonga, mother from Samoa. They are indirectly related to Jonah Lomu [the near-legendary New Zealand rugby player]. Aged 17 and 18, these guys generate ball speed of over 200mph, fly it up to 350 yards through the air. There's a clip of them on YouTube. It's just a joke how far they hit it. Callaway send them drivers to test because their robots just cannot swing it as fast as these boys can. Toby, the older brother, played in the Milwaukee Open last year and hit it on or through eight par-fours during the week. So you look at the game and say, ‘Where's it all going to end?'

Q. So what's your take on this? Should equipment be regulated? Should there be a uniform golf ball, as Jack Nicklaus has suggested?
It's a tough question. For the sake of preserving the great golf courses of the world and maintaining at least a little integrity in terms of shot-making skill, there probably needs to be a separate set of rules for tour players. In other words, they are going to have to govern themselves. There's a precedent in American baseball, where the pros are not allowed to use metal bats. They have to use wooden bats, whereas kids and college players can use metal bats. Whether this will prove popular or not is another matter. Manufacturers want top players using their equipment and in turn, that's to some extent what drives the consumer. If Joe Blow, a 10-handicap amateur, is driving it further than tour players with his equipment, how's that going to work out? So it's a very difficult scenario. But remember we're talking about legislation that applies to, what, 0.0001% of golfers – tour players who play the game for a living. For everyone else the game is no easier in terms of shooting lower scores. It's still damn difficult. Average handicaps have hardly come down at all, probably because of the lack of time to practice – hence Ely Callaway's objective to make golf clubs that would make the game more enjoyable. So the Callaway ERC driver was deemed illegal a few years ago and it gave the average golfer 20 more yards – that decision made no sense to me. If we are going to make this game more popular it needs to be made easier and more enjoyable for the masses?

Q. Watching Greg Norman warm up at Birkdale on the Saturday of this year's Open was a highlight – working shots, high, low, left-to-right and vice versa, pure ball striking at its best.
Greg loves that. See, Tiger has that element about him, too. He is versatile. He is not just power. He realises that things are not always going to go to plan and in addition to plan A you need a Plan B and C, too. The trouble is, most of the up and coming young tour players only have a Plan A. If that's not working, they don't play very well. Equipment has given us this one-dimensional scenario. So it's a different mentality. I have always maintained that great players always have been and always will be great iron players. You cannot just drive it well. They all hit it long. Look at Vijay Singh a couple of years ago. He was something like 150th in driving accuracy, but led the stats in greens in regulation. Well, those two facts just don't add up – or at least they shouldn't.

Q. Ernie Els has been a long-time friend – you have coached him for nearly twenty years. Were you sad that he chose to go to Butch Harmon or was that something agreed by mutual consent?
Ernie has been frustrated with his game for the last two or three years. He hasn't played up to his standard since the knee problem after the accident. He certainly hasn't putted well over that period. But Ernie has always been a free flowing non-mechanical player. When he was living at Lake Nona I used to see him a lot – he was a neighbour. Since he left to spend more time in the UK, I have hardly seen him, apart from at the odd tournament, which is the last place I would try to make changes. When Ernie made the change to see Butch he spent the best part of a week working with him – so I jokingly said that it would have been good if we had had the time to spend three or four full days sessions on getting things to where I wants them, because we just haven't had that opportunity. But sometimes you just need a fresh approach. Butch [Harmon] is a great teacher. He's a strong character, very forceful, where I might take a more softly, softly approach. I am not the hard sale. But it does make you wonder, here's a guy who is set on ‘feel', who has played some of his best golf thinking of nothing more complicated than to keep the swing long and flowing, and now he's getting more into mechanics – shorter, wider, and so on. I heard Butch on TV the other night listing all the things they were working on, and I was thinking, hey, he didn't do all that badly with what he had going for him for a number of years. Three majors. But I'm past that point where it bothers me. I don't have anything more to prove. I have a great group of young players – Trevor Immelman and Ian Poulter and the not-so-young Greg Norman, who I spent some time with before the Open. Freddie Jacobsen was another top-20 player at Birkdale. Who knows what's around the corner.

Q. Has Ernie suffered more than most because of Tiger?
Along with Phil [Mickelson], yes, probably. Ernie was born in the wrong era. Heck, Ernie has as much natural ability as Tiger, but I've always felt with Ernie that he was conscious of Tiger being there, which in some situations maybe changed his approach. He's always been talking about Tiger, about how good he is. He has Tiger in his mind. It's the same way Faldo used to do – get in players minds. But Ernie has three majors, he's a Hall of Fame player.

Q. Can he win another major?
Yes. He definitely has another major in him. But the clock is ticking. Ernie's lifestyle is very different to Tiger's. He is blessed by all this talent but at the same time, perhaps in his early years, he may have been cursed by it. Look at the majors he won. He won two before the Tiger era and has won one since. He has it in his mind he has to work harder now, but that's hard to do. Tiger just seems to have found a unbelievable balance in his life.

Q. You were very much involved with Michelle Wie when she emerged onto the scene as a 13 year-old, and clearly she is an incredible talent. Has the way that she has been managed upset you?
I think she could have been managed a lot better, let's put it that way. There are a lot of issues with Michelle: she's a full time student, part-time player, which is a very hard thing to do. The quality of golf out there on the ladies circuit is phenomenal, particularly with the girls coming through from Korea, with the work ethic they have, it's truly amazing. How can a part-timer compete with that? The pity of it all, from my standpoint, is that Michelle is the best talent I have ever seen in women's golf. In fact, at 13 years old, she was the best talent in golf, period. Boy or girl. Her technique and the way she hit the ball was just phenomenal. But I always looked at Michelle as being a reluctant protege. I never felt she had the total passion for the game where all she wanted to do was play golf. You look around at all these other young players and that's all they want to do. That's not her MO. She wants to go to school, get educated, there are other thing she wants to do with her life. She often says she does not want to play golf past 30. And when you put all that together then maybe she doesn't have the passion to be as good as her talent. The thing that upsets me more than anything was the fact that is that in 2007, when she broke her wrist, she and her family came to the conclusion that she could play, that things would be all right, that her talent would see her through. Now here's a girl who lost probably 50% of her strength in her left arm, hadn't rehabilitated the wrist correctly, started developing swing flaws, started swinging badly, went from looking like a player who would win every tournament she entered to a girl who you knew that if she made the cut it was seen as an achievement. I thought that aspect was badly managed.

Q. Then when she does show a glimpse of form, she gets DQ'd at the State Farm Classic?
Exactly, so ridiculous you almost have to laugh about it. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Obviously it was very sad what happened at the State Farm, the excitement of it all, forgetting to sign her card. Had she won there that might have changed everything. I'm not saying she would have won but she had an excellent chance. The thing is, Michelle has to get on the LPGA Tour and mix it up more regularly with her peers. Initially I was in favour of her playing the odd event on the PGA Tour. I thought it might have built her CV as a player, help her compete and so on. But now it's at the point where she is playing in weaker field events and you just think, so what does it prove? What is the short-term gain? She has to build her self-esteem, her confidence. If she wants to be the best she has to go out and win against her peers. And who knows, in two or three years time, with a few wins under her belt, why not play the odd PGA Tour event. She hits it long enough, she is one of few ladies who has the physical skills to potentially play (which is very different to winning). In the end, she has to come on sensibly. The thing that concerns me is that she's jumping into the fire here when she's just coming around from injury. She needs to be injury free and get her love for the game back. Her major goal has to be getting her golf game in shape to compete on the LPGA Tour.

Q. When you wrote your book, ‘The Golf Swing', South Africa's David Frost was the man you chose to base the illustrations of what you clearly saw to be the model golf swing. If you were to write another similar book today, who would be your ideal role model?
I would say probably Trevor Immelman. He has a great golf swing, often compared to Ben Hogan for its compact and very athletic structure. Trevor works the ball a lot and does a lot of good things. David had a great swing, technically, but he didn't have a lot of power. Trevor has both.

Q. What's a typical working day in the life of David Leadbetter?
Well, it's a little different to what it used to be. My kids are going to the David Leadbetter Junior Academy in Bradenton, Florida, so I spend a little more time down there. Typically, my days starts at around 10, after I've worked out for an hour or so in the gym at home. There may be the odd corporate outing for Cadillac, Callaway or Rolex, and I probably go to about eight tournaments a year. We have a lot of great young junior players coming through so I spend time with them at my academy headquarters at Champions' Gate, just off I-4 West out of Orlando. I still have ideas on new books and teaching gadgets. Always thinking about the game one way or another. Having such an inquisitive mind I'm always thinking about the game in one way or another. But for the most part enjoying life and not always standing on a lesson tee from 9-to-5.

Q. And the perfect day away from golf?
A combination really. My real passion is cricket. Now in the States you can get this thing called a ‘Slingbox', so I can tune in to Sky Sports and I love cricket. All times of day. I'm a fanatic. Love watching, used to enjoy playing. That's a real relaxation for me. We have a place in the mountains in Colorado and we get out there quite often, for skiing in the winter but it's also great place to be in the summer. My eldest son, Andy, is teaching out at Mission Hills in China and loving it out there. He's working with some amazingly talented young players from China you are going to hear about. We are doing some expansion over there with the academy. So the great thing about my life is I do a lot of different things. I play a bit more than I used to, and I enjoy helping our teachers improve their teaching. Golf's just been so much a part of my life and I've been very fortunate.

Q. What goals have you yet to achieve, ambitions yet to fulfil?
I've never really been one for setting goals. People ask me, ‘How did you become such a successful teacher – did you set goals to be the best?' No, I didn't. I just sort of fell into it. I want to keep things in perspective and be happy – that's a big thing in this day and age, so maybe that's a goal. The world's a funny place to be, everything is so rushed, so busy, everything based around the almighty dollar. And while it's nice to have the money to do what you want to do, and the freedom to do it, the most important thing is the people that you meet and the relationships you make. My goal is to keep doing what I'm doing. My passion is to help people play golf, no matter what their standard. For all those who love the game, golf is such a big part of our lives, and it makes you feel good to see them play better. Some people might say, ‘All that work with Ernie, you have to be feeling a bit bitter?' I'm not bitter. That's the way it is. Life's too short. I want to see my children be successful in life and be involved around the game.

Q. Of the European players currently occupying the top spots in the world rankings, who impresses you the most?
Justin Rose was someone I worked with for a lot of years [he now works with one of David's former associates Nick Bradley] and I've always said he has the mindset to be a great player. I love working with Ian Poulter. He has such a refreshing attitude towards life and the game. You can see him him just willing himself to be successful. He might not be greatest technician, but he has the ability to make things happen. But there are so many good young European players it's exciting to see. Look down the rankings between here and the States and it's no comparison. If there was a Ryder Cup match between players under the age of 30 there would be no contest. There are some great young players in America, but over here they just seem to be more hungry. I think some of it is the way golf is played over here. The junior golf in America has its limitations because its really difficult unless you have money to play in a lot of junior tournaments. Here, with the way the golf unions are looking after the game, there's a lot of opportunity. There are so many 20-somethings who are going to be very very good. Exciting times for European golf.

Q. The young West Country player Oscar Sharpe has been touted as a future star. What do you make of him?
Well, Oscar is a very confident young man, shall we put it that way! He's a 15-year-old with a 30-year-old head on his shoulders. He stands there on the tee and says [haughty voice], ‘Tell me, David, what shots would you like me to hit now'. There he is hitting high shots, low shots, fades and draws. He's got them all. But he has a way to go and I just hope the expectation doesn't get in the way. He's a good player and he has an unbelievably strong mind, which is his greatest asset. He has a lot of work to do in terms of filling out, physically – I'm trying to get him to model himself on Trevor [Immelman]. I just hope that there's not too much expectation put on him by family and all those around him. I've heard people say he will be the youngest player to make the Walker Cup team, to beat Oliver Fisher, but it's not that easy. And that sort of goal is only a stepping stone anyway. But I have high hopes for him, he is a special player. His confidence and slight arrogance probably turn some people off, but ultimately you have to do the talking with your clubs.

Q. What's the best business decision you ever made?
To go and sign with Callaway. I love the company, I love their products and I think their foresight is great. When you are in the business of helping golfers to play better golf you really appreciate the effort that goes in to producing clubs that can make a difference. From the time I met Ely Callaway – and now the new CEO George Fellows – I absolutely love being with the company. On top of that, getting into golf academies around the world would be the other area that I'm most proud of. I have a staff of great teachers out there all helping to build my brand, which I hope is associated with good teaching. And so that's pleasing to me. What I've worked hard to achieve has been well received in the golf world for the most part.

Q. And the worst?
Oh, I've had some bad investments, getting involved in a few gambles that haven't come off, but generally speaking I haven't made any horrendous gaffs. I've had my moments with IMG, who own the franchise to the DLGA sites outside North America, but we've turned the corner and things are really now working well and moving forward.

Q. A dream fourball – who would you invite?
Let's see: Ben Hogan for one..... I'd say Bobby Jones, Hogan and Henry Cotton – three different styles of players. It would be fascinating to watch them in their prime and talk to them about the game. I think that's an article you should do sometime: get hold of older players and talk to them. You'd hear some wonderful stories. I did an outing just last week with Lee Trevino and it was a joy to listen to him. He had an operation on his back in Germany recently, but says he's now as strong as he's ever been and will be playing again next year. He's close to 70 now and yet he's still great. Was there ever a better shot maker? Great sound off the clubface. Just think of the names you could run in a series – Christy O'Connor, John Jacobs, Neil Coles, and even more modern players like Tom Watson and Billy Casper, who just might have been the most under-rated golfer who ever lived. These guys are alive and kicking.

Q. Does golf need its own version of cricket's Twenty20?
When you look at it, you get certain times when golf is unbelievably exciting – usually a major, or a Ryder Cup as we've just seen here in the States. And golf grabs you. But a lot of times it doesn't. Matchplay is the most exciting format in golf – hence the fireworks that we get at the Ryder Cup. It would be good for the game if there was more of that – more matchplay. Otherwise it's the same old same old. I think a skills challenge would be exciting. Just to break things up a bit, to add some variety. It would be a great way for the top stars to showcase their skills and it would make for good TV.

Q. Finally, do you think golf should be in the Olympics?
I personally do think that golf should be in the Olympics. For the global growth of the game it would be fantastic. When countries get behind it...just imagine how it would grow in China if golf gets into the Olympics. People say there are too many tournaments now, and they are right, there are. But let's not be short-sighted. If you had golf in the Olympics – however the format was devised, and if the USPGA Championship has to be moved, then move it – just the very fact that these athletes had the opportunity of being involved in something of that magnitude would, I think, be fantastic for golf. It would be a true world event; something you were doing for your country and not just for the money.