David Leadbetter interview with Dale Concannon

a Golf Today's contributing editor.

For just over ten years there's was a relationship made in heaven. The most successful teacher/professional tie-up in the modern era, Nick Faldo and David Leadbetter amassed six Major championships and a host of other professional titles. Now they have gone their separate ways after their partnership turned sour in late 1998. Up to this point, neither man has commented at length about what went wrong. Now, in an exclusive interview for a forthcoming biography of Nick Faldo by Dale Concannon, David Leadbetter offers his side of the story. In it he talks candidly about how they met, how their relationship developed, and the reasons for the split. It makes fascinating reading....

When did you first meet Nick Faldo?
I think the first time I set eyes on him was in 1977 not long after he turned pro. I was playing a tournament in Zimbabwe, near Victoria Falls and I think he was out there with Warren Humphreys. Warren was like his minder. George Bloomburg brought him out and I remember watching this big tall fellow with a fairly languid looking swing but I didn't take much notice of him.

So when was the first time you actually worked together on his swing?
It was at Sun City in 84, he asked me to have a look at him the first time. I think Nick Price had been speaking to him. Nothing was planned. It was more a case of I was there - he was there. I think he might already have spoken to Mark O'Meara about his swing at that stage and maybe wanted a second opinion. Then he said, 'Hey - would I have a look?' So I made a couple of suggestions.

What suggestions?
I told him that his swing was too steep. That he needed to get his swing a little more rounded - a little flatter. Something that would give him a little more control. I remember walking with him in a practice round at Augusta in '82 or '83, and noticing that when he hit his tee-shots, especially into a slight breeze, how they seemed to balloon up. There was no run on his shots and his goal at that stage was to win a Major. He dearly wanted to win the British Open but I thought the way he hits it high like that he is going to struggle. So my suggestion was to get the club going a little more round him and we sort of left it that that.

When did you first discuss rebuilding his swing?
I happened to be at Muirfield Village in '85 and he said, 'Look, I really need some help..' I think his exact words were, 'You can throw the book at me because I really want to get this right. I don't care how long it takes. I'm sick of playing mediocre golf and not reaching my potential..'

What were your thoughts at that point? You had a growing reputation as a teacher and here was a high profile player whose game was in tatters. Did you consider turning him down or was it a matter of just taking a risk?

It was a risk but at that stage I was probably a little more naive than I am now. I had a little success coaching some top players and I really did feel I could help him. I said to him, 'Listen, if you want to do it, its going to take time.' It wasn't a matter of making just a few changes. We even spoke how it would be a two-year job before things started to work their way into his swing and start to feel natural. As it turned out it was a pretty good prophecy.

What did you see as his biggest problems at the beginning?
I felt he swung the club on too upright a plain; the club face was closed initially, then very open at the top and he would sort of slide his legs and get underneath with a very armsy-handsy-looking swing. The whole thing had a pretty big reverse-C look to it. At the time I was starting to focus on how the body worked within the swing, how it would rotate, rather than the old methods that had been used. Nick really had a swing from the 1970's which was understandable because he grew up in that era. On the other side of the coin, he was already acknowledged as a top class tournament professional.

What strengths did you feel he had?
From my standpoint, I could see he was a great thinker. He would manage his game very, very well. He was a great putter. He also worked the ball well - he was very good at hitting three-quarter shots and things of that nature. He was also a tenacious competitor, very focused and self-centred as many of the top players are. Plus he had great rhythm in his swing, which was one aspect we were able to build on. He was always very auditory. He was always clicking his fingers and whistling - that's where his rhythm came from I'm sure.

Did this 'great' rhythm cover up some of the technical defects in his swing?
Absolutely. What appears aesthetically pleasing to the eye, is not always a technically sound swing. How did you go about rebuilding his swing at the beginning? We sort of laid it out with a lot of video and I made some suggestions. We started with the set-up because I felt he had a very poor set-up for a tall player - quite sort of slouchy really. So we really worked on getting his posture right but his build dictates that things were going to be difficult. Being very long from the waist down, he had a very legsy-looking method. So the main objective was to get the club on a better plane. That meant opening it early and being more closed at the top, rather than having it shut to start with, then being more open. Then we worked extremely hard on the back swing. We really tried to get that down to a point where things started to work automatically.

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