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Late in April, after Jordan won theMasters, we were reflecting on hisperformance, his opening-round 64 inparticular. It was pretty much flawless,one shot off tying the course record. Itwas one brilliant shot and great puttafter another, nine birdies in all. Theonly hiccup came at the par-5 15th hole,where he hit a hybrid over the greenand made his only bogey.

Jordan isn’t one to look back withregret, but that one time he said heshould have hit the 4-iron instead of thehybrid. He pointed out that if the 4-ironlands on the green, he probably makesbirdie and shoots 62. And if he makesan eagle, it’s a 61, the best score in Mas-ters history by two shots.

And there’s the difference.Players used to come off an incredibleround and recognise it as a magicalcareer accomplishment. Today, guyslike Jordan want another bite at theapple. To them it’s like riding theworld’s scariest roller coaster — afterthey survive it, they can’t wait to findone even bigger and scarier.

Jordan laid up a lot on the par 5s atAugusta. On the back nine especially,he rarely went for the 13th and 15th intwo. In our preparation, I came up witha practice exercise I call “wedge fourways”. At 10-yard increments from 40to 90 yards, I required that he hit shotson four trajectories: low, medium, highand extra high.

All had to land no more than twoyards short or long of the target. Wethen scored the number of attempts ittook to pull all of these off. At the Mas-ters, Jordan played the par 5s in 12 un-der par. He told me later, “You knowthat ‘wedge-four-ways’ drill? On everyone of the par 5s I used a different tra-jectory from that game.” As a teacher,that’s rewarding.

The new wave of players tends not todwell on their failures. Disappointing

episodes that once upon a time couldbe career-ending, they tend to move onand learn from. They’re getting betterat not giving scar tissue time to form.

In Jordan’s case, I look back at twolow moments. The first was at the 2010US Amateur at Chambers Bay, afterhe’d won the 2009 US Junior Amateur.

The wheels came off in the secondround, and he shot 83, failing to makeit into match play. He was frustrated,irritated and distraught, blaming thewind, odd bounces.

It wasn’t merely a performance is-sue, it was a psychological maturity is-sue. He learned from that. He won theUS Junior a second time the followingyear. And you saw what he did the nexttime he saw Chambers Bay — he wonthe US Open.

Soon after Jordan won his first USJunior, I set up a wedge contest withhim, me and one of his high-schoolteammates.

We played to the first six greens atBrook Hollow from wedge distance,taking turns choosing scenarios andplaying the ball into the hole.

I’m beating the kids, and to try tomotivate them I’m saying stuff like,“How are you letting a washed-up clubpro beat you guys?”

On our last hole, the flag is on thefront of the green, just beyond a falsefront that will cause the ball to roll backinto a valley if you come up short. Verytough shot. I play first and put the ball20 feet beyond the hole, making sure Iavoid the false front.

His buddy does the same thing. Nowit’s Jordan’s turn, and he rips it right atthe pin. He’s always been aggressive,and this time it’s a bad move.

The ball grabs the false front androlls 20 yards back into the valley. NowI really give it to him.

“Where is your head, Jordan? You’rethe US Junior champion, and right nowyour head must be on your girlfriend oryour homework, because it’s sure not

in the game.”He said, “Forget it. I’m still going

to make birdie.” I said, “There’s noway you’re holing it from down there.You’re done.”

Jordan just stared at me. He’s moti-vated. He looks the shot over very care-fully. He takes his wedge and screamsthe ball low into the false front, whereit takes one big bounce onto the green,checks, and trickles into the hole. Heruns up on the green, taking these bigbounding steps, and he points at me.

“See? Don’t tell me what I can orcan’t do.” I came right back, “That’s ex-xxactly the kind of attitude I wanted youto have when you showed up today.”

When Jordan was a young teenager,I gave him a green-reading test.

Sneaking out in advance to a second-ary practice green at Brook Hollow, Icame up with series of long, super-hardputts, double-breakers over ridges toholes cut on the downhill side.

Twisting sidehillers. Putts that werealmost impossible. I sort of set him upto fail, which I knew would make mygreen-reading pronouncements moreeffective. Jordan then proceeded tostop every one of those putts within afew inches of the hole. He holed severalof them. He said, “What’s next?” I said,“Let’s go hit some chips.”

I’m a believer in “immersion”. I tookup golf at 16 in my native Australia. Asthey say in Texas, I got “ate up by it”.

All I did was play, all day every day.There was no Internet, and the gamewasn’t quite as evolved there, so whatI learned came from playing, readingmagazines, books, encyclopaedias andwhat little I saw on TV.

I was largely self-taught and totallyimmersed, which is a good way to in-still the things that are important in thegolf swing. Formalised teaching is fan-tastic, but digging things out of the dirtgave me an important foundation thatmade me a better teacher.

At 17, with no competitive résumé atall, I wrote a bunch of letters to collegesin America seeking a scholarship. Notone Division I school offered me ascholarship — who would? — but I didget an offer from Butler CommunityCollege in El Dorado, Kansas.

I went there in 1991 half expecting asetting like “The Wizard of Oz”. I wasalone, and there was some cultureshock, but after two years I got goodenough to get a scholarship at TexasTech in Lubbock.

You put a shy, introverted kidfrom Australia into an exuberantenvironment like Texas Tech, and he’sgoing to sprout some wings. A bunchof us were at a Texas Tech footballgame once. We were carrying on,and security came by and busted thekid sitting next to me for underagedrinking. I protested, which did notplease one of the policemen.

“Oh, yeah?” he said. “How old areyou?” I answered, a little too smugly,“I’m 21.” The policeman said, “You’reunder arrest for contributing to the de-linquency of a minor.”

It was extreme, but standing in frontof a judge scared the heck out of me.That was the end of what Australianscall “larrikin behaviour”.

I graduated from Texas Tech andbriefly went home to Australia.

Lovesick for my college sweetheartand feeling I could play professional-ly, I came back to America and startedplaying in earnest.

I missed getting my Tour card andplayed in a lot of mini-Tour eventswithout success. Driving from town totown, living out of my orange Volkswa-gen camper van, I was at loose ends.

Reality finally hit me at a Nike Tourqualifier in Alabama. I played pret-ty good and shot one under. The guy Iplayed with was the best ball-striker I’dever played with. He shot seven under— and missed by one. I sat in my van,looked in the crystal ball of my futureand thought, I will never be able to playthis game for a living.

Strokes of luck are essential in golfand life. As I was preparing to put mydegree in international business towork, I was interviewed for a job atwhat is now the Lakes at Castle Hills,a club outside Dallas. The head prowho interviewed me coincidentallyhad gone to Texas Tech, and nextthing I know, I’m behind the pro-shop counter. I get connected to thepro’s friend over at Dallas CountryClub, where I move and soon have anopportunity to start teaching. Withoutthose chance encounters, who knowswhere I’d be today?

My favourite Ben Hogan quote is, “Ifit’s meant to be, it’s up to me.” He wasdescribing the load that’s on the player.Ultimately, everyone around the golferis a step removed from what matters —getting the ball in the hole.

I’m a navigator for Jordan. I providea road map for him, a compass. Andsometimes, only occasionally, I’m a fireextinguisher. It’s an important role, butit’s performed from the wings, not cen-tre stage.

In Australia there’s a phenomenon

known as the “tall-poppy syndrome”.If someone is perceived as becomingtoo successful, they’ll tend to cut thatperson down to size.

In America in general and the golfbusiness specifically, it’s exactly theopposite. People will try to lift you up.When I was starting out, I wrote let-ters to a bunch of the best teachers inAmerica, asking if I could visit and ob-serve them teaching.

I received invitations from 25 ofthem, including Butch Harmon, RandySmith, Chuck Cook, Craig Shankland,Dr Rick Jensen and Cameron Doan.With all of them, I got the sense theyenjoyed helping me. A feeling that a ris-ing tide lifts all boats.

About 10 years ago, I had astudent, a young professional out ofTulane, who I worked very hard with.A tremendous hitter of the ball. He gotthrough the first stage of Q School.

The second stage was at StonebridgeRanch north of Dallas. The final round,he’s seven under and one stroke insidethe cut line with one hole to play.

In those days if you got to the finalstage you were assured of a place toplay, so his whole year was riding on it.

There’s water on the right, and hepushes it just a bit, and the wind takes

it into the water. He makes double andmisses by one. His swing didn’t go hay-wire. He did very well in every aspect.

But there was a tiny piece of the to-tal-performance package missing. Thatkept me up a lot of nights. The mostperplexing challenges still do.

The word used to be “teacher”.Today it’s “coach”, which is a betterword because our role entails morethan it used to. It wasn’t long ago thatteaching was strictly about technique.Now it’s about holistic developmentof the player. Psychology. Practice.Statistical analysis. Game plan. Physicalconditioning. Nutrition.

Some of these areas are outside myexpertise, but I’m astute enough to seeif there are opportunities for improve-ment in these areas, and know whereto send a player to get them. ImagineJordan Spieth if he were to improve1 per cent in every area.

A Jordan who overall is 10 per centbetter than he is right now. It’s mind-boggling to contemplate. And verymuch possible.

I have some teenage players comingup, including Will Zalatoris and AustinConnelly, who underscore the nature

of teaching young people versus adults.Will, a sophomore at Wake Forest, haswon the US Junior and Texas StateAmateur, and Austin, 18, just playedin the Byron Nelson. Coaching them is“teaching downstream”.

They have the current and momen-tum going their way, which, combinedwith their time and energy, producesamazing results.

Coaching adults, on the other hand,is teaching upstream. They often don’thave the time or physical prowess toimprove dramatically. They have a ro-mantic notion they’re going to prac-tise for six hours a week, but they getcaught in some eddy of life, and itwinds up being 30 minutes. It’s all theycan do to stay where they are.

A great full swing has alwaysbeen where it’s at. I don’t see a daywhere there will be more short-gameand putting gurus than full-swingspecialists.

The full swing sells better, and teach-ers understandably are drawn to whatsells. Then there’s the golfer. He or shewants to hit it well, hit it far and have agood-looking swing. It’s sexier.

And it can be argued that better ball-striking is the quickest way to improve-ment.

They say the grass is always greeneron the other side, but it can’t be anygreener for me than it is now.

I’ve been named director of instruc-tion at Trinity Forest Golf Club, whichis under construction south of Dallas. Itopens in 2016. Bill Coore and Ben Cren-shaw are doing the design, and therewill be nothing in Texas like it.

They’re building a teaching centrethat I get to run. Only a very small hand-ful of teachers — Butch, Jim McLeanand Hank Haney come to mind — havehad schools with their imprint, so it’salmost hard to believe it’s happeningto me.

The other day Jordan was trying outsome new irons. We had a TrackManthere to measure everything carefully.

Jordan got in a nice groove with theseclubs. He’s hitting a stock 6-iron, whichin Dallas flies 196 to 198 yards. Track-kkMan measures carry distance to thetenth of a yard, and Jordan is hitting itso well that we start betting $5 a shot,while the ball is in the air for six sec-onds or so, exactly how far it will fly.

Whack, followed by me shouting.“196.9” and Jordan answering, “197.6”Don’t get me wrong, it’s just a game. Nohuman can guess to a tenth of a yard

how far a ball will fly, even while it’s inthe air. But when a player like Jordanis on, you can come surprisingly close.

Dustin Johnson hit a drive 406 yardsthis year during the WGC-Bridgestoneat Firestone. If you think that’s insane,I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet.

In the next 10 years, as golf contin-ues to absorb athletes who would haveplayed other sports, players are goingto come along who are even bigger andstronger than Dustin, Bubba and TonyFinau. Size matters, and the percent-age of physically large Tour players isgoing to be much higher. You’re goingto see players hit the ball considerablyfarther than the longest guys do now.Well over 400 yards in many instances.

Tiger Woods has an importantaccomplishment left in his bag. If hecomes back and wins, and it fuels himto one more great season, it will showother players that there’s light beyondthe abyss. The number of inspiringcomeback stories will increasedramatically. What a gift that would be.

In putting especially, science willnever surpass art. You can have allthe science in the world, but withoutartistic perceptual skills that takeinto account an endless litany ofenvironmental variables, you won’tget the job done. I would rate thehuman perceptual end as high as95 per cent. I appreciate the technologyas a broad guide, but it’s only a jumping-off point.

Will left-hand low become thepredominant putting style in thefuture? I don’t think so. I think we’llsee a huge cross-section of methods —laws, arm-bars like Bernhard Langerused to win the 1993 Masters, maybeeven sidesaddle. All stigmas will beremoved. I’m agnostic about themall. All that matters is making the ballbehave.

Are you an optimiser or a“satisficer”? The optimiser is someonewho wants only the ideal, a modelthat will produce perfection. Tiger,for better and worse, is the epitome ofthat.

The satisficer works within theswing or ball flight he has. He tries toget better but prefers to “dance withwho brung him”.

Jim Furyk is the quintessential sat-isficer. My preference is for someonewho optimises when he practises andsatisfices when he plays.

Speaking of optimisers, whenNick Faldo rebuilt his swing underDavid Leadbetter and became one ofthe great technical wonders in history,I was convinced that was what I shouldteach. Working with students over thecourse of a couple of years, I found thatapproach was not getting results for mystudents. It lacked effectiveness andstaying power.

My students found it too demandingphysically. They did not improve veryquickly and thus had psychological lim-itations in terms of patience to get bet-ter. Faldo took two years working fulltime to achieve his mastery. My stu-dents had considerably less time thanthat. It just wasn’t practical.

For close to 60 years, BenHogan’s Five Lessons: The ModernFundamentals of Golf has beenconsidered the bible of golf. But somany great players do things thatrun contrary to his method, I have toconclude it’s overrated.

It’s a template from which you canpick and choose parts that work, butyou don’t have to adopt anywhereclose to the whole thing.

The things Hogan touts as absolute-ly critical aren’t even necessary. I seealmost no grips as weak as what Ho-gan espoused. The stances, postures,individual positions and sequences ofmovement are radically different fromHogan’s, but just as effective.

The problem with Five Lessons isthe word “fundamentals”. Hogan’s fun-damentals were far from being cor-nerstones, or even keystones. It wassimply one great player’s system thatworked for him.

I call it “the 20-minute runway”. Youget 20 minutes to make a breakthroughwith a student. If it doesn’t happen,they’re nodding at you. The nod isdeadly because you know they’rethinking, After this lesson is over I’mnever working on this again. Quickresults are imperative — you can get tothe deeper swing challenges later.

Worst bit of dogma: That the lowerhalf of your body should resist againstthe upper half. Most players aren’tflexible enough to make this approachwork even remotely.

If you’re talking the bane of mostgolfers’ existence — weak ball flight,poor contact and slice — this is it. Thetrouble is, it’s so darned palatable con-ceptually. It looks so good. The tempta-tion to try it is irresistible. But it’s likecrack. It might feel good, but it will killyou.

I’m a big believer in tips. The quickthought that gets a player through aweekend or a single round. The kind oftip that can be applied during a warm-up as opposed to a full-on practicesession.

Stats are like bikinis: They show youa lot but don’t show you everything.Jordan ranks 36th in putting from sixfeet. From five feet, he’s ranked 183rd.From four feet, he magically rises to41st. Does it mean that he’s vexed fromfive feet?

No. If you looked a little deeper, Ithink you’d find that a lot of those five-footers were extraordinarily difficult.

On Monday during this year’s PGAChampionship, I did “The Golf Fix” livewith Michael Breed on Golf Channel.

A bunch of people were watching,and as I walked off the set a fellowhanded me a flag and asked me to signit. He clearly thought I was somebodyfamous because I was on TV.

I tried to talk him out of it—I couldpicture him showing off the flag to hisbuddies when he got home and themasking, “Who is Cameron McCormick?”— but he kept insisting. So I went aheadand wrote my name, which takes up alot of space.

If you’re the recipient of that flag andare reading this, please know it wasn’tall my fault.

»“From five feet, he’s ranked 183rd... Ithink you’d find that a lot of those five-footers were extraordinarily difficult.”

‘STATS ARE LIKE BIKINIS:THEY SHOW YOU A LOTBUT DON’T SHOW YOUEVERYTHING.’

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