Eight-five. It is a bad bowling total, or perhaps the score the Toronto Raptors put up on an off-night.Rarely is it a total score seen on the PGA Tour during a single round, and never by Mike Weir, arguably the best golfer in Canadian history.
But that’s what Weir posted in the second round at the Honda Classic last Friday, 18 holes which included five double-bogeys and were added to a first round 77. In golf vernacular, Weir’s poor play moved him to the bottom of the leaderboard, to a spot referred to as “DFL.” I’ll leave you to figure that one out.
Weir started the season talking about “owning his swing.” Now it looks like his swing has owned him.
How far has the former Masters champ fallen? After returning this year following a lengthy layoff due to an elbow injury, Weir made one cut in five starts. He posted a single round in the 60s this year – a 68 at Spyglass Hill during the AT&T Pebble Beach National -- though more typically he was slamming the trunk of his courtesy car by the end of Friday afternoon after shooting 74. His driving – which has been erratic in recent years – is a disaster, with Weir missing the fairway equally right and left. His stats show him to be basically last among tour players in driving accuracy and distance – a combination that guarantees inflated scores.
Weir’s ball striking problems are both humbling and troubling, but his short game, always the envy of his peers, has also suffered as his confidence wanes. Think of it like a Gold Glove infielder who suddenly can’t hit the curve ball. As the ball player struggles at the plate, eventually his plight works its way into his fielding and he makes some errors on easy plays. Weir, typically a terrific putter, has found his spotty play affecting his short game and he currently sitting at 152 with the flat stick.
Despite not regaining his playing privileges – Weir had five starts as part of an injury exemption to make enough money to match the 125th golfer from last season – he’ll still get plenty of starts throughout the year. And he has two year’s worth of exemptions based on his place on the all-time PGA Tour money list. So he’s not going anywhere – at least not for a couple of years.
There’s an argument among golf pundits about whether Weir made too many changes to his swing in recent years, starting with his decision to leave long-time coach Mike Wilson for a dalliance with “stack and tilt” purveyors Mike Plummer and Andy Bennett. It was under Bennett and Plummer that Weir last played like an elite star – he won in 2007 in Arizona soon after beating Tiger Woods in match play at the Presidents Cup. But Weir felt that stack-and-tilt, with its rigidly principles enforced by its creators, was too restrictive and was limiting his feel for the game, and so he returned to Wilson.
But turning to his former coach wasn’t the solution, and an injury sustained after hitting a tree root last year exacerbated the issue. Weir looked lost before shutting it down at the end of August after a miserable year that was easily his worst since his rookie campaign on the PGA Tour in 1998. At the end of the year Weir said he’d go it alone, but it wasn’t long before he turned to Jim Flick, the type of veteran coach who offers tips in golf magazines. For a guy who has tried the true-and-tested with Wilson, a former David Leadbetter associate, and the new-and-shiny theories of stack and tilt, Flick is truly Old School. Those who understand the nuances of the golf swing suggest Weir is making a difficult transition from the stack-and-tilt swing he embraced to a golf swing that involves his arms and timing.
Swing changes are always difficult – just ask Tiger Woods – and golfers who play through them often face the embarrassment of failing in front of spectators and television cameras. Adding to Weir’s woes is the departure of long-time caddy Brennan Little, who took over the role for Sean O’Hair at the start of the season.
Is Weir finished? It is certainly easily to suggest that’s the case. But he’s only 40, and increasingly golfers on the PGA Tour are playing well into their early fifties. If there’s hope, it might be found in Steve Stricker. From 2003 to 2005, Stricker played horribly, hitting his driver short and wayward. In 2006, after pounding balls in the hope of finding a solution, Stricker reworked his swing to become one of the more accurate drivers on the PGA Tour to go along with his excellent putting. Now 44, Stricker has won six times in his forties since rediscovering the ability to find the fairway.
Of course Stricker is the extreme case – there are certainly more golfers who have faded as they’ve gotten older. Certainly Weir has a lot to overcome – but that’s basically been the model for his career. No one thought he’d make it off the Canadian Tour, but he persevered and fought through seven tries at qualifying school to make the PGA Tour. Once there he lost his tour card after his rookie season, but won qualifying school and took the Air Canada Championship the next year. He outlasted Len Mattiace to win the Masters and rebuilt his golf game to make the 2007 Presidents Cup team.
Given everything he’s been through in the last year, it is easy to say Weir is finished.
But his experience during two decades in professional golf would suggest we don’t write him off quite yet.
