Menu
You might think it harsh for me to use the word “lunatic” when describing young Italian star Matteo Manassero’s coach Alberto Birnaghi. However, when you read the following recap of a recent Golf Digest article “The Quest For More Distance” I think you may reconsider your judgment.
“Matteo Manassero is still a teenager, yet his golf resume’ is already filled with some impressive accomplishments: Youngest player ever to win the British Amateur (age sixteen); a T-13 finish as an amateur at the 2009 British Open; youngest player ever to win a European Tour event (age 17). These are the kind of achievements that might lead you to believe the Italian phenom is on track to be golf’s next superstar. But for that to happen, says his coach, Alberto Binaghi, Manassero has to hit longer off the tee. “When he was 16 and 17, he was probably one of the straightest players I’ve ever seen in my life, and I played for 17 years on the European Tour,” Binaghi says. “He’d hit the fairway and the middle of the green every time. But his old swing didn’t give him enough distance”.
Ok, hold it right there. Are you kidding me? Has Alberto ever heard of Ian Baker-Finch? You’re going to take a kid’s swing who is one of the best young players ever and change it because you think he needs to hit it further? My guess is that the guy has a Trackman and the “numbers” are telling him what his star pupil needs to do to win majors and make him (Binaghi) a teaching superstar. Sure, hit up on it and in to out, even though your normal swing, which made Manassero “one of the straightest players I’ve ever seen in my life”, was way different, probably approaching downward and more from the line to inside. Taking that swing pattern and trying to get it to launch the ball upward with right to left action is a huge change, and the reasoning behind it is highly questionable.
Another thing to consider that would suggest a more conservative approach with Manassero is that he has just managed to gain 7 pounds of muscle in a short period of time. It would seem fairly obvious that at least it should be considered that if he gained a significant amount of weight and strength his “old” swing that hit it so straight might gain the necessary yards without screwing with the more natural swing pattern developed as a junior and good enough to be the youngest winner of a European Tour event in the history of the game.
I cringe when I read this stuff. This is how players get ruined. Now, it may very well be that Manassero is good enough and talented enough to change his swing and not have it screw up his game, but the thing to remember is that it will be hard to keep the change out of his iron game, which would almost certainly suffer if any of the driver changes crept in.
I wonder how Manassero would measure up to Luke Donald off the tee if they played together, which I’m sure they have. For goodness sake, let the kid fill out physically before you go screwing with his swing.