RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. - Morgan Pressel was admittedly lost as she headed to the Singapore airport on her way to the States a month ago. She had finished in a tie for 46th in a 63-player field at the HSBC Women’s Champions and wasn’t exactly sure where or why her game had gone awry. And as she headed back to the States to prepare for the West Coast Swing, she wasn’t entirely sure she knew how to get it back to where she wanted it.
“I was just kind of lost after Singapore this year. I knew where I wanted my swing to get but I was having trouble getting it there,” Pressel said.
So she turned to an old friend, calling up her old coach, Ron Stockton, to take a look. What he saw wasn’t the swing he used to know. She was getting the club too far inside on the way back and taking it back over the top to compensate. They’ve worked on getting her club more on plane on the way back and her posture back to where it was.
“The work we’ve put in really only the last three weeks has totally overhauled my golf swing, so I feel comfortable with it out on the golf course,” Pressel said.
The backswing feels more outside and out in front of her and she’s seen the results immediately. She fired a second-round 64 to climb into the lead at the Kia Classic a week ago before finishing in a tie for 15th and is atop the leaderboard heading into the second round here at the season’s first major after a 5-under-par 67.
“I have a lot less movement on my golf ball which has been helpful,” Pressel said, “where I can now aim pretty much right down the center of the fairways. Really, honestly, I had no idea where the golf ball was going early this year, so it’s a big change.”
The start to the year was particularly disappointing for Pressel considering she had started to turn the corner at the end of 2014. In a wonderful 10-year career in which she’s finished in the top-45 on the money list every single year, Pressel headed to the season’s final three tournaments in November of 2014 enduring her most difficult season to date. But she found something over the last three, finishing in 4th at the Mizuno Classic, in a tie for 11th at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, and then in solo fourth at the CME Group Tour Championship, one shot out of a playoff.
“I really felt like I had a good chance to win CME and was a little bit bummed walking away from that with just a fourth place,” Pressel said. “But the start of this year I was just a little lost in my swing.”
After the signs she’s seen over the last two weeks, whatever was lost early in the year has surely been found.
“I’m enjoying playing golf a little bit more than I was even a month ago,” Pressel said. “So it’s nice to be out here, and it’s fun to make birdies.”
)
)
)
)
