He will miss the rest of the season having gone under the knife on his back, and we all know that once the surgeries begin…

You’ll recall my writing about him last year when he went down with the initial back woes and how I could show that the current “In The Know” characters were praising the same swing that broke his back not long before it happened.

I would have loved to have reached out to WZ, but I no longer do that and probably won’t again – here’s why.

I will freely admit that I have attempted to contact several golf pros about the damage they were doing to their backs with the Modern Golf Swing models they use.

I will also admit that I’ve never heard a peep back from any of them, and it makes me sadder for them than myself in that we all know that if I were to help a back-issues golfer of any repute solve their injury risks and woes, well… there would be no shortage of ailing golfers wanting the same cure.

Off-hand, I remember having attempted to reach about half a dozen notable pros struggling with injury from swinging, but I am not from the right constituency to get their attention – apparently, you have to be so lacking in mechanically-correct motion that your swing theories make my jaw drop.

Anyone who’s been here around this blog for the last decade will recall my frequent quip that Jack Nicklaus should send certain “swing guru” a box of Cuban cigars when Tiger Woods retires for good, so bad for TW was the swing model he used at the time that I called it “Back-Breaker.”

“But wait – how could you have saved anyone when you’re still working on your personal swing model, DJ?” one might ask.

My answer would be, “I’ve had the same basic Classic Golf Swing Model at hand since late 2014, which worked fine for the likes of Jack Nicklaus, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan et al, so yes, I certainly could have helped them.”

Even before then, I’d add, my research on the golf swing concluded as early as 2008 that the Modern Golf Swing method of planting the feet firmly on the back pivot and restricting the hip turn combined with twisting the lower back to turn the shoulders was insanely mechanically-unsound, and that the Classic method of pivoting was the way to turn the shoulders.

So even before I had an actual model worked out, many blog followers of mine let me know that they found instant relief from back issues by leaving the Modern and going back to the Classic, whichever iteration they might have gone with.

From 2014 however, I knew how the standard Classic Golf Swing worked and proved it by helping a teaching and playing pro break 120 mph club speed after he turned 50 and to nearly qualify for the Farmer’s Insurance PGA Tour event in the year he turned 51.

I also worked with an NCAA college player who had lost his form and been dropped from a full scholarship to partial in his first season – I won’t claim all the credit for his later success (winning POTY in his college conference in his senior year and winning the PGA Canadian Tour Q-School after graduating).

I won’t, because we only worked together long enough for me to fix his swing with regards to getting him swinging in the Classic method, and he found a coach who wouldn’t mess with that who coached him the rest of his time in school.

However, when I reached out to him after his first individual college tournament win, he responded by saying “thank you for teaching me how to swing!”

I didn’t, really, because he was already a great player who had lost form, but I did teach him how to generate power and speed without hurting his back, which was already painful due to his Modern swing, and he took the bit in his teeth and ran with it.

So, I mention these things not to use them to sell anything, because I won’t (they weren’t taught the model I’m currently building), but to point out that a speed coach doesn’t have to run the 100M in 9.95 seconds – he shows others how to do it with technical knowledge.

I could have helped young Will Zalatoris, but the industry is not interested in mechanically-sound golf swings, and so neither are the unfortunate pros.

Because I don’t like to waste my time, I shall work on my golf swing theory and modelling and, when I have something to show people in a video and/or an eBook, I will share my knowledge and discoveries, but reaching out to pros, I’m done with.

I am after all a researcher and not a golf instructor, so the only thing I’m interested in is fixing faulty swings.

Besides, the work I have done with people has always begun with them approaching me, or someone doing it on their behalf, back when I did work personally with golfers.

I don’t know if I’ll ever return to that work, but I’ll certainly not be chasing ailing golfers who are only interested in how to further injure themselves with more Modern Golf Swing madness.