Ralph Bauer
Somebody asked me recently what I think of Sean Foley. I answered that he's dedicated to his craft and doing a heck of a job in a tough environment—working with Tiger Woods, that is, which means he has a bulls-eye on his back. He's done strong work with Justin Rose, Hunter Mahan, among others. I don't remember if it was Foley or another teacher who told me that swing coaches might get four per cent of a player's earnings in some arrangements and 90 per cent of the blame if things don't work out. Foley's handling the heat just fine.
Anyway, the fellow's question got me thinking about how many other fine swing coaches there are in Canada. All of them, of course, have views about Woods's swing. More on that in another piece. For the moment, I'll focus on Ralph Bauer. He works with David Hearn. Bauer was the Golf Association of Ontario's teacher of the year in 2007. He was the GAO-s High Performance Coach for eight years, starting in 2002.
Golf Canada hired Bauer as its assistant men's coach for Team Canada in March 2010; he worked with head coach Henry Brunton, who left his position as of Sept. 30th. Inexplicably—at least to me—Bauer was told a few weeks ago that Team Canada wasn't going to renew his contract. Team Canada players he'd worked with had given him excellent reviews. Yet he was out the door—well, off the range. Derek Ingram, the new men's head coach as of Oct. 1, wants to bring his assistant coach from the women's side. Ingram, twice the PGA of Canada's teacher of the year, and a seven-time Manitoba teacher of the year, was the head coach for Team Canada's women's team before he moved over to coach the men. He's highly regarded.
Here's what Jeff Thompson, Golf Canada's chief sport development officer, told me about the situation when I asked him Thursday for clarification.
"He did a very good job over the past two years supporting Henry and the men's program," Thompson said in an e-mail of Bauer. "We hope to be able continue to involve Ralph's services as we move forward to further develop our emerging professionals program as he is gaining great experience and a level of expertise in this competitive arena. As I hope you can appreciate it is important that the Head Coach have input into his assistant, as they will be working very closely as the program evolves and it is also important to take a holistic view of the skill sets of the 'coaching team' to make sure we have all bases covered in terms of offering the best possible player support.
"Ralph did a great job and we hope to be able to continue to have him involved in the future," Thompson continued, "although this year it will not be in the capacity of men's assistant coach with the amateur squad."
So Bauer is out, despite proving himself with Hearn and positive reviews from Team Canada players. I understand why a new head coach would want to bring on somebody he's worked with before, and Ingram is an experienced and by all accounts a superb instructor. But I don't understand getting rid of Bauer after only one year, no matter the reason. I'll be interested to see how Golf Canada's "emerging professionals program" develops, and to what extent Bauer will be involved. Would he even want to be involved, given the fact that he was snubbed?
Bauer told me the decision hasn't affected him personally. Doug Roxburgh, Team Canada's director of high performance programs, and a four-time Canadian Amateur champion, was the one who advised Bauer last month that his contract wouldn't be renewed. Roxburgh apparently felt bad about the situation, and said so to Bauer. Ingram, meanwhile, was recently inducted into the Manitoba Golf Hall of Fame, quite an honour for a 41-year-old. In writing about his induction, he graciously acknowledged Bauer as one of his important influences.
We'll see how things go, now that Team Canada's coaching staff has undergone these changes.
ALSO FROM LORNE RUBENSTEIN:
I'm thinking of you Ed O'Leary
Canadian triple threat at CordeValle
Hearn finding success the second time around
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Lorne Rubenstein has written a golf column for The Globe and Mail since 1980. He has played golf since the early 1960s and was the Royal Canadian Golf Association's first curator of its museum and library at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario and the first editor of Score, Canada's Golf Magazine, where he continues to write a column and features. He has won four first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America, one National Magazine Award in Canada, and, most recently, he won the award for the best feature in 2009 from the Golf Journalists Association of Canada. Lorne has written 11 books, including The Natural Golf Swing, with George Knudson (1988); Links: An Insider's Tour Through the World of Golf (1990); The Swing, with Nick Price (1997); The Fundamentals of Hogan, with David Leadbetter (2000); A Season in Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands (2001); Mike Weir: The Road to the Masters (2003); A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, with Jeff Neuman (2006); and his latest, This Round's on Me (2009). He is a member of the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Lorne can be reached at rube@sympatico.ca . You can now follow him on Twitter @lornerubenstein