For Lietzke, it’s home swinging home

Richard Dunn

Golfers have a tendency to tinker with their swing, to try to find a

certain rhythm or to spend countless hours working on their game.

Bruce Lietzke, however, found a swing he never wanted to leave. It

serves him so well, it never goes away.

“I never play golf when I’m home, and I never practice when I’m

home,” Lietzke, 51, said Wednesday after his Toshiba Senior Classic

Pro-Am round at Newport Beach Country Club, where he will compete for

the first time Friday.

“My swing evolved really about a year before I got on the [PGA

Tour in 1975],” he said. “It’s not a real pretty swing to look at,

but it’s a swing that produces the same every single time.

“I hated it at first because I couldn’t hook the ball, but the

more I continued to shoot low rounds ... I found out it was pretty

good knowing where the ball was going to move in a certain way, so I

quit working on my swing and never experimented or anything,” he

said. “I found out whether I went home and practiced for a whole week

or went home and never touched a club, my game was in exactly the

same shape when I showed up for the next tournament.”

Early in Lietzke’s career on the PGA Tour, he tried hard for

tournament titles, played the U.S. Ryder Cup team and made golf a

priority. Then came the kids.

“When I’ve been home, I’m home with the family,” said Lietzke,

whose unique swing allowed him to play a limited schedule on the tour

to spend more time with his family in Dallas. “That’s my main

motivation -- to be a good father and husband. Once I became a father

[in 1983], my golf priorities fell off to about fourth or fifth on

the list, and my family became a much higher priority.

“Everybody would tell me about how fast kids grow up, and I

decided to listen to what people were saying,” he said. “I got a

chance to be with my kids. My son [Stephen] is in college now and

he’s virtually out of my life. It just seemed like months ago when he

was a toddler.

“I was lucky to play a professional sport where you don’t have an

owner telling me I have to be at spring practice at a certain time

and I don’t have to play a particular tournament,” he said. “I can

pick and choose. Really, we’re self-employed independent contractors.

We can pick and choose our tournaments.”

In 1984, after Lietzke discovered he didn’t have to practice

because of “muscle memory” in his swing, his caddie couldn’t believe

he was going to go home for 2 1/2 months and put his clubs away.

“That caddie was the one who found the same banana in my bag 2 1/2

months later,” Lietzke said.

After Stephen was born, Lietzke took five months off. He returned

for the ’84 season and won his second tournament of the season, the

Honda Classic.

“That was all the proof I needed. This muscle memory thing worked

out for me,” Lietzke said. “And I found out, by going home and taking

two or three weeks off and being totally away from the game, that it

made me mentally fresh, and for me, that’s the whole secret.”

Lietzke said he “still thinks about golf” when he’s home. “It

builds up enthusiasm for when I go to my next tournament, and to me

enthusiasm is the key, and guys on the tour will tell you the same

thing,” he said.

The whole idea of hard work and practice is to play consistently.

Lietzke’s strategy is to avoid the dreaded peaks and valleys of the

golf game.

“I’ve never been a great player, but I’ve never had any slump

year, either,” said Lietzke, who won three times on the senior tour

last year and finished in the top 31 on the money list to gain

totally exempt status this year.

A winner of 13 events on the PGA Tour, Lietzke has never played

more than 20 events on the tour since 1989, scheduling tournaments

around family activities.

“When I look back, if anything, I wish I would have played less,

because I did miss a couple dance recitals and Little League games,”

said Lietzke, who figured that right around this time in his life, he

could play on the senior tour, while his kids were out of high school

(his daughter, Christine, 17, is still in high school).

Lietzke skipped several major championships because he was

coaching his son’s Little League baseball team. Last year, he missed

the Toshiba Senior Classic because he was coaching his son’s high

school golf team.

“Things change when kids come along and you’re happily married,”

he said. “Somewhere along the line you find out golf is not life and

death. ... Early in your career, it feels like life and death,

because you’re trying to keep your [PGA] card and feed your family.”