Ultimate springtime golf fitness tips for "real" golfers

By Tim McDonald,
National Golf Editor

For those of you unfortunate enough to live in the North, you must be salivating at the thought of the spring golf season.

Hold on, Tiger. You ain't the man you used to be. You can't just jump up and go straight to the golf course after a long winter of sloth and mold.

Now, you will find any number of charlatans willing to sell you their total golf fitness regimens. These sleazoids always assume you're a golfer interested in a cleaner, healthier way of living and golfing. I've seen you out on the course, and I know that's not the sort of thing you're "into."

So here is my total golf fitness regimen for the "real" golfer:

• For God's sake, you have to strengthen your core! This involves eating really hard food, like jawbreakers. Eat a bag of those and have your neighbor punch you in the gut to see if your core is all it can be.

Options: Month-old fudge, Purina Dog Chow, pine bark.

• You also have to really work your obliques, I mean really work the hell out of them. Here's the perfect exercise for that. Lie flat on your back with knees bent slightly wider than your hips. If you have really fat hips, you're either going to have to really stretch your knees like in a cartoon, like The Elastic Man from India, or just skip this exercise. In fact, if you have really fat hips, just skip playing golf, nobody wants to see you out on the course.

Now, you slim-hipped people reach your hands to the ceiling like you're crying out for the Lord Jesus Christ to spare you from your miserable existence. You can hold light hand-weights, or not. What do I care? Lift your head and chest toward the ceiling and rotate to reach both hands just outside of your fat, right knee. Repeat on the left side. Now, take a breather. Ask Christ for forgiveness.

• Breathing exercises: Breathing properly and deeply is critical, especially for those tense moments on the course when normally you would start crying.
This deep-breathing exercise involves attending your local adult movie house, or calling up one of those sites on your Internet browser. Follow your instincts. It's either that or follow mine, and then you're looking at jail time.
• Horizontal abduction/adduction: I can't give you much help here, because I always get "horizontal" confused with "vertical," and I have no idea what adduction is. Who came up with that word, anyway? It's a stupid word and should be eliminated from the English language, if it's even English.

• Standing hip rotation: Don't do this. It makes you look like a girl.

• Alcohol fitness: How many times have you lost $2 Nassaus because while you were getting hamboned, your playing partners were just holding up that bottle of Jack Black pretending to drink?

Well, no need to waste good liquor. You can still drink and maintain your competitive edge. You just need to build up a tolerance. Stand upright in a dark closet, with a wide stance, and suck it down. Keep drinking until your wife leaves you.

• Aerobics: Ha! Don't make me laugh. This is golf!

• Putting: Don't bother to practice putting. Putting in golf is overrated. I play golf maybe 200 times a year and I've yet to meet anyone who can putt. You either make it or you don't. If you miss, just keep putting until the ball goes in the hole. Simple.

• Seniors: As we age, our bodies react differently, so seniors must prepare for golf differently than young punks. An important thing to remember is that there is an inverse relationship of increased ear hair to laughably short drives off the tee.

So keep those ear hairs trim and neat. If you're proud of your thick mane of ear hair, don't sweat it. If you're short off the tee, you're probably small in other areas, and I think you know what I'm talking about.

• Excuses: A healthy psychological outlook is a must for Better Golf. If you can convince yourself that the snap hook you hit into the weeds over there is not your doing at all, you'll retain the confidence needed to excel in the game.

The first time you smack one of your all-too-typical lousy shots, turn to your playing partner and snarl," "Will you stop that!" Look at him, looking all hurt and everything. Who would have thought golf fitness could be so much fun?

• Torque development in the downswing: This is so important, I can barely contain myself. This is vital to any golfer who has ever wanted to improve his score. You could even say it is absolutely critical in terms of reaching your full potential as a golfer and knowing what it is to be truly human.

• Alignment and posture: Face the target squarely and stand erect, with your rump jutting out slightly. Feels a little silly, doesn't it? Can you think of another situation in life where you would position yourself in such an odd manner? I can't.

Buffoni's first impression of Johnson proves spot on

In 2002, Zach Johnson came to Milwaukee for the Miller Lite Oakwood Classic with little fanfare. He was no world beater, no hotshot Tiger Woods clone, just a kid from Iowa with a dream.

Johnson tied for eighth place in the Hooters Tour event at the Oakwood Park Golf Course that week and earned the princely sum of $2,482.50.

More important, he met Brad Buffoni of Mequon, the executive vice president of SFX World Sports Management. The two hit it off and entered into a business relationship that evolved into a friendship.

"My story is probably different than most," said Johnson, who will attempt to defend his Masters title this week in Augusta, Ga. "A lot of young guys that have agents are typically college all-Americans or phenoms. Here I am, playing the mini-tours, trying to work my way up.

"Brad saw something in me. He said, 'This guy has a chance to go somewhere.' "

The truth was, Buffoni couldn't have predicted Johnson would one day win the Masters any more than he could have predicted the winning lottery numbers. But he did see qualities that made Johnson stand out in the mini-tour crowd.

A few months earlier Johnson had qualified to play in the PGA Tour's BellSouth Classic. He made the cut and surprised many by playing well on the weekend. However, a devastating four-putt on the 72nd hole cost him a top-10 finish and tens of thousands of dollars.

"He stood to earn more than $100,000 and he's never seen anything like that before," said Buffoni, who was watching the tournament on television. "He's going to finish in the top 10, which means he gets to play the next week's PGA Tour event. And he four-putts and it's all gone.

Eye-catching composure

"NBC interviewed him afterward and I was so impressed by how he handled a very difficult situation that I made a note and wrote his name down. I started following his results on the Hooters Tour and it became obvious quickly that he was one of the tour's better players."

A few months later, after an introductory phone call, Buffoni met Johnson at the now-defunct Hooters Tour event at Oakwood Park.

"At that time there was not a whole lot he could do for me because my résumé was very thin," Johnson said. "He was investing in my future. To me, it was a no-brainer (to sign with Buffoni). Plus, we just connected as guys."

It turned out Buffoni's intuition was spot on.

In 2003, Johnson won twice on the Nationwide Tour and was named player of the year. He won in just his 13th start on the PGA Tour in '04 (the BellSouth Classic, no less). And last year, on a cold Easter Sunday afternoon in Augusta, he birdied three of the final six holes to win the 71st Masters Tournament.

Not only did he shoot a 69 on a day the scoring average topped 74, but he overcame the looming specter of Tiger Woods, who seemed destined to win a fifth green jacket after taking the lead early in the final round.

"It was an out-of-body experience," Johnson said. "Just joining that fraternity (of champions) - you're talking about the men who pioneered the game of golf - joining those guys and being able to wear that jacket for the rest of my life is something that is very, very special."

Buffoni walked every step of the final round with Johnson, who happened to be paired with Vaughn Taylor, another of Buffoni's clients. Taylor, an Augusta native, struggled to a 75 and tied for 10th place.

"It was incredibly bittersweet, and a very tough situation for me personally," said Buffoni, a 1985 graduate of Homestead High School and one of four partners in SFX World Sports Management, which has offices in Mequon, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and Reston, Va.

After Johnson putted out on No. 18 he retreated to the clubhouse, huddled with Buffoni and waited for the last two groups to finish. When Woods failed to hole his second shot on the 72nd hole, it was official.

Suddenly in demand

Immediately, Johnson was catapulted into the chaos that is the territory of Masters champions.

He was whisked to Butler Cabin for the formal CBS interview, to the green jacket ceremony, to the media auditorium and then back to the clubhouse for the members' party. He graciously stayed until midnight, making it a point to speak to every single member in the room.

Buffoni, meanwhile, was frantic because he had no access to a cell phone; they aren't allowed on the grounds at Augusta National.

"I had Tour officials coming to me saying, 'Letterman wants you, this show called,' " he said. "I had no way of getting back to them. When I finally got to my Blackberry that night, I probably had 275 new e-mails and 200-plus voice mails. As quickly as I could open them, five more would come in because I had used up my memory and they were queued up.

"It probably was a month and a half before my unread e-mails dipped below 50."

The next morning, the PGA Tour flew Johnson and Buffoni by private jet to New York for a whirlwind tour.

"We did Dan Patrick's radio show, ESPN's 'Cold Pizza,' an interview with the New York Times, CNN, as well as Letterman that day," Buffoni said. "We stayed overnight, woke up the next morning and did 'Regis and Kelly,' flew back to Augusta, picked up Zach's RV and drove to Hilton Head so he could honor his commitment to play in the (Verizon Heritage) pro-am.

"In between Augusta and Hilton Head there was about an hour when we had no cell phone coverage and we were able to catch our breath. That's when it kind of hit us: 'What's going on here?' "

Johnson, a native of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and a devout Christian with a likable boy-next-door quality, already had been a Hawkeye State celebrity. Now, he was a hero.

Thousands attended a day in his honor in a driving rain at the State Capitol and Buffoni found himself besieged with requests from grandmothers who wanted Johnson to drop in on birthday parties and coaches who wanted him to throw out the first pitch at Little League games.

Return policy

It's Buffoni's policy to return every phone call or e-mail, no matter how seemingly trivial. He's also available to his clients by phone 24 hours a day and once took a 4 a.m. call from a panicked Johnson, whose golf clubs went missing after a flight to the British Open.

"Brad has been inundated," Johnson said. "I don't know how he does it. Sometimes it's overwhelming, but it's also very, very neat. I'm learning how to say no. It's hard, because they're all worthy, legitimate requests."

Said Buffoni: "My guess is that Zach has satisfied more demands than any Masters champion in recent history."

Along with the $1,305,000 first-prize money, Johnson hit the jackpot because all his endorsement contracts were up at the end of the 2007 season. Buffoni negotiated new deals with sponsors Aegon, TransAmerica, RSM McGladrey and Titleist that will "give him a lifetime of financial security."

"He's such a marketable guy," Buffoni added. "He's beyond reproach. He's authentic, sincere and completely genuine. Zach is a great role model, a very normal guy who is very accessible and one that people relate well to. He's a marketer's dream."

On Tuesday, Johnson will preside over the Champions Dinner at Augusta National, and two days later he'll begin defense of his Masters title. Buffoni will be there with him, walking every step of the way.