Whether he’s working in Panama Beach, Fla., his new teaching academy in St. Simons Island, Ga., or from his original home base in Mobile, Ala., Tony Ruggiero has plenty of views of how COVID-19 is impacting golf across the Deep South — and none of those views is good. So Ruggiero, who teaches everyone from weekend recreational golfers all the way up to PGA Tour pros, is making the best of the moment: he’s begun a new online teaching program through the Skillest app, and he’s encouraging his players to use their time wisely while riding out the pandemic. “If golfers — serious golfers — can look at this as an opportunity, in an odd way, to get better where you don’t have concerns of play in your club tournament or your junior tournaments or pro events for a period of time,” Ruggiero said, “then you can turn it into a positive.”
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LYING FOUR: Are you in spending most of your time in Georgia or Alabama right now?
TONY RUGGIERO: I split it and spend a good bit of time in both places now. I’m not on the road for Tour events, right? That’s freed up some time, and I’m making the best of it like everybody else is trying to do.
LYING FOUR: How’s business right now? Is it about normal, or has it slowed down a little?
TONY RUGGIERO: Obviously, there’s folks everywhere and in the business in far worse shape than I am. Folks who do big golf school-type stuff — you know, resort-type deals — are probably hit way harder, because people aren’t gonna take big group stuff. But I think if you teach private, one-on-one lessons and you teach lots of juniors, college players, and pros who are serious about improving, then a lot of those people are still coming out. Obviously it impacts it, and you lose some business, but we’re also just at the beginning of this. So I don’t know how long it’s gonna be or how it’s gonna impact me. Right now, I’m still busy enough. I’m very fortunate. And I’ve got Tour players who are great. I’m in better shape than most.
LYING FOUR: Among the folks who are coming to see you right now, is it more college players and pros than usual because of the layoff, or is it still about the same mix as you always see?
TONY RUGGIERO: It’s probably more slanted toward junior golfers, competitive players, and pros. When all this started at the Players Championship, I don’t think anybody knew specifically the scope of what was going to happen. Obviously they cancelled that, and we knew that the next few events were gonna be cancelled, but I encouraged everybody to take this opportunity. We never get a real offseason anymore, and I challenged these players who are serious to find some way to come out of this thing better than when it started. If you’re able to go hit balls and still play, then you’ve got the opportunity to go hit balls and work and be very diligent about what you’re working on — and also to use this time to get better physically, whether it’s doing stuff in your house with bands and weights and different things like that that you can do, because most gyms everywhere are shut down. But you can get programs where you can info from your trainer who works with your teacher. I think it’s an opportunity. If golfers — serious golfers — can look at this as an opportunity, in an odd way, to get better where you don’t have concerns of play in your club tournament or your junior tournaments or pro events for a period of time, then you can turn it into a positive.
LYING FOUR: I remember something that Tim Yelverton at Old Waverly told me one time — that pros often don’t have enough time to practice, because they spend so much time playing competitive rounds. Does all this free time allow pros to be a little more invasive with their own mechanics than they otherwise would be this time of year?
TONY RUGGIERO: I think it allows every player to do what it’s hard to do, especially during a PGA Tour season — which is that it gives you time to hit the reset button and go back to the things that you know you need to work on that you may have gotten away from, and work your way back into shape. And it could be paying more attention to a short game that you may have neglected while you were playing a bunch. Or maybe it’s working on setup or fundamentals in your golf swing — or whatever it is. For lots of guys who have played a lot of years, it’s letting your body rest and get physically strong, stable, and flexible again. Because there’s not a time crunch, where you’re like, “OK I need to figure this out now because we tee off Thursday,” it gives us a unique opportunity as teachers and players. For the average golfer, I think it applies to them too. If you’re a 10-handicapper or a 15-handicapper, there’s more teachers sitting around now with less to do who have online academies, or you can text videos and get thoughts on your swing. So maybe you have more access to a teacher than you had before. We’re opening an online academy, and it’s something that I’ve never really done, because I’m more old-school. But it’s something that we’ve been planning to do, and we just kind of accelerated it and stepped it up, because we’ve had more people during this shutdown who have asked for access to get help. In this industry, we’re constantly trying to create ways to give people more access to us so we can help. I think this is gonna change, for good, some of the ways that we work with players of all levels. I think people will start to see that they need to take some time off to work on things; I think working online is going to grow, because more people are going to find out that they can benefit from it. This is gonna have an effect on everything in the world, but obviously you and I are talking about golf, players, and instruction — and I think it’ll have a lasting effect on how we work with people.
LYING FOUR: I’m interested to hear about this online academy. How’d you decide to step out and start doing online instruction?
TONY RUGGIERO: I’m not technologically inclined, but I’ve done it for years on occasion where you watch somebody hit balls on FaceTime; I’ve done it with Luke Guthrie before, and I’ve done it with Lucas Glover before, and with Smylie Kaufman. And we’re doing more of that. Now, with this social distancing, people are gonna get creative to find ways to use technology to still access information and get better without violating the things that we all need to do to help get through this thing.
LYING FOUR: I certainly understand what you were talking about earlier — that this is a potential opportunity for players to spend a lot more time drilling down than they usually get a chance to. From a skills standpoint, are there any potential drawbacks to a shutdown this long?
TONY RUGGIERO: Well obviously, the drawbacks are that in some areas, like the Northeast, the golf courses are shut down, and you can’t even go outside to walk your dog. There are a lot more drawbacks to this than there are positives. For my players, I’m just trying to find a way to challenge them to get better, which I think is an important job for a coach. And I think it’s important to stay positive. If you pull up Twitter or social media, or you go online, there isn’t a lot of positive information out there right now. But I’m a naturally positive person, and that works for me: “What’s some way we can all get something out of this?” Well, we can all find ways to get physically better. We can all find ways to get better with our fundamentals. We can all find ways to work on whatever it is we need to work on and hit the reset button. And in places where you’re allowed to hit balls and play golf, it’s a great opportunity — because there’s not a hell of a lot else we can do.
LYING FOUR: How are your players doing mentally right now?
TONY RUGGIERO: I think the biggest thing is just the unknown. You have players at all different levels, right? Different categories of tour status and different tours, right? And so everybody’s different; everybody’s in different positions. But the underlying thing is the unknown. Nobody has ever experienced this; this has never happened. Nobody has any answers. It’s not one of those things where you can call somebody who can say, “Here’s what I heard the Tour is gonna do,” because nobody knows when it’s gonna be OK to go back and play golf. Professionals, really good players, and really good coaches — I think we’re all really good at dealing with knowns; if you tell us when the start date is, or when we’re gonna play again, we’re all really good at coming up with a plan to make a person better and to be ready to go. It’s hard when you don’t know when that date is. I also think when you’re with Tour players, a valuable lesson is not to over-coach and over-teach. You’ve got to be careful during this time so that you don’t try to give them too much or keep tinkering with things too much just because you’ve got a bunch of time.
LYING FOUR: You’re sort of famous for keeping a family atmosphere with your players, and obviously this throws a wrench in that sort of thing. That must be weird for you.
TONY RUGGIERO: Yeah, I’ve had small groups of two or three where we were working around the same time, and they’d play 18 holes together and stuff like that. I try to keep all of them up to date on what everybody’s doing. And yeah, it’s a challenge, but it’s no more a challenge than it is for anybody in the world right now. Look, there’s people who can’t go see their parents because they’re afraid of their parents getting sick. Doctors have been exposed and can’t go see their wife and kids. Us not being able to be around each other for golf is probably on the very bottom of the totem pole. As a coach, I look at it as a challenge: I can’t do the things I’ve always normally done and have worked for me, so what are ways that I can grow and get better at things to help people get better? It’s a challenge to stay in touch with everybody and keep everybody positive, and update them on what your plans are and where you’re gonna be. Sometimes I don’t even know whether it’s as much working as much as it is being back with familiarity. We all get familiar from working with and seeing the same guys week in and week out; in this time when everything’s uncertain, I think we long for that familiarity. So sometimes, some of these lessons are not just golf work, but just surrounding them with things that are familiar that make us comfortable again.
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