including Nick Faldo, Nick Price, Greg Norman and Ernie Els. Today, he will impart some of his knowledge to attendees at the World Insurance Forum. The following article is excerpted from a story by Jaime Dias, which first appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1997.

On the practice range, where so much is revealed to those with the vision to see, David Leadbetter is the man with the X-ray eyes. An angular, Ichabod Crane-like figure in a wide-brimmed hat, Leadbetter customarily stands a few paces from one of the world's best players with his feet wide apart and his arms folded, filtering information through the circuitry behind his high-tech sunglasses.

As Leadbetter watches in his unhurried way, other players sneak anxious looks at him, waiting for their turn to hear the words that might make a disjointed swing fall into place.

Leadbetter established his credibility a decade ago when his student Nick Faldo won his first major championship with a rebuilt swing, and Leadbetter's aura of authority has grown to the point where he is as recognisable to casual fans as many of the players who rely on him.

At the Masters, Leadbetter oversaw Ernie Els, Faldo, Greg Norman and Nick Price, an unprecedented fearsome foursome of pupils. Leadbetter also coaches about a dozen other touring pros, including Brad Faxon, David Frost, John Huston, Bernhard Langer and Mark McNulty. At one time or another he has worked with Seve Ballesteros, Sandy Lyle, Mark O'Meara, Scott Simpson, Tom Watson and Ian Woosnam. Leadbetter's videos, books, training products, corporate clinics and academies dominate the instructional market. At 44 he is Lord Lead, as Faldo calls him, the most respected teacher in the game. "David's success made people realize the value of golf instruction and how it can even help the best players in the world,'' says Butch Harmon, who coaches Tiger Woods, among others. "All the teachers in the game owe him a debt of gratitude. He gave us all credibility. He was the pioneer.'' The pro's pro: David Leadbetter On the range Leadbetter never stands in one place for long. He's constantly shifting position. Is it to observe from a different angle? "No,''says Price.

"He's uncomfortable because he knows he's standing in the gallery's way. He's self-conscious that he's on a stage where he doesn't belong, so he's always dancing about. In a nutshell, that's David.'' Characterising any of today's self-promoting swing gurus as self-conscious is a tough sell, but portraying Leadbetter that way is harder still. He's in many golf magazines and TV commercials, and makes the Golf Channel seem like Late Night with David Leadbetter.

To those who know him well, it is Leadbetter's ability to empathize that's not only at the heart of the man but also the key to his success. "David knows as much about the golf swing as anyone, and he has an absolutely incredible eye,'' says Price, who was nine when he first met the 14-year-old Leadbetter at a junior tournament in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia. "But his real gift is a sense for people, what they are feeling, how they learn. He knows how to reach people.'' Leadbetter's wife of 13 years, Kelly, a former player on the LPGA tour, says that when he gets a 3 a.m. call at their Lake Nona home outside Orlando from a desperate player in some far-flung corner of the world, Leadbetter's voice immediately becomes fully alert. "I think that kind of energy and attention is a product of doing something you love,'' she says. "It's like his brain always has this little golf department going on.'' Leadbetter finds it almost impossible to turn away a top pro, and as his stable of players expands, his reputation for being late, and the suspicion that he's stretched too thin, also grow. But it is the challenge and process of helping a player get better that's his passion. "I'm like a doctor,'' he says. "If somebody's ill and I can make them better, I'm going to try.'' A serious case of childhood asthma had an effect on Leadbetter's character.

His condition played an important role in his father's decision to move the family of five from England to Zimbabwe when David was six. By that time the stress of wheezing for air had caused the boy's sternum to protrude, a deformity that left a psychological scar. "That was a bit of a trauma,'' Leadbetter admits. "Kids are cruel, so I went into my shell for a while there. It probably made me a little bit of the outsider, always watching, always thinking, trying to figure out what made people tick.'' Leadbetter was drawn to all sports and excelled in cricket, field hockey and track. But it was golf that really captured the introspective loner. By 16, he was a two handicap, with aspirations to play professionally. ''David was a good player,'' remembers Price, "but what I remember about him was every time I went in the pro shop, he had his nose in a golf book or magazine. He has always loved the dynamics and the mystery of the swing.'' All the while Leadbetter was foundering with his game, he was having success teaching at a local club.

"In the end, becoming a teacher was an easy decision,'' he says. It quickly became Leadbetter's goal to come to the US, and by 1980 he had landed a position as assistant pro at Oak Park Country Club in Chicago.

Two years later he took a full-time teaching position at Grenelefe Resort near Haines City, Fla. It was there that Leadbetter established the headquarters where players like Price, Denis Watson and, in early 1985, Faldo would build their games. Since 1989 the Lake Nona Club has been home base for the Leadbetters and their three children, Andy, 12, Hally, 4, and James, 2.

Leadbetter was one of the first instructors to make extensive use of videotape, with which he debunked many of the swing theories that were prevalent in the 1970s. "David studied what the best players were doing and made some breakthroughs,'' says Gary Smith, an instructor and a commentator for the Golf Channel who used to work with Leadbetter. "He also looked at film of players like Sam Snead and Ben Hogan and decided that what they did was sounder than what the players of the '70s and early '80s were doing. The essential concept is that power comes from the rotation of the trunk, not from driving the legs toward the target. The swings of players such as Steve Elkington and Tiger Woods -- today's model swings -- have been influenced by David.'' Because their hands are less active, golfers coached by Leadbetter tend to be medium to short hitters who sacrifice distance for accuracy. "It's a trade-off,'' says Leadbetter, "but control of the ball is the ultimate goal.

That's how the Nicks have won their majors.'' (Faldo has won six, Price three.) With Els and Norman, both long hitters, Leadbetter has worked to quiet their legs and hands in the interest of control and consistency.

The rap on Leadbetter is that his so-called method is too complicated. Critics point to the demise of Ian Baker-Finch and Bob Tway as evidence that Leadbetter's teaching can lead to paralysis by analysis. Leadbetter answers that while he hasn't always had success, calling him inflexible or complex is inaccurate.

"A lot of people have labeled me a method teacher, but working with the group of players I have, that are so different, I can't be,'' he says. "You can't try to make a master race of players. They may be cloning sheep, but you can't clone golfers.'' Unlike other teachers, who feel they haven't received enough credit from the players they've helped, Leadbetter has always been given his due, particularly by Faldo. There was potential for strain in Leadbetter's decision last October to take on Norman, as well as in Faldo's recent foray into the golf school business.

"I don't feel diminished that David has been instrumental in my development, because I'm still the one who has to pull the club back,'' says Faldo. "When you stand out there on the 18th fairway with an Open championship on the line, nothing, nobody, helps you there. It's just you. That's my satisfaction. David helped me to get there. I suppose that's his satisfaction. He's always been that sort of person.'' X-ray eyes or not, he is rare.

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