Taylor Montgomery taps Butch Harmon to fix swing issues

LAS VEGAS — Taylor Montgomery is used to working through his own issues on the golf course, but as his struggles continued to mount, he made the same call as many players before him.

Having missed five of his past six cuts, Montgomery is now working with famed golf coach Butch Harmon to fix issues with his swing.

"I was just struggling, and I kept doing the same thing and trying to fix the same thing," he said Tuesday ahead of the Shriners Children's Open. "So I'm trying to change something and see what happens."

Montgomery shot out of the gates in his rookie season, making 10 consecutive cuts including a solo third at the Fortinet Championship and a solo fifth at The American Express.

Then the issues started to creep in. The 8-irons that Montgomery had been striping 175 yards were suddenly traveling 150. In his past 18 starts, excluding the team event in New Orleans, he has one top-20 — a T17 at the Match Play — and has missed nine cuts.

Montgomery had accumulated enough points to qualify for the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs, but was one-and-done after a T37 at the FedEx St. Jude. He took a few weeks off, then missed the cut at the first event of the Fall series at the Fortinet.

Montgomery declined to use the pressure of being a rookie on the PGA Tour as an excuse.

"I feel like mentally I've stayed the same. But obviously I'm doing something different than when I first came out here," he said. "Whether it's body-wise, I don't know. I think I just got into a bad habit of scooping it. I can see how you can really fall of the deep end playing bad. But that's never going to be me."

The Las Vegas resident said he will compete at the Shriners for as long as he's on tour and the event is held. But he's going to play more than anticipated this fall as he attempts to stay in the 51-60 range in the standings that will qualify him for two designated events next year. He enters the week in 56th place.

"I thought it was going to be a time for me to relax and not practice as much," Montgomery said. "But I said ‘Screw it, let's get after it and practice every day.'

"At the end of the day, I just want to be playing good golf going into (next) season. I just want to get back to that. If I do that, everything will take care of itself."

—Derek Harper, Field Level Media