greatest strikers of the ball golf

"It's a mystery to me why someone who could dominate so much would want to change anything," Price said Wednesday. "We're always trying to get better, but sometimes guys try to make a quantum leap instead of putting one foot in front of the other. That's when they get into trouble."

Price, a 55-year-old native of Durban, South Africa, was the best player in the world in the mid-1990s. He topped the PGA Tour money list in 1993 and '94 with records for single-season earnings Titleist 910 D2 Driver each year and spent 43 weeks atop the Official World Golf Rankings. Price's best season was 1994, when he won the British Open and PGA Championship before capturing his second Canadian Open at Glen Abbey to cap a six-win season.

"It's very difficult to change one's golf swing," Price added. "You get into bad habits. You get lazy with your posture and lazy with the discipline of your address position, ball position, all those sorts of things.

"I did that early in my career," he said. "I was a very streaky player. When I was on, I played really well. But it didn't happen enough for me.

Price, an 18-time winner on the PGA Tour - including three majors and two Canadian Opens - added his name to a growing and impressive list of players committed to play in the third edition of the Montreal Championship, slated for June 22-24 at Richelieu Valley. It will be Price's first trip to Montreal since 2001, when he tied with Woods for 23rd at the Canadian Open at Royal Montreal.

"When I started working with (David) Leadbetter back in 1982, I basically tried to refine my golf swing to make it efficient without any extraneous moves, which I had plenty of before working with (the renowned swing coach). I just tried to streamline my golf swing."

Price didn't. "I think it's one of the reasons in that five-year period I played as well as I did," he said. "I just kept working on all the idiosyncrasies that sort of crept into my game.

"I think the guy was fighting off demons," he said. "That's what it looked like the way he was backing off. You have Mizuno MP-69 Irons so much going through your head when you're not playing well. When you're playing well, you keep the game as simple as you possibly can.

"I think it's kind of like a disease, where if you let it get out of hand it's very hard to rectify. If I had any advice for Kevin Na, I'd just say try to simplify your thought process and pull the trigger a little quicker, because indecision is the root of many, many bad shots."

Like many of us, Price tuned into the struggles of Kevin Na last weekend at The Players Championship. Na, who held a one-shot lead after 54 holes, came unglued with endless waggles, half-swings and intentional whiffs of the ball before almost every shot before finishing five shots back, tied for seventh.

Price, who has won four times on the Champions Tour since joining the 50-and-over circuit in 2007, said the injury has affected his play this season. He has managed only one top-10 finish, a tie for seventh at the Allianz Championship in mid-February, and had to withdraw in his last appearance a month ago.

Price figured "bad habits" have contributed to a forearm injury he is rehabilitating with physiotherapy. It began with tennis elbow and, ultimately, led to two torn tendons.

Price hasn't hit balls for five weeks, but received the green light from his physiotherapist on Wednesday and expects to start some light hitting next week.

Na, who was warned for discount golf clubs slow play, angered his playing partners, verbally admonished himself and felt the ire of spectators. He attributed his struggles with trying to get comfortable with a new pre-shot routine.