Former Masters Champion Tommy Aaron and longtime friend/coach Manuel de la Torre will team up at the 2006 PGA Teaching & Coaching Summit. In 1986, de la Torre won the inaugural PGA Teacher of the Year award.

By Bob Denney, PGA of America

Thirty-three years removed from a victory in the 1973 Masters, Tommy Aaron sifted through souvenirs in his home in Gainesville, Ga. When he picked up a golf trading card bearing his image, he had a good chuckle.

Aaron gets occasional requests from golf fans to autograph such cards, which were produced by Champions of Golf Masters Collection. This particular card captured Aaron hitting an approach shot in the final round of the '73 Masters.

"I remember that it was a three-quarter iron shot to the seventh hole," said Aaron. "I can see that I still had a tendency to stay down too long with my body. I wasn't in a strong position."

Aaron said he didn't realize he had the slight swing flaw until years later, when he met PGA Teaching Professional Manuel de la Torre, the 1986 PGA Teacher of the Year from Milwaukee, Wis.

In 1991, Aaron was introduced to de la Torre and the twosome went to a nearby practice range. Aaron began hitting a few balls and de la Torre soon offered an observation.

"Manuel noticed the tendency to stay down and not allow my body to respond to the motion of the club -- to reach the target side," said Aaron, who retired from competition in 2002. "You know I worked on what Manuel said and I immediately started playing better, and not long after I won a Champions Tour event (the 1992 Kaanapali Classic)."

Aaron and de la Torre will be reunited again this winter, appearing in the PGA Teaching & Coaching Summit, Dec. 6-10, at the PGA Learning Center in Port St. Lucie, Fla.

De la Torre, 84, a PGA teaching professional at Milwaukee Country Club, was born in Madrid, Spain. The son of Angel de la Torre, the first Spanish golf professional, de la Torre graduated from Northwestern University in 1947. He was elected to PGA membership in 1952.

Not only was he the first PGA Professional to win the first PGA Teacher of the Year award in 1986, but de la Torre also was inducted in 2005 into the World Golf Teachers Hall of Fame. He has been teaching golf for 59 years.

"I used to travel with my Dad who would watch Tommy Armour teach and how he always talked about the swing," said de la Torre. "I believe that I was able through those experiences to pick things up quickly and develop my eye. I have enjoyed a friendship with Tommy (Aaron). I like his personality and our personalities blend very well.

"What things I helped Tommy with are not any different than with anyone else. It is the same set of principles that are used to go with a player's idiosyncrasies."

"Manuel de la Torre brings a tradition of family golf, whose father was a golf professional, and who has handed down experiences from one generation to another," said PGA of America Director of Instruction Rick Martino. "His presentation with Tommy Aaron is really about relationships. It is important to see a player and a coach have spent a long time together, because they have made the necessary adjustments as to the player's physicality and the changing types of events. It is certainly nice to have Manuel back with us at the Summit."

Begun in 1988, the PGA Teaching & Coaching Summit is the Association's largest forum for ideas and teaching methods. The biennial event evolved from indoor sessions (1988-2000), to an all-outdoor classroom amphitheater at the PGA Learning Center (20002 to today). In 2004, the PGA Teaching & Coaching Summit featured more than 800 attendees representing 44 states and a record 13 countries.

Bob Denney is The PGA of America's Manager of Media Relations.