ESPN Golf

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Jerry Kelly has been here before. Two years ago, Kelly was 9-under after two rounds en route to a fourth place finish in The Players Championship.

Now he's back at 9-under and has a share of the lead, but this time is different. This time, Kelly actually has a good golf swing.

After working with Rick Smith, Kelly went from allowing his athletic ability to carry his swing to actually building and learning his swing.

"I know I didn't have a very good swing. I was a very athletic ball striker, meaning I had a lot of timing and it wasn't very pretty, but it got the job done," Kelly said. "And (Smith) said to me, 'Boy, I'm glad you came to me because if you can play well with that swing, you can be a great player some day.'"

So Smith and Kelly went to work. They worked on getting the club head and Kelly's hands out in front. No longer would the former college hockey player rely strictly on his athletic ability.

"The difference between then and now is I was relying on timing and I had no clue if a good shot or bad shot was going to come out," Kelly said. "I'd try my best, I'd do whatever I could, but it was a timing thing."

Still, it wasn't until just a month ago that Kelly finally figured it out.

"I wondered what I'd been doing and I'm sure (Smith) wonders what I've been doing the last seven years, but it's like an epiphany," Kelly said. "I kind of know about my golf swing that much better. I know how to hit the ball. Now if I do what I know I have to do, a good shot is going to come out. You're going to hit bad ones now and then, but I've got a handle on something I know I'll never lose."

Right now, he also has a handle on this tournament. He's played 36 bogey-free holes. He's 13 of 13 on up-and-downs for par. He's hit 23 of 28 fairways and 24 of 36 greens in regulation.

And, he's been in this situation before and learned from it.

"Mentally I let it come out for that whole tournament and that was a huge breakthrough for me. Down the stretch, there were a lot of shots I hit where I wanted to and how I wanted to and that was mentally because I let the athlete come out in me," Kelly said. "Now I can do that with a good swing -- boy, I can do a whole lot better."