AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- Ernie Els hated making the phone call. Still, he felt a coaching change was the only way to make some needed improvements in his game.

After working with David Leadbetter since 1990, the Big Easy said Tuesday he switched to Butch Harmon as his swing coach because he wanted to "get a different feel, get different words coming toward me."

The timing of the move was somewhat curious, because Els won The Honda Classic just over a month ago. But he decided Harmon could help smooth out some of the rough spots in his swing heading into the first major of the year, the Masters.

"He's obviously had a lot of success with a lot of players, and I love the way he changes people's games," Els said after a practice round at Augusta National. "I've seen it with Stewart Cink and I've seen it with Justin Leonard and a lot of other players. I like the way they swing."

But to sign on with Harmon, Els had to make the difficult step of breaking up with Leadbetter, who helped craft a swing that won two U.S. Opens and a British Open. The news was delivered in an emotional phone call.

"David Leadbetter is a very good friend of mine. He's been a friend of mine for a very long time," Els said. "Obviously it's tough breaking up with a guy like Lead, but he'll be a friend of mine forever."

Asked what he was looking to change, Els pointed to improving his posture, shortening his backswing and getting the upper and lower parts of his body more in rhythm.

"My hips were really turning too much and my shoulder, everything was kind of collapsing at the top," he said. "I'm quite a flexible guy, but swinging that long, I get out of sync with my lower body and upper, so I needed to stabilize that and shorten my backswing a little bit, and really get the club out in front of me."

Els is already starting to notice some improvement, though he concedes it's too early in the process to know how much impact it will have at Augusta.

"Hey, it could go either way," he said. "Hopefully I can be right on Thursday and really trust the swing and trust my different moves. It's not stuff that's totally foreign to me. ... It's going to look like my normal swing. It's just in a little different position."

Els had been contemplating a change since late last season. Even after winning the Honda Classic, he stuck with his plan to switch to Harmon, who has worked with everyone from Tiger Woods to Phil Mickelson.

"Although I won, I still felt I wasn't totally under control of the golf ball, and that's not a great feeling to have," Els said. "So I felt, hey, let's start fresh and maybe get a different look and go from there."

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