Following on this post from last month on the truly interesting question about Tiger Woods, dontí miss this Guy Yocum/Golf Digest interview of Woodsí former swing coach, Hank Haney (H/T Geoff Shackelford).
The entire interview is fascinating, but a couple of points stood out. First, Haney confirmed my suspicion that Woodsí swing problems derive mainly from deteriorating confidence in his longer clubs:
Tiger has an overall lack of trust with his driver that manifests itself in different ways. One, he obviously swings extremely hard, and sometimes too fast. He feels like he isn’t in the right place in his swing, or that he isn’t going to hit the right shot, and the anxiety of that tends to make people speed up. The quest was to get him to make the same swing with his driver he did with his irons in terms of effort, speed, his head not tilting, rocking and dropping. He was like, "I need to fix that, I’m going to work on it, I’m working on it, I’m going to work on it, I understand," and so on, but I didn’t see it to the extent I felt he needed.
The other observation that stood out to me are ones that Haney makes at the end of the interview regarding a topic that I noted during the immediate aftermath of his infamous car crash:
You’ve said that Tiger needs friends at such a difficult time in his life. Is it hard for such a high-profile individual to find friends?
Yes. Very hard. Especially true friends.
Is your friendship with Tiger on a peer level, or is there a big-brother quality to it?
I think some of my messages to Tiger were along the lines of a big brother, but I don’t know if he ever viewed me that way. Remember, I’m 54 and he’s 34. So I’m sure age is a factor with that.
How does he respond when you try to be close to him? Does he draw lines in the friendship?
Tiger’s different. I’m sure that’s why he’s the golfer he is. I don’t take that personally. It’s not for me to judge how he should be.
At the end of the day, how well do you feel like you really know Tiger Woods?
I always felt like I knew Tiger from observing him. I did not feel like I knew him from knowing him.
I thought highly about Hank Haney prior to reading this interview.
I think even more highly of him now.
He was remarkably candid, while on the other hand stopping short of throwing Tiger under the bus.
One thing he said surprised me, however:
“It’s not a job. Teaching touring pros has always been, and always will be, a marketing expense. It’s for personal satisfaction, for contributing to history, and for marketing your brand.”
I never thought about it that way – the big name teachers coach up the big name players so slaps like you and me will go to their golf schools or buy their instructional videos. Hmmmm…
jrb