The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods (34 page)

I was irritated, but my lasting thought was that Sean hadn’t yet learned that Tiger had some difficult swing issues and that simply imposing what Sean believed was a biomechanically “correct” swing might not be the solution. In other words, Sean didn’t know what he was dealing with. As Butch had once told me, coaching Tiger was harder than it looked.

In taking on Sean after working with me, Tiger committed himself to making a bigger conceptual swing change than he had when he’d gone from Butch to me. At first, Sean expressed confidence that within a relatively short time Tiger would incorporate the changes easily because they were so “correct.” Sixteen months later, though, Tiger was still hitting wild shots, driving the ball more poorly than at any other time in his career, and still hadn’t won. And Sean was saying Tiger needed more reps.

I have no doubt that Sean is a very good teacher. I agree with a lot of his beliefs about the golf swing. To me, Tiger’s overall motion looks good. But the facts show that Tiger has gone backward with what was already his weakness—his tee shots, particularly with the driver.

In nine official events on the 2011 PGA Tour, Tiger hit only 48.9 percent of his fairways, a career-low number in driving accuracy that ranked him 186th on the tour. The drop would have been less striking if Tiger’s driving distance had gone up, but it, too, dropped to a career-low 71st on the tour, with an average of 293.7 yards.

What stood out to me was how often Tiger started missing to the left. For right-handed tour players, especially power hitters, left is where the big miss most often occurs, because a hooked ball that curves right to left is “hotter” and is more likely to run farther into trouble than a softer-landing, left-to-right-curving fade. When I coached Tiger, he hated missing to the left so much that his bail-out shot when he was uncomfortable became a high-spinning fade that usually expired in the right rough. It was a shot that I took a lot of heat for, even as I worked to get Tiger to stop relying on it, but at least it got him around the golf course in a way that still allowed him to win a lot of tournaments.

When Sean made Tiger’s grip even stronger (by having Tiger turn his left hand more clockwise) than it had been when I began working with him in 2004, I thought it was risky. While I understood that the goal was a more powerful position that produced more solid and longer shots and that many top players have played and do play with such a grip, I felt it was a radical change for a player in his mid-30s. If Tiger’s hands ever reverted to their old position in the hitting area, it meant the face would close and the ball would head left. Tiger indeed began hitting more such shots, and I noticed that by the fall of 2011 his grip had moved back to a weaker position.

Sean also emphasized having Tiger lean the shaft more toward the target with his irons at impact. Again, this produced longer distances on his shots and also a more solid feeling of contact, and Tiger several times commented on how much more he felt he was “compressing” the ball. The problem with emphasizing such a position is that it can create issues with distance control. Shots tend to explode off the face of the club when the shaft is significantly leaned forward, and will often go farther than anticipated. In his first year with Sean, I noticed that Tiger was too often long with his irons. When he was leading the tour in greens in regulation, the hallmark of his iron play was that he was so often pin high. Again, I thought Tiger had reduced some of this shaft lean when his iron play regained some of its precision in the fall of 2011.

With his mental game undoubtedly shaken by the aftermath of the scandal, the swing changes made for a greater rate of big misses than Tiger had ever produced. At the end of 2010, he took a four-stroke lead into the final round at the Chevron at Sherwood. In his pro career, he’d never lost a tournament with such a lead on the last day. But he got shaky on the back nine and fell behind Graeme McDowell. While Tiger made a courageous birdie on the final hole to get into a playoff, he lost when McDowell answered with a long birdie on the first hole of sudden death.

The loss seemed a bad omen for 2011. In the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Tiger tied his first-round opponent, Thomas Bjorn, after 18 holes. On the first extra hole, Tiger pushed his 3-wood tee shot into the desert and lost the match. It was the first time I’d ever seen Tiger lose an official event because of a drive into trouble on the last hole.

At the Masters two months later, Tiger made a tremendous Sunday charge, shooting 31 on the front nine. Tied for the lead on the twelfth hole, he ran a 25-foot birdie putt less than three feet past the hole and missed the par putt. It was shocking, because the twelfth is perhaps the flattest green on the course, and Tiger’s purpose was to make sure of par so he could assault the two short par 5s ahead of him and take control of the tournament. Instead, he made the kind of error that he was renowned for never making when he was in the lead. With his momentum stalled, he didn’t birdie the par-5 thirteenth even though he had only a 6-iron for his second shot, and the Masters slipped away.

After the tournament, Tiger said he’d hurt his left knee and Achilles tendon hitting a shot from under a tree on the seventeenth hole on Saturday. It was a surprising claim, because he’d played so well on Sunday and with no apparent limp. A few weeks later, he withdrew from the Players Championship after a front-nine 42, again claiming left leg problems, and he eventually took a break from the game that included missing the U.S. Open and the British Open. Whatever the state of his injury, in my opinion a break was what he needed.

In July, Tiger fired Steve Williams, who’d been his caddie since 1999. I wasn’t shocked. Steve had been upset when Tiger had neglected to inform him that he was pulling out of the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional outside Washington, D.C., causing Steve to fly all the way from New Zealand, only to find out he wouldn’t be working. Steve then asked Tiger if he could caddie in the championship for Adam Scott instead. Tiger approved it, but he didn’t like it, especially when Steve continued to caddie for Adam. At the AT&T National at Aronimink near Philadelphia, where Tiger wasn’t playing but was still acting as tournament host, he met with Steve in the clubhouse. It was reported that Tiger told Steve he’d been “disloyal” and that he’d been “overcaddying”—tour jargon for giving the player too much advice—and ended their relationship. The whole thing infuriated Steve, especially the idea that he hadn’t been loyal. Steve is old-school, and he was bent on revenge. In August, when Adam won at Firestone, Steve used the occasion to go on national television and take a shot at Tiger by calling the win his greatest victory. Although it made Steve feel good, caddies are supposed to keep a low profile, and Steve was perceived as grandstanding as well as kicking Tiger when he was down. Later, Steve made an unfortunate “black arsehole” remark about Tiger. I thought it was a sign of maturity that Tiger made it clear he didn’t believe Steve was a racist, which probably saved his career as a caddie.

While Steve’s time with Tiger may have run its course, just as mine did, I doubt that Tiger will ever have a better caddie. Steve’s record as a caddie is the greatest in the history of golf, and he was tremendous under pressure, as Tiger always acknowledged. Joe LaCava, the guy now carrying Tiger’s bag, is experienced and respected, but I don’t see anyone who’ll ever again have the authority with Tiger that Steve had.

When Tiger came back to play at the 2011 PGA Championship in Atlanta, his substitute caddie was boyhood friend Bryon Bell, who works in Tiger’s office. On a course that required a lot of drivers off the tee, Tiger’s golf was abysmal. In 36 holes, he hit four balls into the water, landed in 22 bunkers, and made five double bogeys, shooting 150 to miss the cut by six. It was surreally bad, and Tiger cited more injuries and took another break from competition.

By then Tiger had moved from Orlando to a home he and Elin had designed on Jupiter Island. It was a period when Tiger’s future as a golfer was in serious question, but he gathered himself and went back to the one thing in his life that had always stood him in good stead: hard work on his game.

By all accounts, he started practicing intensely at a new home course, the Medalist, shooting some low rounds and telling people he was finally healthy physically and again able to practice and work out. When Fred Couples made him an early captain’s pick for the 2011 Presidents Cup, that served as further motivation. Tiger did a good job of convincing the media that his problems had been due mostly to injuries, which had prevented him from getting sufficient “reps.” It was a plausible story, and it allowed him to avoid acknowledging the psychological toll the scandal and divorce might have had on him. To ease back into competition, he entered a smaller PGA Tour event in early October, the Frys.com Open, and played erratically. But he showed some progress at the Australian Open, where he took the lead after two rounds. It had been a while since Tiger had led a tournament, and he opened the third round with three straight bogeys on his way to a 75 that took him out of serious contention.

The next week at the Presidents Cup, at fast and firm Royal Melbourne, Tiger was more solid and won his Sunday singles match impressively. He controlled his approaches very well in the wind, and because the course was playing short, it required very few drivers. Tiger was able to find a lot of fairways hitting low-flighted long irons off the tee, a shot he was gaining confidence with. He relied on them again at the Chevron, as he played Sherwood, a course with five par 5s, more defensively from the tee than he ever had. Zach Johnson outplayed him for 16 holes on the final day, but when Tiger came up big to birdie the last two holes, it was the best medicine to regenerate confidence. He was openly optimistic about 2012, and most of the golf world, clearly missing the prescandal Tiger, was rooting for him.

The most asked question about Tiger is whether he’ll break Jack Nicklaus’s record for major championships. Jack has 18, and Tiger, who had 14 going into the 2012 Masters, needs five more. Getting there will require the most sustained battle of Tiger’s career.

Even after going winless in 14 majors since his victory at the 2008 U.S. Open, Tiger is still 14 for 56 in the majors he has played in. If he keeps that rate up, he’ll get the five he needs in the next 18, a few months before he turns 40. But that seems like a very fast track now. If his rate slows, it means he will have to get those last wins in his 40s. And considering that Tiger has been winning national titles since he was eight, along with the turmoil of the last two years, in golf years he is an old 36.

Certainly, there are questions of health, psyche, and technique to consider, but to me the most important issue is desire.

Tiger for the longest time had more than anyone else. He may still. Certainly, he likes to prove people wrong, and with the majority view being that he’ll never be as good as he was, nor ever catch Nicklaus, he has plenty of motivation. He seemed to regain his work ethic in late 2011, but it’s yet to be seen whether he can sustain the effort. If he does, it will again make him different. I’ve never known a player who lost his hunger for practice to regain that same level of hunger. Usually he or she will show spurts of intensity, but if those aren’t rewarded with good play, older players will tend to go back to struggling with their motivation. Nick Faldo, who in his prime was one of the most diligent and intense workers the game has ever seen, said that after he won the 1996 Masters, he lost the drive to practice. He tried to regain it but it never came back, and that drop-off marked the end of his career as a champion.

Jack Nicklaus called the energy it takes to be a champion his juice. “You only have so much juice,” he once said. “You try to save what you’ve got so you can use it when it means the most.” Tiger had a tremendous amount, and no doubt he had an inner sense of how he was going to allocate it long-term. But the scandal forced him to use emergency reserves, and it’s natural now to wonder whether he has enough left.

If Tiger can keep his work ethic strong, he’ll sort out his golf swing. Whatever theory he’s using, he’ll find a way—either in concert with Sean Foley or another teacher or by finding his own accommodation of their theories. However, I don’t think simply solidifying his technique alone will fix his problem with the driver. There is a mental issue there that needs to be addressed, and the odds are against it ever being completely resolved.

It’s a weakness that tells the most in majors. It’s why, unless he finds some kind of late-career fix with the driver, Tiger’s best chances in majors will come on courses with firm, fast-running fairways that will allow him to hit irons off the tee. Of the four majors, the British Open best fits this profile.

I’m not sure what to make of Tiger’s putting problems. Technically, he still looks good over the ball and has a textbook stroke. But putting is undone by the smallest and most mysterious of errors, and players rarely improve their putting after their mid-30s. The short par putt Tiger missed on the twelfth hole after tying for the lead in the final round of the 2011 Masters stays in my mind. His putting, both his ability to lag long ones close and his solidness in holing from within six feet, was the foundation of Tiger’s ability to close out victories when he had the lead. But postscandal, expecting him to keep up a 90 percent conversion rate when holding the 54th-hole leads seems unrealistic.

Before closing, a player has to get in or near the lead on Sunday, and Tiger also did this at a greater rate than anyone else, including Nicklaus. In order to win five more majors, Tiger is going to have to contend quite a bit. There are exceptions either way, but historically players who have won more than three majors have won about one out of three times they’ve gotten into serious contention down the stretch. Jack Nicklaus’s conversion rate was just above that, with 19 second-place finishes and nine thirds in majors to go with his 18 victories.

Tiger has been even better at converting. He was superefficient with Butch, seriously contending on Sunday 11 times out of 24 majors and winning eight. In the 23 majors Tiger played with me, he seriously contended in 12 of them, winning six. By that formula, Tiger will have to be in contention about 10 more times to get the five majors he needs to pass Jack. But if he’s not quite the same kind of closer, or not quite as fortunate as he’s been, it could take 15 or more of such opportunities. It seems like a tall order for the Tiger who enters 2012.