THE MAJORWINNING SWINGS
Dissecting the swings that powered Tiger to 14 Majors
AT ITS OPTIMUM, TIGER’S SWING COMBINED HARMON’S CLUBFACE CONTROL WITH THE HANEY SWING PLANE
Although Tiger Woods has had several high-profile coaches during his career, he has very much been his own man when it comes to nurturing his technique. Whereas in many player/coach relationships the responsibility for developing the blueprint for success lands on the coach’s shoulders, it is clear the reverse is true when working with Tiger. During his time working with Butch Harmon, for example, a very young Tiger presented his coach with the challenge of tightening up his swing and making him less dependent on hand-eye co-ordination. By the time he appointed Hank Haney in 2004, Woods had developed a strong interest in the swing of Ben Hogan and gave Haney the task of shallowing out his swing plane. The results of both helped create peakera, Major-dominating Tiger.
THE BUTCH HARMON YEARS 1994-2004, 8 MAJORS
When Tiger first started working with Butch Harmon in 1994, he was strong, fit and agile – absolute utopia for a golf coach. In those early days, Tiger combined a rapid hip rotation through impact with a whiplashlike release of the hands and clubhead. Although he was talented enough to flush the ball most of the time, he had a tendency to get the club stuck behind him in the downswing – a trait that has affected him throughout his career. Woods would also get the club across the line at the top of the backswing with the face a little shut (grooves pointing too much towards the sky) – a similar trait to another of Harmon’s pupils at the time, Greg Norman. This was caused by slightly poor synchronisation of the arm swing and body rotation.
After winning the Masters by 12 shots in 1997, Woods decided he wanted a wider takeaway, a more compact backswing and a steeper left arm plane. Over a two-year period, Butch helped Tiger keep the club out in front of his body in the backswing, which led to a relatively upright plane and high hands. Tiger’s clubface angle and his swing path were fairly neutral and so there was not much shape to his shots. Coupled with his incredible clubhead speed, this enabled Tiger to hit towering iron shots in similar fashion to his boyhood idol Jack Nicklaus.
THE HANK HANEY YEARS 2004-2010, 6 MAJORS
Many people say Tiger was swinging at his very best in 2000, when he won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots and The Open at St Andrews by eight shots in the space of a month. Many others believe Tiger was at his best during the transition period between working with Harmon and Haney. After winning the U.S. Open in 2002, Woods again felt the need to tweak his swing. Harmon disagreed that a rebuild was necessary. The conflict eventually resulted in the pair parting ways at the end of the season. After a year trying to figure things out for himself, Woods started working with Haney in early 2004.
Whereas Butch had implemented a fairly rigid one-piece takeaway, Haney introduced more rotation in the left forearm so that Tiger’s arms were more synchronised with the turning motion of his body. Haney lowered and lowered Tiger’s arm swing plane until it hit the perfect spot in 2005. At its optimum, Woods’ swing contained the clubface control given to him by Harmon with the enhanced swing plane given to him by Haney.
It is interesting to note that at this point in time, Tiger had become very interested in Ben Hogan’s swing. As a result, his brief to Haney was most likely to help him develop a more ‘Hogan-esque’ action – a flatter left arm plane, a more laid off position at the top of the backswing and an abbreviated finish position.