Tiger fires back at his old coach
THE first excerpt from an eagerly- awaited new book on Tiger Woods provoked fury in the golfer’s camp yesterday. But the snippet in former coach Hank Haney’s memoir that sparked the trouble wasn’t about Woods’ womanising but the claim that Tiger, at the height of his powers, supposedly considered relinquishing his pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’s majors record in order to become a Navy SEAL.
Woods’ manager Mark Steinberg called it ‘disrespectful’ and ‘ridiculous’, and the former world No 1 had a feisty exchange with one reporter who had the temerity to ask questions about the book during a press conference for the Honda Classic, which begins in Florida today.
Steinberg issued a statement saying: ‘Haney’s armchair psychology about Tiger, on matters he admits they didn’t even discuss, is ridiculous. Because of his father, it’s no secret that Tiger has always had high respect for the military, so for Haney to twist that into something negative is disrespectful.’ Yet, Steinberg’s outrage is undermined by his client’s past comments.
Haney wrote: ‘ When he talked about it, it was clear he had a plan. I thought, wow, here is Tiger Woods, greatest athlete on the planet, maybe the greatest athlete of all time, basically ready to leave it all behind for a military life.’
Is this really that different from the press conference thoughts of Woods two years ago, when he spoke of the time he had spent on special ops training?
‘I’ve always wanted to be a SEAL,’ said Tiger, back then. ‘That’s something I told my dad from the get-go. Either I’m going to become a professional golfer or I’m going to become a Navy SEAL. A lot of my friends are special ops operators.’
Perhaps a more interesting revelation is when Haney is playing the role of psychologist — as Steinberg knows full well, it is part of the role of any good coach — and throwing cold water on Woods’ reputation at the time for being fearless. ‘The more I observed him the more it became clear that he wasn’t,’ writes Haney.
‘Sometimes, to make it less of a big deal, he would remind himself that he had never considered himself a particularly good driver. “That’s why my name is Woods,” he would joke. “Maybe it would have been different if my name had been fairway”.’
Haney also reveals the pressure Woods feels in trying to catch Nicklaus’s all-time record of 18 majors (he currently has 14). ‘He never mentioned Jack’s record but it was clear it weighed heavily with every major,’ reckons Haney. ‘And Tiger’s actions indicated he had less time to do it than everyone thought.’
There was one final blast from Steinberg. ‘The disruptive timing of this book shows that Haney’s self-promotion is more important to him than any other person or tournament,’ he said. ‘What’s been written violates the trust between a coach and player and someone also once considered a friend.’
Haney’s book, The Big Miss, is released on March 27 — eight days before the start of the Masters.
derek.lawrenson@dailymail.co.uk