Veteran PGA golf instructor Hank Haney has a new book about Tiger Woods. But it isn't a "tell-all" mainly because Tiger doesn't share all with either his friends or swing coach. That said, the book does provide a rare look behind the veil that Woods has constructed around himself, a barrier that allowed only the genius of his golf to escape until running his SUV into fireplug on Thanksgiving 2009.
In "The Big Miss, My Years Coaching Tiger Woods," published last week by Crown Archetype, Haney offers fascinating insights on the broad duality that underlies Tiger's persona. Haney believes that Tiger's success springs from "the Package," a mixture of opposing extremes, or as Haney writes, "the sum of all of Tiger's qualities and characteristics, the good and the bad." Accompanying the foundation of his incomparable play - the ability to stay focused and calm under stress, the ying, perhaps -are other facets of his personality, the yang - "selfishness, obsessiveness, stubbornness, coldness, ruthlessness, pettiness, and cheapness."
The book is full of the dichotomies and contrasts swirling about Tiger, and his relationship with Haney, like slices and hooks.
Woods' public image versus his private life. Tiger's fairly warm embrace of nice guys on the PGA Tour who don't threaten his reign - Steve Stricker and Jim Furyk, but nothing but alpha dog slights and "competitive bullying" for the super talents - Phil Mickelson, for example. Tiger's passive-aggressive behavior. The objective examination of Tiger's swing from Haney, alternating with his subjective psychoanalysis of Woods. Haney's sincere admiration for Woods's achievements and talent versus his settling of some accounts.
Other than a tease at the start about the dissolution of the Haney-Woods association, the book follows the chronology of their time together, 2004-2010. With able assistance from collaborator Jaime Diaz of "Golf Digest" and "GolfWorld" magazines, Haney tells of his unbridled excitement when Tiger asked for his help. He had been coaching topflight players for years, but this would be a career mountaintop.
Woods parted with his previous coach, Butch Harmon, in the summer of 2002, and in 2003, he didn't win a major. In the spring of 2004, Haney viewed Tiger as a "diminished golfer," a real player with real problems, not a mythic athlete. In Haney's view, Woods had three major problems. First, his left knee was hurting. Second, he moved his head too much during his swing. Last and the biggie -Tiger played the driver "with a lot of fear." He feared the "big miss," inside golf-speak for a momentum killer such as driving out of bounds.
As they worked together, Haney found that Tiger's stubbornness made for tough sessions on the range. The coach had to devise ways of making the student believe swing changes were his own ideas. It was a slow process, netting only one official win for Tiger in 2004, the WGC-Accenture Match Play. The relationship became more productive the following year - six official wins, including two majors. In 2006, Woods won two majors and six other official tournaments. In 2007, Tiger won one major and six others, but Haney sensed a subtle change in Woods.
"The 2007 season was when I first began to think that Tiger was closer to the end of his greatness than he was to the beginning," Haney writes. "In hindsight, I think Tiger did, too." Further, again in retrospect, Haney thinks Woods had started to tire of his career, and cites Tiger's obsession then with all things military.
With his father Earl as a model, Tiger had always admired military men. But in 2006 and 2007, Woods started entertaining the idea of becoming a Navy SEAL, a member of the elite special operations force. Haney writes that Woods attended multiple sessions with SEALs, which included parachuting, hand-to-hand combat exercises and live-fire weapons training. The 31-year-old Woods even told Haney that the SEALs would waive their age maximum, 28, for him. This proved worrisome to Team Tiger -agent, caddie, coach and others. Recalling the NFL player who joined the Army Rangers, Haney recalls, "This was Pat Tillman times 100."
The U.S. Navy has acknowledged that Tiger made several unofficial visits to the Navy Special Warfare Command in 2006, but offered no significant details.
Haney writes that information available to him points to Woods tearing his already deteriorated anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during a 2007 SEAL exercise in "kill house," an urban combat simulator. Woods told Haney that he tore it while running on the golf course.
The coach also was opposed to the military-style weight training Tiger affected during this period. The macho pull-ups favored by the SEALs were hard on his shoulders, and Olympic-style lifts appeared to be at least one source for his right Achilles tendon injuries. Haney also believed that he was carrying too much weight for his bad knee.
In July 2007, Mark Steinberg, Tiger's agent, confronted the player about his military preoccupation. Haney heard less about the issue afterward, but another distraction had him worried.
It was that year that Tiger's cell phone seemed to ring more often than before. Unknowing at the time, Haney later saw the activity as evidence of Tiger's extramarital affairs. As exposed by the news media in late 2009, Woods made a deal in 2007 with the "National Enquirer" to keep an affair quiet in return for posing for a photo spread in a sister publication, "Men's Fitness." Haney thought it odd at the time for Tiger, who was always tight-lipped about his training, to speak on the record about his lifting and bare his buff chest.
Haney professes to have been in the dark about Tiger's sexual escapades, and that's not surprising considering Tiger's titanium privacy curtain. Haney did notice coolness between Tiger and his wife Elin in 2007, as well as Tiger's self-centered style at home. At dinner in their Orlando house, Tiger routinely left the table when finished, regardless of whether Hank and Elin were through eating.
Lean, fit and powerful, Woods matched the American stereotype of a professional athlete and brought crossover sports fans to the PGA Tour. This matched Earl Woods' belief that his son was the first golfer to be a true athlete. Tiger eagerly bought into this paradigm, and Haney comments on Tiger's use of insider phrases from other sports in his public statements. He talks about "reps," as in repetitions in NFL practices, "game speed," taking it deep" and "getting good looks."
Haney watched Woods insinuate himself into the fraternity of contact sports stars by casting his injuries as shared badges of honor. Stuff happens to us superstars, right Shaq? This is quite a stretch from his college days when his friends viewed him as such a nerd they nicknamed him Urkel after a TV geek character.
According to Haney, Tiger's multiple swing changes and constant tinkering on the practice tee reflect his deep-seated and admirable quest to improve. He reportedly left Harmon because Butch thought that by 2002, all Woods needed was swing maintenance. Additionally, Haney observes that technical improvements kept Tiger interested in the game. The threat of a prodigy's early burnout, plus Tiger's self-proclaimed attention deficit disorder, has propelled him toward new coaches and new swings.
Full swing analysis aside, Haney frequently mentions Tiger's short game. He faulted him for poor straightforward chips, which he overplayed with too much spin. "Chicks dig spin," he told Haney.
Haney blamed three-putts for many of Woods's woes in tournaments. Overly bold runs on birdie putts beyond 20 feet yielded stressful five-footers for par. Hank argued that even Superman can't make every mid-range birdie putt, so just avoid the three-jack. Tiger's former caddie Steve Williams told Haney that Woods won 85 percent of the time when he played 72 holes without a three-putt. Haney offered this final word on the now 36-year-old Tiger and his putting. "Players rarely improve their putting after their mid-30s."
Tiger's heroic win in the 2008 U.S. Open with two stress fractures and a torn ACL in his left leg has been well documented by others, but Haney adds many insider details. He then takes the reader through Tiger's rebound year in 2009 and his six wins.
Trying to get Woods ready for the 2010 Masters after the player's train wreck the previous winter tested the Woods-Haney team. Coming off his self-imposed exile and a month-long sex addiction rehabilitation, Woods seemed to indirectly blame Haney for his poor play in the tournament. Upset that Tiger replied to his dedication with moody and rude behavior, Haney resolved to quit after the Masters. He phoned Woods in May to resign, but Tiger said that he was busy with his kids. They ultimately traded texts that finished with this exchange.
"I can't tell you how grateful I am for the opportunity, but it's time for you to find another coach."
"Thanks, Hank. But we're still going to work together.
"No we're not. It's finished. Done. Over. I'm no longer your coach."
"We'll talk in the morning."
When the split later became public, Haney did a quick burn when Team Tiger spun the separation as a mutual decision.
Haney and Diaz have crafted a nice read that moves along nicely for golf-savvy readers. The golf-speak leans toward the technical side, but the authors try to help the uninitiated through the tangled forest of swing planes, strong left hand grips and trajectories. Those who are comfortable reading about swing mechanics, however, will enjoy understanding how Tiger hits a golf ball, either well or badly.
The authors intersperse the swing analysis with stories and anecdotes about Woods and his team that add a strong personal flavor to the narrative. Some of what they describe ain't pretty, although Haney's admiration for the man's golf game always shows through. However, that appreciation often fights for sentences with Haney exasperations with Tiger's hardheadedness. Of course, we have only Haney's view on this, and the pushback from Team Tiger will surely offer contrasting assessments.
For the prurient looking for the "good stuff" on Tiger's marital waywardness, there's little to be found. Haney does offer brief accounts of Tiger's reaction to rehabilitation and attempts at reconciliation with Elin. Haney and Diaz chose to include a short index of names only, so casual browsers at the bookstore, if that tribe still exists, can't simply turn to a titillating segment.
The biggest strength of "The Big Miss" is the breadth of its insider view of the Tiger Woods phenomenon, a scrutiny previously unavailable to the public. Considering that Woods is "allergic," to use Haney's term, to people trying to get too close to him, the book succeeds in this regard.
If Haney wrote about why he wrote the book, I missed it. It's clear, however, that he doesn't want to be blamed for Tiger's uneven play before hiring another coach, Sean Foley, in 2010. He must believe that his frank account of dealing with a complex player in difficult circumstances will help defend his reputation. To that end, he notes that under Harmon, Woods won 34 times, almost 27 percent of his 127 official starts. With Haney's help, Tiger won 31 times in 91 official tournaments, or 34 percent of the time.
Haney may pay a price for what Tiger views as out-of-school tales. Another prominent swing coach, Rick Smith, says the book violates golf's version of doctor-patient relations. Harmon, however, backs Haney's freedom to write the book.
A longtime member of the PGA, Haney owns and operates a far-flung golf instruction business with headquarters in Dallas, Texas. He has written four golf instruction books, including "Fix Your Yips Forever," a malady that he admits to having suffered for much of the 1980s and 1990s.
ABOUT THE WRITER
Michael K. Bohn is the author of "Money Golf," a history of the gentlemanly wager on the golf course, and more recently, "Heroes & Ballyhoo: How the Golden Age of the 1920s Transformed American Sports."
Bohn also wrote "The Achille Lauro Hijacking: Lessons in the Politics and Prejudice of Terrorism" (2004), and "Nerve Center: Inside the White House Situation Room" (2003). He served as director of the White House Situation Room, the president's alert center and crisis management facility, during Ronald Reagan's second term. Bohn was a U.S. naval intelligence officer from 1968 to 1988.
2012 McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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