With everyone who’s ever held a golf club opining about Tiger Woods’ swing changes, and the annual Tavistock Cup exhibition coming up next week, Butch Harmon had an interesting take on his former protege’s progress.
Free from pressure. "I think the next two days at Isleworth in that tournament they are having with the inter-club thing, where he can be relaxed, and play a course that he knows, if he doesn't play well then, I think there are some real problems," Harmon said Saturday on Sky Sports, according to Golf365.
Add that to an observation Johnny Miller tossed out during Saturday’s third-round play at Doral, and don’t you have to wonder what they have done with the real Tiger Woods? Sean Foley suggested that Woods study the swing of fellow PGA Tour golfer and Foley follower Hunter Mahan for tips, Miller said during NBC’s broadcast of the Cadillac Championship.
Nothing against Mahan, who’s obviously a fine golfer (and just three shots back of leader Dustin Johnson heading into Sunday’s final round at Doral). But the idea that Woods’ swing is so far off track that the former dominating world No. 1 should look to other pros for help would have been preposterous 15 months ago. And the concept that the formerly bloodless Woods needed a pressure-free home-and-home contest to work out his swing woes was, well, kind of staggering.
As astonishing, perhaps, as watching Woods duck hook a 120-yard drive and hit a Texas Leaguer off another tee with a 3-wood would have been prior to November 2009. Harmon was certainly more shocked than awed by Woods’ hacker-like play on Friday.
Shocking. "I think the drive at the second hole and the 14th hole yesterday were a shock to all of us," Golf365 reported that Harmon said Saturday on Sky. "This is Tiger Woods, this isn't somebody on the Nationwide Tour that's trying to get a card. It's the greatest player that ever lived. I think it just shows you that he is still a work in progress. He has said that he and [coach] Sean Foley are still working on it."
Saturday was not the first time Woods’ swing coach for eight years had spoken out about the guy who fired him in 2002.
“Tiger Woods is, to me, his game is in disarray,” Harmon told the New York Times last May. “There’s no doubt about that. That’s obvious. Anybody that plays golf can look out there and see that, that he’s not Tiger Woods. But until he gets his head on straight and he gets his things in his mind settled, with some professional help I would add, I think it’s going to be a while before we see the old Tiger Woods.”
At the time, Harmon believed it was the mental part of Woods’ game that was hurting and that he would “figure out the mechanical part of it,” he said.
Saturday, Harmon sounded less sure about that. "This is seven months into it -- they started in August of last year at the PGA [Championship]," Harmon said.
Frustrated. "But I think if I am Tiger Woods, I am a little frustrated that I don't see the consistency that I am looking for."
Woods shot a 2-under 70 Saturday and will start Sunday 11 shots back of Johnson. The old Tiger would still be in the hunt. Sunday, the 35-year-old will be just another journeyman golfer chasing DJ and the other youngsters at the top
Woods has conceded his mental game needs some tweaking. Read how Tiger’s extreme game makeover has sapped his confidence.
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