Here it is:
THE CAT IS OUT OF THE BAG.
In a very dull moment at a very dim
place, the secret to Tiger’s new swing
was revealed.
Now we know what Tiger has been working
on all this time. Now we know the crucial
element of his new swing, what he has
changed.
Too bad nobody was paying attention.
It’s all about the position of the left wrist at
impact, and it is not what Butch Harmon
teaches.
Tiger is working on keeping his left wrist
flat at impact, not bowed.
By hitting the ball with a flat left wrist,
Tiger found he could manipulate the ball
much better than he could with a bowed
wrist. He can hit his favorite shot — the
stinger — high or low, with a draw or a fade.
For years we heard about that bowed left
wrist at impact, and how important it was to
Tiger’s swing. It took Tiger two years to develop
that swing with Harmon. When he finally
got it down, he won four straight major
championships.
Through that historic streak the hallmark
of his game was Tiger’s stinger, sort of a
punch shot with no followthrough, a knockdown
shot, usually with a 4-iron. That shot
always went straight.
With a bowed-out left wrist at impact.
The bowed left wrist is nothing new to
golf. It was the hallmark of Ben Hogan’s
swing.
Hogan would point to a bone at the base of
his left wrist (on the little-finger side) and
talk about how the ball should fly off that
bone at impact. The left wrist bows out at
impact, which makes that bone protrude.
Nothing new at all.
Butch Harmon knew Hogan. That made
him the ideal teacher for Tiger. A lot was
changed in his swing to facilitate that bowedout
left wrist at impact. The stinger was the
result. That stinger was the shot that won the
U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.
But Tiger grew increasingly disenchanted
with his stinger. It was a one-dimensional
shot — low and burning. He thought he could
do so much more with his favorite shot. Like
hit it higher, with a draw or a fade. So he
went back to the drawing board to develop
these shots from his stinger.
The flat left wrist at impact was the key.
Only a few close friends knew what was on
this drawing board, and they kept their
mouth shut.
The secret of Tiger’s new swing was revealed
casually, almost as a footnote, only to
those who avidly stuck with the telecast of
the Battle of the Bridges in San Diego.
On the 12th tee, Tiger hit a stinger off the
tee.
“The new stinger,” Ian Baker Finch said.
“The stinger without the bowed left wrist.”
The 10 people around the world who
stayed with the telecast to this point might
have heard it. Most likely, nine had dozed
off. This Monday golf thing was a real
snoozer.
Finch elaborated:
“He (Tiger) said he was practicing the
stinger so much with the bowed left wrist, it
was fine to hit a low shot. But to hit a high
shot … he couldn’t do that. So he’s trimming
it out and hitting the stinger with the flat left
wrist rather than the bowed left wrist. And
he said now when he wants to hit a high shot
he can do it. Now when he wants to hit the
high shots with the draw and the fade, now
he can do it.”
“So that’s what he’s working on,” Finch
concluded.
Secret revealed, in a monotone, far from
media attention. All because Ian Baker Finch
is a range rat, and Tiger talked to him.
A lot of things suddenly begin to make
sense.
Butch Harmon is avid about the bowed left
wrist at impact. Exit Butch Harmon.
All evaluations of his swing by network
experts were indeed flawed, just as Tiger
said.
Remember when Tiger talked about those
network evaluations of his swing — present
and the year 2000 — side-by-side? He said
such evaluations by the experts were meaningless
because he may have been working
For years we heard about
that bowed left wrist at
impact, and how important
it was to Tiger’s swing.
The bowed left wrist is
nothing new … the hallmark
of Ben Hogan’s swing.
Butch Harmon knew Hogan.
That made him the ideal
teacher for Tiger.
This is exactly what Hogan
did after he found his
secret, pronation.
on a fade in the left frame, and maybe a hook
in the right frame. So comparisons are meaningless.
OK, fine. But Tiger failed to mention that
those swing clips were unfailingly from a
camera that was positioned directly behind
him, to evaluate the backswing. No wonder
Tiger was smiling when he said that. There
was no way to tell the position of the left
wrist at impact from that camera angle.
He kept that to himself.
Tiger is constructing a new swing, and that
takes time. This new swing has nothing to do
with a backswing, a stance, or a spine angle.
It has to do with the integration of something
new with something tried and true.
The stinger is Tiger’s best shot in his best
moments. It is like an “emergency swing.”
He can always get the ball into the fairway or
on the green with that swing.
Now he is building from the best part of
his game, his strength … the stinger. This is
exactly what Hogan did after he found his
secret, pronation. He integrated new shots
into his best move, and came out with a truly
formidable game.
Anyone care to doubt that Tiger might
come out even more formidable?
Didn’t think so.
. Maybe he is integrating a flat left wrist for the normal swing but when he "hits" those irons shots, there's an arch