I had two problems with that article. First, they skipped the 2000-2001 period when his swing was fantastic. His British Open performance was downright spectacular ball striking.
Second, why is there all this emphasis on drawing the ball with the driver? Do the tour players honestly need the draw shape to get distance? I'm very surprised Tiger, with all his power, hasn't gone the power-fade route. I do understand Augusta being "setup for draws", but something historically says that in the long run a power-fade is more reliable.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I sure don't want to see this flat Hank Haney parallel lines swing turn Tiger into a hooker / blocker, or a one shot trick pony. We already saw some of it at the last US Open. Huge uncontrolled draws with all clubs that left Tiger swearing up a storm. Yeah yeah... he was on a bad knee, blah blah. Fact is, he is still making almost the same swing, with only a mild pivot adjustment with the better knee. That's not gonna help when he starts coming way from the inside and snapping the clubhead over to get it squared.
If Tiger took his current backswing, eliminated the popout, got a slight cup back at the top of the swing (like he used to have btw), and learn to release to the left rather than slinging both arms DTL (so he gets an inside to square to inside path going), he could be absolutely dangerous AND he could shape it both ways on command with the same accuracy.
Ben Hogan said the most important club in the bag to a tournament player was the driver (although today, he probably would say putter and be mad as hell about it). I really think this is the only thing holding Tiger back from total domination.
I saw an interview a year back with Lee Trevino. Trevino said exactly the same thing as I am advocating. He even said he sent Tiger a letter saying "meet me in Texas and I'll teach you to power-fade the ball with the driver". Tiger never responded. Trevino seemed almost hurt. If there is one player living today who knows how to really drive for accuracy... it's Trevino (ok, and Nicklaus because as we know, Nicklaus was a hell of a driver). Trevino said Tiger is without a doubt the best player he has ever seen, except for the driver.
Tiger probably should have taken him up on that offer. I'm not saying Tiger should swing "like" Trevino, just that I bet he could learn something from Trevino about driving for accuracy.
