What was Tiger doing with his practice swings?

[jpvegas1]

Brian:

When you were at the Masters did you have an opportunity to witness Hank Haney working with Tiger? Watching Tiger's pre-shot routine and practice swings he was obviously looking for some feel or position but I couldn't figure out what he was trying to do or accomplish. To me it looked like he was working on being very flat on the backswing with the club laid off and moving the club to the left after impact. Do you have any idea of what he was trying to work on?

I don't know a lot about Haney's teachings, but it seems he is very big on getting people to swing on a plane where the line is drawn between the ball and shoulders and keep it there on backswing and downswing.

Lastly, is there a danger in swinging that way with the longer clubs? I remember Haney saying on the golf channel that he had the yips with his driver and for all his talent Tiger seems to be having trouble controlling the driver.

 

[Brian Manzella]

Just HIT IT, Eldrick!

Brian:

When you were at the Masters did you have an opportunity to witness Hank Haney working with Tiger? Watching Tiger's pre-shot routine and practice swings he was obviously looking for some feel or position but I couldn't figure out what he was trying to do or accomplish. To me it looked like he was working on being very flat on the backswing with the club laid off and moving the club to the left after impact. Do you have any idea of what he was trying to work on?

I don't know a lot about Haney's teachings, but it seems he is very big on getting people to swing on a plane where the line is drawn between the ball and shoulders and keep it there on backswing and downswing.

Lastly, is there a danger in swinging that way with the longer clubs? I remember Haney saying on the golf channel that he had the yips with his driver and for all his talent Tiger seems to be having trouble controlling the driver.

Tiger's swing—when he is playing well—is a very orthordox swing.

I use orthordox as a high compliment. Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Weiskoff, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, and Nick Faldo, as a group—and individually in certain portions of their careers—had, by today's wacky teaching standards, VERY orthodox swings.

Tiger does too....for the most part.

The "feels" he is "calling up" in those practice swings are not orthodox. But, maybe they work for him. Tiger IS—by far—the best player in the world.

But, remember this: when players are with a teacher for a LONG TIME, and that teacher has a METHOD, the player satrts getting closer and closer to the "model."

In this case, in my opinion, the "model" is at least a partialy flawed one.

 

[mclare]

Excellent observation Brian....and as Tiger gets closer to the 'model' his ball striking gets more inconsistent!

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

You know what's really funny?

If you look at the top of the backswing position that Tiger is in, in this month's GD, it's practically perfect and no where near the "parallel plane" idea.

When Tiger "gets there" he can't be beat imo. However the entire masters he RARELY did, just quite under and just quite left (like i mentioned in my thread) and he just never quite got it figured.

 

[jpvegas1]

Jim:

I went back and re-read your post and it stated more clearly what I saw. When you say get the hands up do you mean swing the arms above the TSP? Why would doing this and keeping everything else the same cause him to hit big hooks?

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

Jim:

I went back and re-read your post and it stated more clearly what I saw. When you say get the hands up do you mean swing the arms above the TSP? Why would doing this and keeping everything else the same cause him to hit big hooks?

He tends to NOT GET to the TSP when he swings bad so i wanted him to simply GET THERE.

If you take a double shifter (which tiger is) and when they don't quite make it to the TSP they almost ALL tend to swing too far to the right and since tiger isn't much of a flipper, he pushes them way right most of the time.

So if you take someone who hasn't been at the TSP for a while and then GET THEM there, most tend to close the face easier in the downswing and not swing so far to the right. So you end up with a more closed face and more on plane so you get a pretty good hook.

Now why does that happen? Beats me, but in my experience that is what happens. Once it does we work on some plane and clubface control to get the ball flight straightened back out.

 

[jpvegas1]

Getting closer to the model

Tiger's swing—when he is playing well—is a very orthordox swing.

I use orthordox as a high compliment. Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Tom Weiskoff, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Greg Norman, and Nick Faldo, as a group—and individually in certain portions of their careers—had, by today's wacky teaching standards, VERY orthodox swings.

Tiger does too....for the most part.

The "feels" he is "calling up" in those practice swings are not orthodox. But, maybe they work for him. Tiger IS—by far—the best player in the world.

But, remember this: when players are with a teacher for a LONG TIME, and that teacher has a METHOD, the player satrts getting closer and closer to the "model."

In this case, in my opinion, the "model" is at least a partialy flawed one.

Brian/Jim good points. Brian what you have said here reminds me of when I saw Curtis Strange at a golf outing in the 90's. He had won back-to-back opens working with Ballard, but had switched to Leadbetter. One of the patrons asked Strange why he had switched instructors because of all the success he had working with Ballard. He gave a few reasons along the line of always looking to improve, liked the moves that Leadbetter's students had, but also said something I didn't understand at the time. Strange said something to effect that in order to continue to get the feel of what Ballard wanted him to do, he was having to over-exaggerate the motions more and more, particularly moving to right on the backswing.

 

[dsparks]

When I watched Tiger practice on Wednesday it seemed to me that his swing was much more rounded than in the past. In other words, it appeared to me that he more horizontal motion and less vertical motion than in the past. Just an observation.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

When I watched Tiger practice on Wednesday it seemed to me that his swing was much more rounded than in the past. In other words, it appeared to me that he more horizontal motion and less vertical motion than in the past. Just an observation.

Tiger went from a "reverse shift" to a "double shift."

Reverse shift = club goes up the TSP and then on the downswing the club "shifts" to the elbow plane.

Double shift = club goes up the elbow plane, shifts to the TPS, then on the downswing the club "shifts" back to the elbow plane.

Reverse Shift = Adam Scott and Tiger of 2000
Double Shift = Snead, Nelson, VJ, Tiger now, etc.

 

[Bigwill]

Tiger went from a "reverse shift" to a "double shift."

Reverse shift = club goes up the TSP and then on the downswing the club "shifts" to the elbow plane.

Double shift = club goes up the elbow plane, shifts to the TPS, then on the downswing the club "shifts" back to the elbow plane.

Reverse Shift = Adam Scott and Tiger of 2000
Double Shift = Snead, Nelson, VJ, Tiger now, etc.

Tiger said that his preferred miss is to the right. Would having a flatter plane, along with the weaker grip, accentuate that?

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

His plane is not flatter on the downswing, which is where it counts. He his swinging more to the right than he needs to and is gripping it weaker which will make his miss be, most of the time to the right yes. However i prefer to play a straight to a straight fade and i swing to the left A WHOLE BUNCH and hardly ever miss left because my grip is as weak as Tiger's.

So there are other ways to "get it done" with better efficiency.

 

[Ringer]

Tiger went from a "reverse shift" to a "double shift."

Reverse shift = club goes up the TSP and then on the downswing the club "shifts" to the elbow plane.

Double shift = club goes up the elbow plane, shifts to the TPS, then on the downswing the club "shifts" back to the elbow plane.

Reverse Shift = Adam Scott and Tiger of 2000
Double Shift = Snead, Nelson, VJ, Tiger now, etc.

Very nice Jim.