The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods (33 page)

Like Tiger, I was avoiding self-congratulation. Just as any sports psychologist would advise, I wanted to stay in the moment, take one tournament at a time, and just keep working hard. I also had to admit that the negative shots I’d taken from commentators had me a little gun-shy, and there was a part of me that was afraid that a hard look at the numbers might support my detractors.

I knew the source of the criticism: Tiger’s time with Butch Harmon. Throughout my own run there was a widely held assumption that Tiger’s record with me would never measure up to his record with Butch. It was implied whenever anyone questioned why Tiger would ever want to change the teacher who taught him the swing that won four straight majors, seven out of eleven majors, and the U.S. Open by fifteen shots.

I’d gone into the job anticipating that Butch’s record as Tiger’s coach would very likely be unbeatable. When I left, with Tiger having won six majors during my tenure as compared to eight with Butch, I figured that the same ratio would extend to Tiger’s overall record with each of us.

Butch’s coaching monument was the 2000 season. It was the year that Tiger’s nine victories included the first three legs of the Tiger Slam, the year he gave golf a Secretariat moment by winning the U.S. Open and British Open by a combined 23 strokes. With the possible exception of Byron Nelson’s 1945 performance, when he won 11 straight tournaments and 18 overall, Tiger’s 2000 is probably the greatest season by a player in history. And although golf statistics are not as definitive as those of baseball or football, Tiger’s were so overwhelming in 2000 that they received a lot of notice. He was second in driving distance and 54th in driving accuracy, which made him the leader in total driving. He led in greens in regulation with a career best of 75.20 percent, in ball striking, in the all-around category, and in scoring, with a career-low average of 67.79, which broke Byron Nelson’s record. On par 5s, his birdie-or-better percentage was an off-the-charts 61.89. Basically, Tiger’s 2000 was the equivalent of baseball’s Triple Crown or a running back leading the NFL in rushing
and
receiving yards or an NBA forward leading in scoring
and
rebounding.

The best driving stats Tiger ever achieved with me were in 2009, when he finished 12th in total driving and 86th in driving accuracy. His performance in the year 2000 supported the idea that he’d not only swung his best under Butch, but that it was the swing he should be going back to.

Still, something nagged at me.
What about wins?
I asked myself. With whom did Tiger have a greater winning percentage, Butch or me? Shouldn’t that
also
be a valid measure of whether I helped Tiger get better?

I took a breath and opened two websites, the PGA Tour’s and Tiger’s, both of which documented Tiger’s professional playing record through the years. Then I started clicking the calculator. I tabulated Butch’s tenure first, beginning with Tiger’s professional debut in August 1996, though they’d actually started together in 1993. While there was never really a hard date when Butch stopped working with Tiger, I decided the end of 2002 seemed reasonable. Much has been made of Tiger telling Butch he didn’t want him to work with him on the practice tee at the PGA Championship in 2002, but Butch remained under contract through 2002. He later said he didn’t renew his contract in 2003.

Although prior to that afternoon, I’d been prepared to defer to Butch’s record, I now felt my competitive instincts kick in. I winced inwardly when I saw that Tiger had notched eight victories in 1999 and nine more in 2000. But I was a little less daunted when I saw only five Tiger victories in both 2001 and 2002. The final tally: In the 127 official PGA Tour events that Tiger played as a professional with Butch as his coach, he won 34 times—just under 27 percent of his starts.

Now more hopeful about what I might find, I checked the record of my time with Tiger. It was discouraging to tally no official wins in 2004, but then the victories came more steadily. I got excited as I saw that Tiger won exactly half of his last 46 official events with me as his coach.

For the entire six years that I was officially his swing instructor, from Bay Hill of 2004 through the Masters of 2010, Tiger played in 91 official PGA tour events. He won 31 of them—34 percent.

I was surprised. As measured by victory percentage, Tiger had performed better with me than he had with Butch. My respect for Butch would keep me from gloating. But I felt good that in the future those numbers would empower me when answering my critics.

I then broke it down further. In my time with Tiger, he was in the top ten in 66 of his 91 events (73 percent). He was in the top three 52 times, which is 57 percent. With Butch, he was in the top ten 82 times in 127 events, which is 65 percent. His top-three finishes were 55 out of 127, or 43 percent.

Subtracting our swing transition years—1998 for Butch, 2004 for me—I also came out ahead. From 1999 through 2002, Butch’s last year, Tiger played in 78 official PGA Tour events and won 27 (35 percent). From 2005 up through the 2010 Players Championship, Tiger played in 78 official tournaments and won 31 (40 percent). In Butch’s period, Tiger had 55 top tens (71 percent). In my period, he had 57, or 73 percent.

I realize that there’s a good argument that Tiger
should have
won more with me. Tiger was a 20-year-old rookie when he turned pro under Butch, and he had much to learn. With me, he had more experience and maturity, and at 28—the age when we started in 2004—he was entering prime years. Even among those who would concede that Tiger improved with me, some would say he didn’t improve enough.

What’s hard to gauge is whether the older Tiger, with more pressure concentrated on him and a greater sense of restlessness robbing him of his focus, was a more difficult athlete to coach when I encountered him. Comparing age-specific psychological states is pretty much guesswork. But still, since most students—golf or otherwise—tend to veer toward independence with greater maturity, it’s rational to argue that the teaching challenge is distinctly different as the years unfold.

Some will say none of that matters—Tiger won more majors with Butch than he did with me, period. True, but I’m proud of the greater consistency Tiger achieved with me in the majors. With Butch, Tiger played in 24 majors as a professional. In those, he had 15 top tens, 12 top fives, and 11 top threes. In the 23 majors he played with me as his coach, Tiger posted 17 top tens, 14 top fives, and 12 top threes. He also had five runner-up finishes in his majors with me compared to one with Butch. Winning is the bottom line, but with me Tiger was in the hunt more often.

I don’t mean to sound as if I’m taking credit for Tiger’s record. Neither Butch nor I hit a shot. I bring all this up not to run down Butch in any way, but rather to once and for all refute the argument that I hurt Tiger or retarded his progress. The numbers simply don’t support that view. People are entitled to their own opinions, but they’re not entitled to their own facts. Bottom line: I like what the facts say about my time with Tiger.

People have continued to ask me if I miss coaching him. It’s a legitimate question. How could someone of my training and mind-set
not
wish he was coaching the greatest player of all time? I tell them truthfully that I’ve been happier not working for Tiger than, toward the end of our partnership, I had been working for him.

The greatest gratification I received from working with Tiger came during the times when I knew I’d helped him. Those moments occurred throughout our six years, but they were more concentrated in our first two. The most productive learning invariably occurred in our preparation sessions, often under a very hot Florida sun, alone on the practice tee at Isleworth. There’s no doubt that Tiger could be a difficult student, but I took that more as a teaching challenge than as an annoyance, and when I did get through to him, I felt proud.

It was the reason I never got as big a charge out of coaching Tiger at tournament sites. I actually felt awkward being on the “stage” of the practice tee, because at that point, I was usually doing more monitoring than teaching, and my role really wasn’t that important. The limelight never excited me much, which is why I came to prefer traveling to fewer tournaments—and even when I did go, I often left before the first round. For me, the sensation of being famous or part of the action wasn’t an incentive to stay.

I’ve never regretted my decision to leave Tiger. But I’ve often wondered how things could have been different. If I had a wish list, here’s what it would include:

I wish Tiger’s game during his time with me hadn’t always been compared to his game in the year 2000, but rather to his game in 2003 and early 2004, the period just before I started.

I wish Tiger had been less reckless in partaking in workout regimens and military-training activites that further damaged his knee.

I wish Tiger had postponed his knee surgery in April 2008 until after the final major of that year. My guess is that while he would have continued to play with pain and might not have won at Torrey Pines, he would have played well enough with a torn ACL to be a legitimate threat to win not only the U.S. Open but also the British Open and PGA. More important, by postponing the operation, he would have kept himself from rushing back to competition and hurting himself again. And he wouldn’t have had to deal with the motivational issues that came from having climbed the ultimate mountain with his victory at Torrey Pines.

I wish Tiger had been more open to a lower-maintenance coaching relationship in which he essentially monitored himself and just called me when he needed me.

I wish Tiger had come back from rehab a different person. Not a
lot
different, just a little warmer and more open. It could have started with something as simple as offering me a popsicle. I realize now that as hard as I tried to understand Tiger, he tried just as hard not to let me.

I wish we could have been better friends. I haven’t communicated with Tiger since I saw him in Ireland in July 2010. Another pro, Pat Perez, told me that Tiger had complained that I hadn’t called him. My feeling was that because he’d just taken on a new coach, Tiger could have easily misconstrued my reasons for calling. And as I told Pat, there was nothing keeping Tiger from calling me. Now, my guess is that the publication of this book won’t bring us closer. As much as Tiger and I went through, and as much as I cared about him and still do, I consider the distance between us a big miss for both of us.

All that said, I’ll always be thankful for my experience with Tiger. In so many ways, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.

Probably the most valuable gift I took away from that experience was the insight I gained into the phenomenon of greatness. Studying Tiger was like taking a survey course on all the best players who ever lived, because he epitomizes every essential quality of a champion. I firmly believe that no one has ever played the game of golf as well as Tiger Woods. Not Jack Nicklaus, not Ben Hogan, not Byron Nelson, not Bobby Jones. Even with deeper competition than ever, Tiger’s total career winning percentage of 26 percent from 1996 through 2011 is more than twice that of Jack’s 12 percent. The career winning percentage closest to Tiger’s belongs to Ben Hogan, who won 20.7 percent of his official events (61 of 294). Tiger is even more dominant when it comes to closing out tournaments. He’s gone on to win after holding or sharing the lead going into the final round of official events 48 out of 52 times, an off-the-charts conversion rate of 92 percent that is probably his most admired record among his peers and past greats.

More than any other player, Tiger has expanded the idea of what is possible. Before Tiger, there was a presumption that no golfer could have it all—be long and straight with the driver, creative and accurate with the irons, masterful with the short game, and a deadly putter. Well, when Tiger was perceived as a good driver of the ball and won four straight majors, he created the impression of having it all, or at least being more capable of it than anyone ever. Even when driving deficiencies cropped up later, Tiger’s mental gifts of focus and toughness under pressure still brought him closer to the ideal than anyone else.

I’ve closely followed Tiger’s progress since we parted ways. About a month after I quit, his much anticipated return to the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach became electric when he closed with a 31 on Saturday to get within five shots of the lead. But he faltered on Sunday with a 75 to finish tied for fourth. It seemed to take something out of him, because he wasn’t as good at the British Open at St. Andrews, where he’d won two of his British Opens. He opened with a 67 that was spoiled by a weak finish, and then faded to tie for 23rd. With that, his much anticipated return to the sites of his historic Open double in 2000 ended, and it seemed that the effects of coming back too early after his scandal kicked in.

A lot of things were hitting him at once. His divorce became final in August. Corey Carroll told me that Tiger seemed depressed and was barely practicing at Isleworth. One day when Tiger seemed particularly down, Corey expressed concern. “He looked at me,” Corey told me, “and just said, ‘I’m tired.’ It was sad because I’d never heard that kind of defeat in his voice before.”

In August, Tiger hit what looked like bottom at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone. At a tournament and course where he’d won six times, Tiger shot 18 over par in the no-cut event to finish next to last, 30 strokes behind the winner. It was after a ragged third-round 75 that Tiger called swing coach Sean Foley to inquire about working with him.

The next week at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, where Tiger finished in a tie for 28th, Sean worked with Tiger on the practice range, and Tiger acknowledged that he had a new coach. Naturally, this led to comparisons between Tiger’s “old” swing and the changes he was making. I was disappointed that Sean was critical of me in interviews, telling Fox Sports in September 2010, “Let’s be honest about this, it’s not like he was flushing the ball with Hank. I think he hasn’t been happy with the way he’s hit it for a very long time.” A few months later, Sean would say of my work with Tiger, “There was nothing about what he was doing in his previous swing that made any sense to me.”