hank haney, what drives you?

Hank Haney is rated the No. 5 Top Instructor and is reportedly giving advice to Tiger Woods. Lo and behold, Hank adorns the cover of Golf Digest this month, with the title: "The Real Reason You're Missing Fairways."

So you think Haney will give you some great advice about driving. Think again. The article chronicles Hank Haney's own personal "driving yips," when he couldn't for 20 years hit his driver anywhere close to the fairway. It got so bad Haney avoided playing rounds and teaching clinics where he had to hit the driver. As Haney explained, "In 18 years, I played fewer than 10 rounds. I had the driver yips."

Wow, that sounds pretty bad. After years of struggle, Haney's come up with a very different solution, adopting am unorthodox grip with the club in the middle of his palm and an unorthodox swing. The pictures of his driver swing are, quite frankly, a little bit hard to follow and a little bit freaky.

After reading the article, which was written by Haney himself, I had two reactions. First, I thought Mr. Haney was very brave to share what must be a frustrating, if not embarrassing, ordeal he's suffered with his own game. He should be commended for that.

But then my next reaction was: is Tiger getting instruction for his driving woes from this guy? Mr. Haney may very well deserve his No. 5 Top Instructor ranking, but I guess I would be a little bit nervous of trying to fix my driving problems with someone who's got serious driving problems himself. Sure, one might ask, Who better to teach about driving problems than someone who's experienced it himself? The only problem is that Haney's solution for his own woes was to change to something dramatically different -- and downright unorthodox. To take an example, it might be great to get lessons from Seve Ballesteros on the short game, but who in their right mind would go to Seve for how to drive the ball?