The Golf Blog: Tiger Woods goes back to Butch Harmon before Masters
WINDERMERE, Florida, April 1, 2011. The Golf Blog says: Wow, we really can’t believe it! News out of the Tiger Woods camp is that Tiger has returned back to Butch Harmon, his swing coach under which he had the most success. This after spending less than a year with controversial new swing coach Sean Foley and six years with Hank Haney.
A statement from Woods: “I’d be a fool–a complete fool–not to go back to Butch. Let’s face it, I made a mistake, a big mistake in ever leaving Butch. No slight to Hank or Sean, I love them both like cousins, but I just trusted my swing the most with Butch. And the results weren’t bad, either.” (Click here for more.)
We like the idea of Tiger going back to Butch Harmon (click here for stats showing Tiger was better under Butch), but this is a really risky move right before the Masters. Seriously, how can Tiger expect to unlearn, in one weekend, the swing taught by Sean Foley over the past 9 months and the bad habits developed under Hank Haney for 6 years? [UPDATE: In response to Hank Haney’s tweets about our story, we’re not saying Haney taught TW the bad habits. Just to be clear. In Golf Digest, Haney himself blamed the bad habits on Tiger’s insistence on not aggravating his knee (limiting what Haney could teach him), Tiger’s bulking up like a linebacker, and slippage in work ethic.]
So why would Tiger take this risk on the eve of the Masters? Is he that desperate with his swing?
We also wonder what Phil Mickelson, Butch’s star pupil, had to say about this. Lefty probably thinks this all is a bad joke. But we’re ecstatic to hear that Tiger Woods finally has come to his senses! If anyone can pull off a revamp of a swing in a weekend before the Masters, it’s Tiger–and Butch!
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