Everyone is asking will Tiger come back, will he win, will he win a major, is his domination over, how are his swing changes going?

Here are a few obsevations and thoughts after watching him in Abu Dhabi, his first tournament of 2012 and really getting up close and filming him on the course and on the range for the week. 

He is certainly gaining control of his new swing, we can all see that.  A few technical observations are that he starts the club back slightly more closed, which means more toe down than he used to.  It’s almost a reversal of what he did before with Hank Haney, he has a steeper shoulder turn on the backswing and is working the club up on a slightly steeper plane.  It’s an inward hand path, shaft outside his hands as he starts back, and a steeper shaft angle on the backswing.  He is fading the ball ever so slightly, on some shots he is using a lot of upper body rotation and holding off his short and mid irons, also hitting the three wood with a low tracer bullet flight, which is very very impressive!

You have to be strong to swing this way and I hope Tiger’s back and knee hold up during the year.

He still has a lot of power, great imagination around the greens, one thing I have seen in Tiger is a couple of poor pitches from around 70 yds, which he hit a bit heavy and just got on the front edge of the green, I never saw him do  this before.

You can see he exaggerates these moves on his practice swing, but when he swings it’s not as radical as this, it’s more a rehearsal of the pattern he is trying to create in his mind and body.

Can he gain control of the driver with this swing?  We will have to wait and see.  When he really needs a safe shot he is playing a fade.  During the last round in Abu Dhabi he missed a lot more fairways and greens, which after watching him on the range before the last round  this was very surprising as he looked in complete control of his swing.

At the moment everything looks very controlled and he is bedding the swing in to competetive play, maybe his best form will come in April?

Tiger certainly got the attention of the players on the range, many were sneaking a look while they were hitting balls. Tiger does have a great posture and composure, he walks round the golf course in a slow deliberate way.  Certainly when I watch Tiger playing I know I am watching a golfing legend and I cannot forget the amazing shots he has produced throughout his career and all those major wins he has.

He looks at the moment that the flair he has showed throughout his career and his freedom of swing and play is missing, his instinctiveness is not there yet, and this is obviously understandable, maybe we are going to see a more methodical player during this season?

For me the Tiger of previous years was the most exciting player I have ever seen, apart from Seve, and I started watching from the Nicklaus era,1970 onwards, to watch him attacking the course and pulling off amazing shots, fist pumps, birdies, eagles, chip ins, amazing recoveries, playing at  Augusta were magic moments, I hope they return, because whatever view you have of TigerWoods the person, the golf world needs Tiger Woods back at his best, taking on the young guns.

When a superstar in sport has problems, for whatever reason, whether physical, technical, or self inflicted, the question is can they return to where they were?  Can they return to the pinnacle of their sport, in golf at the moment we have several young golfers who have been winning titles, money lists, majors, they have not experienced defeat against Tiger.  They are not Tiger fatigued or battle scarred through consistent losses, hence in the past when he was leading after 54 holes he almost always came out victorious, his competition were beaten before they started.

Now we have many extremely fit, young and very long hitters, they are not mentally beaten golfers, they are not intimidated, they have learnt to win when Tiger was not around, and they cannot wait to beat him when he comes back, to a degree it will make their careers, they are relishing the new challenge ahead.

Tiger is also relishing the challenge of getting back to winning majors and showing everyone that he can return to the pinnacle of golf.

We all will find out if he can come back very soon, and I will be watching him closely at the WGC Matchplay in Tucson in a couple of weeks.   

I hope you can feel how excited I am about this 2012 golf season, it could be AMAZING!

David Bown PGA AA Golf Professional

Authorised Golfing Machine Instructor

contact david@bowngolf.com

07973746872

I was there filming the players and got some great footage of the top players, on the practice ground and the course, it was a very well run tournament on a really good course.

One of the highlights early in the week was when Tiger and Rory arranged to play a nine hole practice round, they got on well and were very chatty. I managed to get some super footage of drives, irons, putts, bunker shots etc, the golf legend Tiger, making a return and the young pretender with huge talent playing and practicing together, it was a priviledge to witness. I have posted some swings on Youtube and here on my website, there are a lot to see,I will keep adding to them, so keep looking!

HSBC opening ceremony

I look forward to seeing more of this during the coming season, which I believe could be a sensational year, and if these players are coming down the last nine holes in a major and we can include Westwood, Donald, Scott, Garcia, Kaymer, Day, Webb Simpson etc etc, it is what we all want to see.

They made the game look very easy ,it was a very long course, 7,500 yds and thick rough, the power they have at their disposal is phenomenal and can overpower a golf course, but to win a tournament you still have to pick the right club, judge the conditions, control your distances, hole putts and retain your concentration, accept a poor shot or bad bounce and the occasional penalty shots, and keep it going for seventy two holes. 

The winner Robert Rock played so well under the pressure of playing with Tiger Woods and many people believed Tiger would win, me included, I watched them both warm up and go through their practice routines, Robert Rock looked solid, but Tiger looked more impressive and was controlling the flight of the ball so well, it looked a formality, well sport and golf is never that as we know. 

The standard of golf on the European Tour is so good, the strength in depth, new players coming through, the quality of the courses, it is a great product and I shall be watching till the final event in The Race to Dubai season. 

It was a brilliant way to start the 2012 European tour and see close up, the return of the TIGER !

David Bown PGA AA Golf Professional

Authorised Golfing Machine Instructor

 contact david@bowngolf.com

07973 746872

But as luck has it, a great opportunity has arisen for me to go to Abu Dhabi and Dubai to see the HSBC golf tournament, its Tigers first tour event of the year and world no 1 Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Rory McIlroy are all playing so its a bigeee!

Will be great to see Tiger close up and his swing changes, and I also really hope we get a close tournament with Tiger, Rory, Lee and Luke all playing well and a real finale, it just happens so rarely when the top two or three players in the world are battling it out over the final eighteen holes,

This of course is a great opportunity to get some hi speed video footage of all the worlds best  after some winter tuning and I will be there filming everyone of them.

Will have them posted up on my website when I return.

Take a look on Sky sports they are covering the event from Jan 26 th to 29th and see some great golf.

CONTACT  david@bowngolf

07973 746872

He was asked how are his swing changes going, and his reply was  that he needs to be patient, keep doing the correct drills and  enough repetitions so he can master his new movement.

So that information is nothing new to me , but for you that might be a surprise, a surprise that even Tiger needs to work consistently on his swing changes, the need to be patient, or you will become become frustrated if those changes are not on auto after a few buckets of balls, the need to have a PLAN , so you know exactly what you want, and how to get there.

To become better at anything you need to work out what is wrong, why is my ball curving away from the target, why are my divots on the wrong line, why am I topping it, why do I hit some shots really well, then hit it all over the golf course, etc etc.

Get rid of FRUSTRATION  and DOUBT  and plan to make some changes to your game in 2011, follow TIGER,  if its not working CHANGE IT !  Hire yourself a PGA Professional .

So how to make yourself better in 2011. What you need to do for improvement.

1. Go to a Golf Professional.

2. Get your swing filmed on Hi- speed video .

3. Practice what you need to work on Regularly, start slowly, remember my R.M.P.G. Recognise it, Monitor it, Practice it, Groove it.

4. Start  working on your Mobility, develop a stretching routine , get that stiffness out and swing more freely. 

4. Work on your Putting  stroke indoors with a putting plane board.

If you do this and the KEY is Keep doing the Correct practice, you will get better and enjoy your golf even more in 2011 !!

David Bown  PGA AA Professional  Authorized Golfing Machine Instructor

contact 07973 746872          david@bowngolf.com

If you go to the range and hit balls with your regular swing speed and expect to change, because you are thinking about a new movement your coach wants to incorporate into your swing, you will be disappointed at the results. It will not happen.

Why?

 Because to make any progress in swing changes you must reduce your speed of the movement , so you can start to be aware of what you are doing and you can start to see what you are doing and feel what you are doing.This is critical to making any change, you have to do the new movement slowly and precisely so you know it is correct, then with lots of repetitions your brain  can start to  develop the new pathways of your movement patterns so it can become an unconscious automatic movement, which is exactly what you want when out on the course.

You hear Tiger saying all the time “I need to get some good reps going and that takes time”

Why not learn from the best players.

1.  Be realistic, it takes time to change. Allow 100 reps before any change even begins to feel comfortable.

2.  Swing slowly, in slow precise movements, and monitor what you are really doing.

3. Do as many slow motion, and correct repetitions as possible before you add any speed.

4. Be patient, it will work.

5. You have found the key to  long term improvment and eliminated frustration!

In  April Tiger played in the US Masters and finished an amazing 4th, after being out of golf for around five months, he has since played in several PGA tour events and not performed well, he had to pull out of the Players due to neck problems.

His latest event the WGC at Firestone was his worst four round total in his professional career, eighteen over par, he hit five fairways day one, three fairways day two, seven fairways day three, day four I dont have the stats but he had his worst round of the week a 77.

To quote Tiger,” I am not hitting the ball well, I am not chipping well, I can`t hole a putt, and my driving is poor”

TIGER Stats.

He was79 of 80 in driving accuracy, G.I.R. he was 77th out of 80, he averaged 29.5 putts per round, the interesting stat is that he made 22 bogeys and 3 double bogeys and 10 birdies, so he dropped 28 strokes to par, and made 10 birdies.

Hunter Mahan Stats.

Driving accuracy he was 30th, G.I.R 9th, putts 26.5, he made19  birdies which ranked him 1st and 7 bogeys, no doubles.

Tiger knows his swing, but he needs a plan , a blueprint to get him back on the right track, he is too good to struggle like this , and obviously his personal life is really not sorted out and he is not the focused Tiger of old.

It is such a fine line between success and failure at this highest level of the game, you lose your technique, lose some confidence and belief and you really struggle.

So Hunter Mahan, Sean O`Hair, Justin Rose, are all coached by Sean Foley, in Orlando, and I would suggest that Tiger will go to him and work out a plan to eliminate his problems of losing height, getting the club too inside on the downswing. He needs to look at his swing in 2000 when he was in total control of his game, I know that was ten years ago now and physically we all change, but Tiger is such a great athlete he can do it.

The key question is has he got the desire to get back to the top of his game, I believe he has , and that he will play his best golf again, but only if he can deal with his personal life, get that in order and open up a new chapter to his life, I also believe that after the USPGA he will take a break to sort out his life and golf game.

What ever opinions you have about Tiger, he was an incredible golfer and did things on the course that we had never seen before, and set some amazing records.

I had heard that Tiger was going to leave Haney, but although the news has a different twist, a reversal of what we thought would happen, the end result is the same.

With all the upheaval in the last several months regarding Tiger, and even though he has not played or practiced that much at all, we all realised that the way Tiger was swinging the club it was not going well.

His last round at the Masters was amazing, he was all over the course, but his recovery powers were truly incredible,  he turned a probable 77 into a 69, his desire kept him up there.

But you cannot keep fighting your swing every round, you might get away with it a few times, but at the level of the PGA tour you will come up short.

He has gone from winning the US OPEN by 15 shots in 2000 and holding all four majors in one year, to fighting his swing and digging deep to finish in the top four.

Let me say that Tiger won several majors with Hank Haney, as he did with Butch Harmon, but sometimes a particular pattern of swing suits you more, and Tiger is so talented he can make almost anything work and be successful!

I believe he has his next swing coach in the wings, his name is Sean Foley, he is Canadian, works with Sean O`Hair, Hunter Mahan, and just recently our own Justin Rose has joined up. Tiger could work with anyone and be really good, we all know that, he must know by now what swing works best for him, he needs to clear his mind and refocus on getting HIS best swing back, not trying to model a way of swinging onto him.

What I see is Tiger fighting the swing, losing more distance, playing a lot of fades, in order to keep his ball in play, that is not the Tiger we saw earlier in his career, he was free flowing, attacking, I believe he is the greatest golfer in the history of the game, even though he is behind Nicklaus in the majors, he has played the most amazing golf shots throughout his career, shots that other players can only dream of, plus he has an incredible will to win, amazing fitness levels, an intimidation factor that was there for all to see, and if you were in the last group with Tiger you were going to lose! That is not the case right now.

I look on with great interest, to see what is going to happen next, I really hope we see Tiger back to his supreme best, there is a lot of work to do, with his divorce, his fitness, his swing, there are a lot of things against him, most of which he brought on himself,   but if anyone can do it he can, and if he does it will be a lot of fun to watch. Tiger we want you back to your best, we want the REAL TIGER back.

Once again the critical area is the short game , we all know it is important and so it proved again on the last day, if you can get down in two when you miss a green, you can score, saving strokes not wasting them. It is so important, it keeps you confident, because you are still maintaining your score, it will help you  relax more on your second shots as well. 

Tiger Woods ball striking gradually got worse each round, more wayward shots appeared, but his amazing ability to see the shot and shape the ball, and not give up, kept him in touch with the leaders. He shot 69 in the last round and was all over the course, anyone else would have probably scored in the mid seventies.

So if your looking to lower your scores and become a more consistent player, you must work on your bunker shots, your chipping and putting.

We all know this but how many golfers actually practice their short game, they would rather hit the driver!

So spend  at least 60% of your  practice time improving your short game, it really will be worth it and watch your scores come down.

What is going on ? All his fans want to know .  I am sure we will find out soon.

Well this just shows that Tiger is human , not a machine. He can control many things out on the course, but not everything in his life. 

We can all learn from Tiger, his planning, his dedication, his mental toughness in the heat of the battle out on the golf course, but sometimes things don’t go as we like.  On the the golf course, we sometimes feel out of control and go into the downward spiral of doubt and lose our confidence .

How can you recover and regain your composure?  

Take a few deep breaths, refocus on what you want to achieve, slow down your breathing, filter out any unneccesary thoughts and focus on one thing at a time. Try it next time. It works !

Tiger Woods