A student of mine had a one hour lesson with me today, I had previously given him a video lesson about eighteen months ago, he had to stop playing for six months because he had  broken his wrist snowboarding .

Luckily everything had healed up well and he no discomfort or mobility problems.

He had at  one time been of three handicap, but was now playing off fourteen, he explained that he could not hit the driver as he wanted , it was either starting straight  and cutting to the right towards the end of its flight or flying straight left of target, could also start it left going left. He can hit the ball 280 off the tee and is a powerful player.

So I stood behind him as he set up to the ball with the driver, I always look at alignment, posture, ball position, grip, weight distribution at address.

I let him hit five or six drives, all were either starting straght and cutting about 40 yards to the right, or starting left and cutting thirty yards to the right.

From down the line I could see his downswing path was slightly across and above his intended path into the ball, his backswing was on plane, his turn was a fraction short but controlled, very strong at the top.

He had a narrow stance, his ball position was slightly to far back, his right shoulder was out of alignment to the left, and he looked a bit top heavy at at set up, weight to much towards his toes. 

So I got him to move his right foot across to the right about six inches, his ball position one inch further forward, move his weight further back towards his heels, and move his right shoulder down and back slightly.so that he was now parallel to his target, altough he felt his shoulders were closed !

He now had had more weight behind the ball at address and was better balanced and more stable and grounded

All in all I moved  the ball one inch, his upper body one inch, his weight from his toes to just over his ankle joint , so he was better balanced,  and his spine angle came up slightly, and he was nearer the ball slightly.   So we made about six inches of adjustments in total. He now had his upper body aligned better to the target. No need to alter his grip, it was perfect , his backswing was compact, on plane, no swing thoughts needed, no conscious manipulation of the hands now needed as he swings .

First swing he hit a long high shot, a strong flight, that after it reached the top of its flight it very slightly turned to the left as it came back to earth !

He actually hit it virtually straight , slight draw and long , WOW !

He was delighted, he now needs to practice recognising where he is at set up, and start to get the feel of his new set up so he can reproduce the correct alignments easily and feel comfortable.

So to sum up.

He had too much weight on his toes, ball too far back and his upper body was out of alignment , so he found it very difficult to swing the club on the correct plane through the impact zone, he said “ I feel less effort as I swing, its more fluid now, I am not fighting it”

Always look at your set up first, grip, posture, ball position, weight distribution, and alignment first, get these right first before making any swing changes, everyone should be able to have a good set up, its so important.

Well all the talk of the past few months in the teaching community has just come true, Hank Haney is no longer Tigers swing coach.

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.