The Golf Blog: Tiger Woods fixes “Big Miss” after leaving Hank Haney, in position to win US Open and 15th major
The Golf Blog says: Tiger Woods is tied for the lead (-1) at the U.S. Open with Jim Furyk and David Toms at the challenging Olympic Club in San Francisco. He swing looks air tight, especially off the tee. No longer do we see wild misses to the right off the tee, as had become a regular occurrence under the days with swing coach Hank Haney, who famously described in his controversial book Tiger’s putative fear in hitting the “Big Miss” off the tee. Now, under new swing coach Sean Foley for several years, we are (finally) beginning to see Tiger’s consistency off the tee, with an arsenal of 3 wood stingers, irons, and, yes, the driver. The stinger is reminiscent of the days of old with Butch Harmon and is certainly a welcome sight.
After 2 rounds of the U.S. Open, Tiger is leading the field in driving accuracy. Yes, you heard that right, Tiger is leading in driving accuracy! When is the last time you heard that? Probably not ever under Hank Haney. Tiger has hit 10 of 14 and 11 of 14 fairways on Thursday and Friday, respectively, for a 75% driving accuracy total–nearly 4 percentage points higher than Graeme McDowell, who is in second.
It is fair to say Tiger is leading this U.S. Open because of his driving accuracy. He leads no other statistic and is fourth in greens in regulation–which hitting from the fairway will help to facilitate. If Tiger had a “Big Miss” once before, he appears to have fixed it–not under Haney’s instruction, but under Foley’s. Haney may have helped Tiger in other ways, but it appears that Tiger’s consistency, strategy, and swing off the tee have improved considerably after the switch to Foley. That combination is exactly what a course as demanding and penalizing as Olympic requires.
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