Captain,
schwantz…Is that your driver ?
Steve
I see him trying to swing more left, but with the shoulders turning steep, it’s not going to integrate easily.
Going from proper shoes with steel spikes to this isn’t going to help either.
I’m confident he’ll win again soon, but he’s making things more difficult than they need to be.
Why, yes!
From the Medieval Germanic dictionary:
schwantz
noun-
- Also called number one wood. Golf . a club with a wooden head whose face has almost no slope, for hitting long, low drives from the tee.
Driver, drivee…rider, ridee…it’s all good! 
Captain Chaos
I saw this on the telecast last night and was cringing. I’ve said this many times before, his left knee is still not right, and can obviously never be right, six surgeries and counting…Lag: do you think metal spikes at this point in his career would just hasten tearing out that left knee? He may be able to use vertical ground pressures, but pulling the roots of the tree up to the finish I think would be incredibly risky.
I think he should stay with the metal spikes and move the internal pressures from his knee into the hip and torso junction.
The poor quality shoes will only allow for more chance of over extending the knee under great pressure. Just my take on it…
I have moved away from slamming the left leg straight for a number of reasons, none of which have to do with protecting the knee, but for the purposes of the golf swing and striking the ball more accurately. I feel less pressure in the knee now… much more in the right leg than the left. I think he’s barking up the wrong tree on this one.
Without steel spikes, his golf swing will slowly erode over time and become much less dynamic where it counts. He’ll still win though.
Looks like there’s less toe dancing than before for Tiger…but he still has a way to until he can match the footwork of Senior or Hogan…who both give the look of having the left heel receiving plenty of pressure, as opposed to Tiger…who started having the distal or toe end of the left foot receive the pressure, but seems to be improving. There are different angles shown here, but at almost precisely the same point in the swing journey. One can get a sense of the differences.
Is all this evidence of the struggle to lean to turn more like a merry-go-round rather than a ferris wheel through the hit area?
If the shoulders go steep, the weight is going to work toward the ball of the left foot. Trevino was steep and advocated this as a good thing.
Level shoulder rotation is going to work the weight toward the left heel. Obviously both can work, but are not necessarily interchangeable.
More an effect than a cause.
Tiger finally won again. Is this a new era for him? Looking forward in watching him for 2012!
New era.
There is no question he has cleared his head, gotten much needed practice in and somethings finally clicking with tiger since the Australian open late last year. In that event and since then he has gone T3, 1st, T3 in events he has played. Throw in a outstanding presidents cup showing in there as well to where he smoked baddeley in match play and it has been the best stretch by FAR of all of world golf players for that time frame. So he is back and all things point to a new era for tiger going forward.
BUT there are some things I see that could just be kinks that will iron out or the new norm for him. In those 3rd place finishes he basically '“chocked” the lead away in the 4th round. And he was neck neck for the 4th round in his win as well. That is unreal considering the old tiger would have stomped on anyone close just by shear intimidation playing with him for last round watching his ability. The new generation is relishing the challenge and taking advantage of doubt by tiger it appears. Robert Rock was a solid performance with gut wrenching shots he stuck while tiger was the one faltering. So is the clutch closer of old tiger gone as age sets in as well as inspired good players ready to pounce or is tiger just a few more months away from intimidation play of old to close events.
Second, tiger is striking beautifully… For 3 rounds. Then unsureness comes in and his distance control as well as the pulls come out with his new swing. Age? Swing not fit him under pressure? Lost the fire a tad? Who knows. But he seems to spiral when the bad shots start.
One thing I noticed (yet don’t have time to prove with video) is starting at chevron i see him practicing the swing left move but watching his real swings he actually looks more like his 2000 swing than either foley or Haney. Foley has his influence there for sure but he is higher hands at top of backswing like 2000 tiger, as well as come out to start the downswing (compared to a small move straight down first, under Haney). So he struggled hard trying to fully implement foley swing 100% for a year+ then, to me, has started to mix what works for him, rejecting what doesn’t. That is when he started his latest run. He even has abandoned his foley attempt at the same stroke from driver to putter as he has worked with stricker getting his old putting motion back (he says releasing the head a tad again). This has helped dramaticallyin hitting confidence and makes.
So tiger is looking sharp but of course the media won’t notice the little stuff like that and attribute it all to foley. Foley will sell tons of dvd’s and look like a genius as the “method” that got tiger back. But tiger actually looks more of a tighter version of him in 2000. Praise foley and tiger for getting that into him but tiger is nothing like the stack and tilting stuff we saw him working on early 2011 of over exaggerated leaning left and shaft on head stuff. Foley is probably learning as much from tiger as vise versa.
Also, the dramatic swing left practice swings are just what TIGER needed. I already saw someone at driving range practicing that the other day! We will see more and more working on this as it ‘fixed tiger’ but realistically tiger was known to get stuck his whole career and it plagued him. The exaggerated swing left is a DRILL for tigers problem. I felt like explaining this to the guy at the driving range as he was slicing, pulling just about everything…
I still have a hard time seeing tiger winning majors though. I currently see him winning events again but nothing like we have seen in past and MAYBE one more major considering he still has ten years left.