I know it has only been a few months since some of his most embarrassing rounds ever as a pro but these last three rounds at Chevron I have not seen Tiger stripe the ball this good since maybe 2000. I couldn’t help but notice Foley looks to have him looking more stack/tiltish at address and at top, but has Tiger changed to more ABS CP “hitting” at impact?
Or am I wrong and he has always had this type of pattern and he is just more relaxed and confident now so it looks good again?
All weekend I have seen him practicing more a “to left after impact” practice swing before ever shot. He even did one practice swing with a glove under his RIGHT arm before a beautiful 170y approach shot today that landed 3ft from pin. Everything is working for him; driver, irons and especially putter again, and he will most likely get his first win this year.
I think Tiger has always used a lot of what ABS is about.
I noticed Tiger doing a little pre-shot practice move routine a few times to get his swing thoughts ready. What I distinctly saw Tiger doing in his pre-shot practice move is: lowering the hands/handle to [near] the elbow plane (before his aggressive pivot rotation) and then a definite [centripetal force pull] pull-it-left move (noticeable more in his swings using shorter clubs with greater angle-of-attack) and a vertical hinge release. However, Tiger has always made these moves in his golf swing…so maybe Foley has made Tiger [even] more aware of their importance. I do believe Foley wants Tiger to stay better connected with his right side, thus the use of a prop under his right armpit during practice.
Did you see the mini right arm only practice swing Tiger made one time before teeing off? He partially straighten the right arm as he lowered it to thigh level, then he pivoted to rotate the club through his imaginary impact zone, then he pulled it left (out-of-orbit) [the best he could using just his right hand] to stay on his true radial or circular swing arc, then he hinged vertically which moved the clubshaft into a vertical position. Very nice! Just what (I assume) Lag is teaching you guys and gals how to do it…except with both hands on the club and striking a golf ball with good shaft lag and ball compression.
The major difference I see in Tiger’s swing now is in his takeaway path and the position of his arms, hands and club at the top. His arms are actually a little more upright now with only a slightly bowed left wrist now and his clubshaft now is aligned parallel to his target instead of being laid-off. Also, his clubshaft at P3 is is now parallel to the target line whereas before it could be angled on either side of the target line depending on how he was swinging that particular day. Tiger’s downswing sequence (lowering as he calls it before his aggressive pivot) are greatly improved compared to what it has been. Lastly, it looks like his footwork and balance are much improved…probably due to all the aforementioned improvements.
Yes, I did see that. I couldn’t figure out what he was working on other than getting his right-arm more involved in the whole process while keeping it ‘connected’ as I rewound it a few times. [One of first few things I heard when starting is to try to eliminate right side…]
You are right about being less laid-off at top. One of first differences I noticed as well. He also appears to have tamed his dip a bit and is really focused on a full yet purposely posed finish. Plus (I can’t be sure because I didn’t verify) I noticed Tigers clubface in a more closed position earlier in downswing near impact.
But the biggest difference I see are the more left shifted weight at address and more dramatic at top. From what I have quickly read about Foley is he favors something called a “right sided swing” pattern (proponents include Gary Edwin and Mark Evershed). From Gary’s homepage it states:
The bold part is, to many across the web, a fancy term or new twist on Stack&Tilt concepts and you can see it in all of foley’s students (Mahan, Rose, Tiger) and Edwins. Sounds logical but Yuck. (Also love how Hogans name gets dropped there as well. Hogan unknowingly has had pretty much every swing pattern as he gets credit for them all…)
Then again it never was an issue with Tigers Irons. But all these changes have now gone to his driver/woods this weekend for first time I’ve noticed. Tiger always seemed to have a more CF release with driver but today I saw him working on same practice swing as irons; making sure to cut left. As well as more targetward weight at address. Whether or not this is the difference, his driving has been night/day compared to rest of 2010 and has made all the difference in his leading thus far. PLUS his putts are falling again and he appears more confident in his new putter.
Look out rest of PGA for 2011 or is this just a quick appearance of old tiger in a semi non pressure tournament before year closes out?
Budman, I haven’t been following all the threads so I may have missed something, but did you say that you just recently took up the game and/or that you’re a 30 handicapper?
Tiger is just such a wonderful iron player and of course short game master. But, I saw one driver at Chevron where he was so S&Tish, combined with his fast hips, he dropped kicked one 200 yards to the right. Frightening to say the least and very problematic when the majors roll around. When you can see him thinking his way through with the driver swing, he’s always in trouble.
I think he’s still in the ‘don’t’ phase with that swing and he’s trying to purge that thought. If Foley can get him back close to the 2000 swing with this older, beat up body, he’ll be good to go. And don’t let anyone kid you, Tiger’s left knee is not right, it’s chronic and will have an impact on his game going forward. I root for the guy, though, just an incredible athlete and very strong mentally. Any of the top 10 guys on Tour would have crumbled like blue cheese if they had to go through what Tiger did off and on the course this past year.
Ok, I get the condescending tone. But Correct: Only started play 7 months ago and my best round to date is a 102
Man you guys are tough to newbs. First RR now you. I wasn’t giving instruction, I was just giving my viewpoint of watching tiger enthusiastically for 12 years. Maybe I should just leave. Sorry to disrupt.
The problem with anything S and T is that by removing spine tilt on the backswing, it’s easy to also remove it on the downswing which then does not allow a proper path for the arms to come down into the slot. You then hear the term “getting stuck”. Players are forced to play more upright gear which is in no way beneficial. It can be done, but it is not beneficial. With the shorter irons, because the clubs themselves are shorter, players bend at the waist more, and this then allows a pocket for the arms to come down into the 4:30 line easier at P3. As clubs get longer, the torso gets more erect, so the whole S and T thing tends not to work as well with the longer irons and drivers. The stats tell the story on tour over the course of a season. It’s a fair enough way to hit short irons, but not the longer clubs, and this is why the guys using this method are way down the list in accuracy… because the method is flawed with the longer clubs.
Well, you’re getting something that wasn’t there, so I don’t know what to say about that. You misinterpret the reason for my question actually, and your reply makes sense out of it. Your posts seem quite advanced in thinking and also in terms of the time span of some of your references. Talking about Tiger over the years, and making fairly good observations about the changes to his swing during that time, wasn’t making a lot of sense in terms of a 30 handicapper who just started playing. I was just curious about the apparent contradiction. Now that you say you’ve been observing his game for 12 years, it makes sense.
I can’t speak for RR specifically, but there tends to be a lot of open and deep analysis of the game here, and RR is very good at digging in to the supposed abstract meanings of certain things and coming up with cool stuff. Your comment telling him that he thinks way too much, didn’t quite fit with the general spirit of the place. So it’s not that he was giving the newbie a hard time, more that the newbie was giving him a hard time. Or so it seemed to me. There is disagreement for sure, but there’s also an openness and respect for digging that seems to be shared by most people here and that enables some very interesting discussions and observations. Not that I’m the police or anything close, it’s just my take on it.
My question was pure curiosity and wasn’t meant as a knock on you making observations. Quite the opposite actually.
BOM
My sincere apologies Bom. I took it the wrong way in that you were sort of suggesting “who are you?” Thanks for the clarification.
Anyway, back to Tiger. During an interview today early in the round, he said Foley has made a complete revamping change to his swing. Basically changing everything, he said. Grip, turn, weight, backswing, etc. He looked razor sharp for three rounds and todays sort of meltdown was more mental most likely. I am just fascinated that he would again jump ship and try to revamp his swing for the 4th time! I know he is a tinkerer but was not beating fields by 22 strokes back in his heyday something wrong?
Problem with this large change is just appears Tiger is riding the newest “fad” swing from the “hot” coach on tour. It just looks so forced and un-natural. Like Lag has said, his irons have always been great. Instead of a swing overhaul, all Tiger had to do was bring that iron swing to the teebox.
But the ABS’esque parts I were noticing the other day were kind of neat to see. I did a quick search here but is Tiger considered a ‘hitter’ or ‘swinger’ earlier in his career?
I would consider Tiger a hitter considering his left wrist is a vertical angled hinge in the follow through (no horizontal hinging or hand rolling in follow through), an abrupt swing completion with shaft vertical (no free flowing wrap-around the neck finish), pulling the club left to stay on swing arc/pull it out-of-orbit to decrease swing arc radius (clubhead does not move out to right after impact), upper arms connected post-impact (upper arms don’t leave the chest).
There was a slow motion clip zoomed in on Tiger’s footwork, and it was absolute textbook. And of course the announcers suggested it was his problem… just like Greg Norman had such terrible footwork… it’s pretty comical what they come up with on TV. It’s no wonder the public is so in the dark about most everything from the golf swing to gear.
I’ll be posting the clip in the module #2 forum thread.
I think I saw that, the one where they focused on the right foot and the announcer said he slipped and had a balance issue? As you say it looked to me simply as if the ground pressures had done there job and were giving way to the pivot as they should.
I saw this on youtube…who wrote about the ABS BS filter in another thread…hawg?..filters on please
Again history shows and proves the weight IS NOT on the left side at address, IS NOT on the left at the top of the swing and certainly NOT on the left EVEN AT IMPACT… it’s a feel that many players have talked about but not a reality… God help Tiger if he goes along with this type of stuff… I really hoped he was smarter than that
That’s just scary stuff. What amateurs is he looking at who transfer 80% of their weight to their right legs on their backswings? Are they left handed?
If anyone can overcome mechanical madness, it’s Tiger, but this is worrying, especially considering how steep he already was with the driver after Haney. I don’t know much about this guy, but a friend of mine told me he backs up a lot of his ideas by saying it’s ‘physics, it has to work this way etc.’ which is worrying in itself. But how does he get physics to accelerate the club when he wants you to go towards the target with it as he describes in this clip? You see this type of obsession with low point and contact, and it seems to create total amnesia about the fact that the club is also moving around and needs to be accelerated properly.
