Yes, I’d say. I love that second photo on the left. Bom, did he have flatter lies when he first came out on Tour?
They sure look like flatter lies, don’t they? It might be a camera angle trick, but I’m led to believe they were a little (maybe 2 or 3 degrees) flatter.
Foley’s whole swing theory is a centered pivot. If you employ a wide stance you need more lateral movement to get to you left pivot point. In addition Tiger could possibly protecting his knee.
I have tried Foley’s pricipal, staying left and simply unwinding left from the top. I think its a good and very simple way to swing for some people. Its a little bit S&T but with a few changes. To me its simply putting yourself in a similar position Hogan did but without his lateral shift move. Your simply starting with that lateral move already complete.
If anyone is familiar with Slixefixer’s theories, its very similair IMO… goes to show there’s lots of ways to get the ball in the hole…
If you start left, you risk not allowing room for the arms to transition correctly… or as some say… stuck.
The solution is to play more upright gear, but then you bring in the left side of the golf course and will have more difficulty controlling low point.
Tough to say, but I’d venture a guess that he may have been flatter by a degree or two. I wouldn’t go by photos in general because frames can get squeezed and stretched to where they’re not representing a pure reality. And that sequence that I posted includes 7 through 5 iron shots, so the lie angles are varied anyway. The structure of the posture has clearly changed to where he’s very much looking down on top of the ball now with straighter legs. He looks very top heavy to my eye.
Obviously he has talent beyond comprehension, and he’s always going to compete and win, but he has to fight so hard for every swing now that it’s kind of sad to watch. Technique should harness and channel the talent that exists in the person, but it can too often hinder and stifle it. He’s looked hindered for a long time now, so hopefully he finds something in all the new stuff he’s doing.
Here are Tigers current club specs. They aren’t mine, I found them on another forum. Sorry I tried to make the picture smaller.
with respect to making the picture smaller…you were extremely effective. 
maybe try to upsize it a little?
Sorry. Here is another picture of Tigers club specs.
Oh for fuck’s sake 59 1/4 on his driver and he wonders why his iron game is way more accurate.
Great post Grux
If anyone saw the first round of the matchplay they will agree with me when I say that Tiger’s ballstriking is sad.
Surely he’s going to leave Foley soon.
Going to be interesting to see if he can break par at Augusta with him trying to cut everything. My goodness some of his cut shots are cutting 20 yards.
A question for Lag and 2m in 2 parts:
Despite the uprightness:
- Do you consider the Tiger of 2000 to be a great ball striker and having a great swing?
- Do you consider Adam Scott a great ballstriker and do you consider his a great swing?
To me a great ball striker has to be in the fairway about 80% of the time … and averaging 15 greens a week on a real championship golf course… not the garbage they are playing today.
When Bradley was out here we played Pasa Tiempo, a very tight and tough classic MacKenzie track, and Bradley hit every fairway and 16 greens and shot 68 coming out of working in a pro shop for the last year.
The guys on tour should be hitting it better than that… if they are playing everyday and grinding mountains of golf balls.
No great current ballstrikers.
We won’t see the great stuff again anytime soon as long as the bomb and gouge game is the popular style of play.
Won’t happen.
Get rid of the frying pans, tighten up the courses so that the need to hit it dead straight becomes a requirement. Then players will start to figure it out again. We are right back in the 1920’s right now. Inferior equipment and golf swings.
Last week I ran into an older black gentleman who’s in his 80’s and who used to caddy a bunch starting when he was a kid in the Dallas area. He’s got so many great stories that I wish someone would sit his ace down and document them! (One of the saddest things I’ve ever heard was when he told me that most of his friends that he played golf with are gone now … what a sobering thought).
Anyway, for once I pressed him on Hogan cause I know he’d seem him play a bunch. He told be he’d have taken Nelson head to head most of the time but I think it was because he saw more of Hogan more pre-accident. He said Nelson was unbelievably good!
Regardless… we were lamenting the state of the game and he said something along the lines of “you never see the 'high cut 5 iron” anymore"… I had no response as there was none needed.
He lived as close to the game as you can during the times when gambling was HUGE, Trevino was still working the driving range at Hardy’s, and cheating was prevalent in the big money games… and even HE knows that the game has gone downhill from there. Yes… usher in the new era and all that goes with it. I’m just glad I HAD to play persimmon and balata for as long as I did . Lot’s of folks missed out and can’t appreciate it.
robbo
That is ridiculous. Basically eliminates everyone on tour based on a very specific stat that is a product of so much more. FIR stat is one of worst ways to gauge a ball-striker. One could cheat it just by not hitting it as hard or only hitting 3w/2i’s all the time. The persimmon age, what was average distance? 250y? You don’t think every single one of the current PGA pro’s could achieve 80% FIR if they only used 3w off the tee’s and not take full jacks at the ball (to simulate persimmon swings as they were harder to hit)? FIR% is a huge tradeoff tied to distance as well as playing GOLF.
Ok, what about player a) intelligently surveyed a hole for two days of practice and places his driver shot in area of perfect angle to a pin location but it landed just a tad off fairway in 1st cut rough but player b) just plays generic yet is in middle of fairway with a FIR but now has tough approach angle to pin and over water and a back bunker. So who was better ball-striker? According to you it was player b.
Joe Durant has been in high 70%'s in FIR for years now. But he is also routinely 30+ yards shorter than average driving distance. So Joe is a better ball striker because he swings well within himself off the tee but has never won a PGA event because he is left behind through growing courses. He basically is starting +4 every round because of his lack of distance. He could work to increase his distance just like everyone else does, but there goes his FIR%.
Also GIR% is another one of those stats that by itself means nothing and is tied much to other factors. Bubba Watson has led in GIR now for past year+. But he also is closer to the hole on EVERY drivable hole than rest of PGA outside of a few other long hitters. Being closer means easier to hit green.
Also someone with a GIR could be putting for 50ft yet someone just a tad off GIR could be chipping for 7ft. Who is better striker?
Boo Weekly is a good example of ball-striker imo. Yet we don’t hear about him as he SUCKS at putting (one of worst) and average at best in short game. But he is usually 70FIR/70GIR each year (2006 his best year) and I’ve read he pure’s it from people who have seen him live.
I think to measure a ball-striker requires a deeper analysis of stats with a correlation factor involved. I’ve seen Richie3Jack do some interesting ones already. Something like that and more could really tell good strikers.
The pga tours website has stats going back to 1980. Nobody has come close to averaging 15 greens a round since then. What am I missing?
Im not sure if stats can tell the true story of how good a ballstriker is. To me a great ballstriker is a player who consistently hits the ball solid and can eliminate the leftside of the course (for a right hander), and completely eliminate wild misses, and be very good with both direction and distance control with approach shots. Everyone misses shots but you didnt see the games best ballstrikers hitting wild offline double cross shots. Having the ability to vary the trajectory (be able to hit it high and low) and shot shape on demand is also important. But ive always thought the ability to work the ball both ways is a bit overrated, i think its more important to be able to hit the ball solid consistently and completely eliminate one side of the course, especially under pressure in tournaments, and have the confidence and ability to pull out driver and hit it down the middle on very narrow holes with ob on both sides down stretch in tournaments.
You’re absolutely correct. And the players who do all this wind up hitting more fairways and more greens in the long run.
Calvin Peete came pretty close in the 80s, he was leading the tour averaging about 80% fairways and 70% greens. But its clear John has a very high standard, which is good, he probably only considers a few players who’ve ever played great ballstrikers. I know he’s said he considered Peter Senior a very good ballstriker in 1980s, maybe his stats were better, last year he averaged about 72% GIR(20th) on the senior tour, but he’s probably not as good a ballstriker as he was back in the 1980s, but i think most courses on the senior tour arent very demanding tee to green.
Of course he does and that’s great. But it’s like saying you’re not a great hitter if you’re not hitting .400 with power. It doesn’t happen.
Yeah it doesnt happen much, and since 1980 no one on tour has averaged 15 gir. Trevino averaged 14 GIR his first couple years when he dominating the Senior Tour, but he only averaged about 65% GIR his last few years on the regular tour, but that was well past his prime. Maybe in his prime he was averaging 15 greens a round, but you pretty much have to play flawless tee to green to do that, because even some very good shots can occaisonally end up on the fringe or just rolling out to miss a fairway. I remember reading where Johnny Miller said that if they had kept GIR and FIR stats back in the mid 70s he would have all the records, but in the early 80s he averaged 13 GIR. I think i remember reading Knudson once hit 70 out of 72 greens at augusta one year.