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Granted, Tiger Woods has a lot on his mind. There is a popular thought that his poor play is totally a result of the fact that he has essentially blown up his life and that all he has left is money, but since we are golfers and not psychiatrists we will focus on what I believe to be the major change he has made beginning in 2008 and which I think is hindering his comeback. So, what is this mystery move? Brandel says he is too bent over, that he has no room and thus has to jump up through impact, but he has been doing that all his life. Chamblee followed that up with the brilliant observation that no one could win a major that bent over until of course Keegan Bradley, more bent over than Tiger has ever been, just went ahead and won the PGA. Nobilo is focused on Tiger’s left wrist, which he (Nobilo) wants to be cupped, while Tiger has won every tournament he ever won with at least a flat, and sometimes bowed, left wrist.
No, our Golf Channel pundits don’t have it right, but if you watch the video here I think you will agree that this particular change is huge and has had a great impact on Tiger since his body began to give him extra trouble. The key move is his hand path from the top. In 2000 and all the way to 2008 Tiger moved his hands outward toward the ball in transition, which allowed him to rotate his upper body fast enough to stay up with his lower, while moving the arms out in front of his body, lessening the tendency to get “stuck”. Then, somewhere during the 2008-2009 period, Tiger began to drop his hands vertically, which retards the opening of the chest and makes it harder to “get around” on every shot. While Sean Foley has made some changes to Tiger’s swing he has not addressed this vertical drop of the hands, and it is my opinion that they will struggle until they incorporate more of a “side-arm” approach, a la Hogan.
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