Tiger Woods: Swing Mechanics at the 2010 Masters

[Wsj1994]

I prefer his swing with harmon, he had a more neutral grip with the club more in the slot at the top, this allowed him to hit more fairways and still get the distance he wanted.

I would guess he's been moving toward a more hogan-esque rotational swing.

Its not bad, but I much prefer the more fundamental harmon swing.

[wdefrancesco]

@Wsj1994 "More fundamental Harmon swing"?  How could Harmon be more "fundamental" than Hogan? Have you been watching Brandel Chamblee?

[Wsj1994]

@wdefrancesco I mean that now hes more laid off at the top and he his hands aren't high as they we're back in 2000, 2001. With harmon he was steeper and had less of a compression/ lateral movement from rotation at impact. I think when he moved to haney he watched hogan's swing and wanted to move even closer to that.

I know that harmon is very intune with hogan's swing, but he puts his own twist on it because he believes it is easier to achieve and more consistent.

No harm ment

[PUArtista]

Sorry but simpler explanation... rushed rhythm, lack of time back inside the ropes.

[cvillegolfer43]

Wayne,

I attend Hank Haney IJGA and the video footage on the left appeared very familiar to me. What this is, is tiger trying to get the club back in front of him rather then stuck behind him and then flipping his hands at the ball to produce a draw. Hank had me working on the same thing in fact. He calls it the Tiger Tweak drill to rotate your hands and club face rather then to flip it.

[bds3g]

You can see in his practice rehearsal that he was still doing what he and Haney worked on when they overhauled his swing. Haney believes in a one plane swing which means that the club is supposed to point left at the top of his backswing but it should also be in line with the left arm. From there the club drops down on plane but as you can see here the problem for Tiger is that the club is too far laid off and the left wrist is bowing too much causing him to get stuck on the downswing.

[kshoren05]

It's almost as if his rehearsal of this 'no stuck' move is making things worse for him, isn't hard to stop flipping when he's got that big shift? He was doing the same move at the US Open and hit a few wild shots that cost him. There is no question that he has the athletic talent & hand eye co-ordination to play with any kind of swing but seriously what's up with the laid off, weak grip, big shift in swing plane? Would you say all these things he is doing to not hook the ball are backfiring?

[earthshine2k]

Wayne, I think you hit on the key to the whole thing. The grip. On The Haney Project (don't ask me why I watch that), Haney was bragging about how he convinced Tiger to change his grip and how Tiger has the club more up in his palm than in the fingers of his left hand, now. I, personally, don't think trying to 'keep the club out in front' plays well with his spine angle compression to start the downswing. Tiger Woods was born to play shut to square. Hold onto the club and turn like mad.

[ej0002]

Laid off is good for Tiger IF he trusts it. The space crated by the the right arm allows him to drop it behind him and sling it out to the right. The backswing is close to ideal, but I would like to see the right arm stay more connected. Also, he needs to trust his plane and not sling it out to the right. Release it left with the body. He is soo close. Much better. It is a work in progress. He will get there.

[sk4t3r4lif3]

his swing was much better with harmon, it's way too flat now. you'll be seeing him go back soon.

[GKSireland]

Hey Wayne, it would be really interesting to see you do a comparison of Tiger's swing when it had "settled" with Harmon vs. with Haney.

Given that the objective of the golfswing is to be able to control the golfball - I'd be interested to hear your opinion on the changes Tiger made with & since Harmon.

I wonder what happened with Tiger, Greg Norman & Harmon? These two guys had more success & swung the club better with him than @ any other time in their careers, & yet they both left him. Why?

[HabloIrlandes]

I had to re-watch this analysis especially in light of Haney's departure. It certainly looks like Tigers wanting to move away from some of what Haney had him doing... Do you think this may have contributed to Haneys decision to leave him?

[samimalmstrom]

Very good analysis as always. My best guess is that he is working on something small and new, again. He has always done that to maintain the edge and every time he has done so there has been a small step back but once the change has been succesfully implemented he's just dominated the field. Something only a few champions have done, Ben Hogan included. I think the fact that Mickelson who never really altered the thrusting of his hips cut him short of being consistently good like Tiger.

[Croonie15]

He's not far off, just has to get club shaft working up the initial shaft angle instead of over it, and that should get him squared up at the top and allow him to transition into the downswing without having to re-route his hands to find the initial shaft plane coming into impact.

[Croonie15]

He's just over rotating his left forearm causing the club to be a bit flat at the top then he has to drop his hands and steepen the shaft angle to get the club onto the original shaft plane. He's just out of sequence with the rotation of his left forearm. And also a point should be made that he is standing further from the golf the ball then he did back in 2008 with his longer clubs and the early part of 09 which also causes that left forearm to rotate too much.

[Croonie15]

Tiger is simply just overdoing this based on his tendencies. If you look at his golf swing in 2008 the club worked up the shaft plane at address stayed above and parallel to that plane at the top of his backswing and then coming down he could just rotate his forearm back to the original shaft plane with the proper amount of loft on the club.

[Croonie15]

Tiger has always fought the club going to far to the inside on his takeaway while closing the club face. He tries to swing the club parallel to the shaft plane that is created at address.

[Tigersmundo]

I wonder why he made these adjustments to his swing I dont like version 2.0....Now he is tipping the shaft forward to not get stuck but requiring little muscles in forearm to be perfect and not just let the body pivot take care of this. IMHO going down the wrong path with this swing now!!!

[Nightwing690]

its looks like how Jerry Kelly setd the club at the top, btw, could you do a Jerry Kelly swing vid Wayne

[geesecougar2]

I had always believed that all Tiger needs to do is strengthen his grip and move the ball a bit up in his stance. He's just getting older and it is getting tougher to square up the face with that move with such a weak grip. Perhaps he will need a few years to mentally accept his physical limitations (happens to everyone as they get older, even someone who has been as great as Tiger), and that once he does he will see another great run?

[hyphnz]

Wayne,

interesting indeed. Do you think it may be a case of what you commented on with Poulter's swing in that TW is working on creating a 'no stuck' move?

[wdefrancesco]

@hyphnz I thought of exactly the same thing as I was doing Poulter's swing. I should have mentioned that Tiger is still in the "no stuck" mode he has been in almost since he turned pro. I thought he had dispensed with the "out and around" left arm move in the backswing when he started up with Haney.