NAILA-JEAN MEYERSand JULIE BOSMANon a new book by Tiger Woods's former swing coach that offers a number of fascinating insights
IT MAY say just about everything you need to know about being part of Tiger Woods’s inner circle that Hank Haney, his swing coach from 2004 to 2010, became paralysed with fear over asking Woods for a popsicle.
“When we were watching television after dinner, he’d sometimes go to the refrigerator to get a sugar-free popsicle,” Haney writes in his book The Big Miss, which comes out March 27th. “But he never offered me one or ever came back with one, and one night I really wanted one of those popsicles. But I found myself sitting kind of frozen, not knowing what to do next. I didn’t feel right just going to the refrigerator and taking one, and I kind of started laughing to myself at how hesitant I was to ask Tiger for one. It actually took me a while to summon the courage to blurt out, ‘Hey, Bud, do you think I could have one of those popsicles?’ ”
Woods said Haney could get a popsicle. But the story is one of several in Haney’s book that offer glimpses into Woods’s personality, which was been walled off to the public throughout his career.
The book documents the relationship between Woods and Haney, from the first time they met, when Woods was 17, to when Haney quit, just as he was feeling he was about to be fired in the wake of Woods’s return to golf after the revelations of his multiple extramarital affairs.
The book has already received attention for the chapter titled “Distraction”, which details Woods’s 2007 season, in which, in the wake of his father’s death, Woods grew obsessed with military training. He frequently attended three-day sessions with Navy SEALs, which involved parachuting, hand-to-hand combat and firearms training. After excerpts of the book were released by Golf Digest, Woods had a terse news conference at the Honda Classic last month.
But the Golf Digest excerpt did not include one of the more damaging assertions by Haney about the effect of this training. Haney says he was told Woods tore his anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in an exercise with the SEALs, not while running at home. Haney grew concerned about Woods’s workouts and his focus on weight lifting. Haney thought Woods was “inordinately interested in muscle-building,” which Haney believed did not help Woods’s game and led to injuries. He says Woods injured his right Achilles’ tendon doing Olympic-style lifts, not while running during testing for new Nike shoes, as he publicly stated.
The book does not shy away from the scandal that shook Woods’s career. That scandal and its aftermath make up the bulk of one of the book’s eight chapters. And the book has a number of observations about Woods’s marriage to Elin Nordegren.
Haney writes: “Tiger really liked her competitive streak and seemed to enjoy treating her like one of the guys, needling her and even telling raunchy jokes around here, which Elin didn’t seem to mind. “But as life became more complicated, I thought Elin changed. By the time she and Tiger married, she remained friendly but had become more guarded, even in her own home.
“She and Tiger developed a calm, almost cool relationship in front of other people, and conversations with them tended to be awkward and strained. I never saw them argue, but they weren’t openly affectionate either.”
After Woods won the 2005 Buick Invitational, his first stroke-play victory in nearly 16 months and his first with Haney as his coach, Nordegren wanted to celebrate. She pointed out when she was a nanny for Jesper Parnevik, his family would hold a party whenever Parnevik won. Woods responded: “E, that’s not what we do. I’m not Jesper. We’re supposed to win.”
Haney writes that Nordegen was taken aback and her smile got smaller. He noticed “in the future Elin would keep her emotions under wraps whenever Tiger won.”
Haney writes that the most revealing thing Woods ever said to him came during this time, as he was preparing to come back to golf. “I learned one thing for sure,” Woods said. “When I play golf again, I’m going to play for myself. I’m not going to play for my dad, or my mom or Mark Steinberg or Steve Williams or Nike or my foundation, or for the fans. Only for myself.”
Haney quit via text message in May 2010, and the book includes the entire exchange with Woods, revealing a respectful yet acrimonious departure but also Woods’s stubbornness as he insists the two were “still going to work together.”
Haney admits there is some bad blood after he made the first public acknowledgment of Woods’s sex-addiction therapy in an interview with Jim Gray for the Golf Channel. Woods has criticised the book, calling it self-serving and unprofessional. But the book ends after 247 pages, with Haney wishing Woods well. Woods is the fifth person thanked in the book’s acknowledgments, “for an incredibly rewarding six years.” New York Times
