Tiger Woods Book – Due Out As Tiger Gets Back To Form

The irony of life never ceases to amaze me. Tiger Woods seems to be coming into form at just the right time – the latest Tiger Woods book by Hank Haney is due out next week which is one week before the 2012 US Masters.

So for Tiger heading into the Masters his run in seems to be perfectly timed. As I write Tiger has just completed the second round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational and is leading by one shot going into the weekend.

The Big Miss – or as I like to call it “The Tiger Woods Book” is gaining a lot of interest and media exposure. Tiger’s return to form can only help with promoting it. Thinking about if though even if Tiger was playing really badly that too would help sales.

It seems Hank Haney is on to a winner either way.

As a player and a golf coach I am interested in what Haney has to say about golf and from the few excerpts I have read so far I think he has a great way of expressing certain coaching elements.

One I particularly liked was where he referred to the process a professional goes through when making changes. He says that these changes become comfortable:

1. On the player’s home practice range.
2. Then in practice rounds on one’s home course.
3. Then on the practice range at tournaments
4. Only then will a player feel comfortable enough to implement a change in a tournament.
5. The final step is feeling comfortable enough to use these swing changes in Majors.

Is it any wonder then that these professionals only expect to show any meaningful improvements after a year?

The point is the more we read between the lines of Hank Haney’s new Tiger Woods book the more we can learn about our own game. If it takes professionals that long to make changes how can we as weekend golfers expect to improve after one lesson without practicing?

It just isn’t feasible. Nor does it make sense that buying a new putter or driver will automatically make us better putters or drivers of the ball! We might feel better for a while but bad habits will soon surface.

Sadly it would seem some parts of the Tiger Woods book covers his personal life and I only hope that these are relevant to the relationship between player and coach. Hopefully we will learn more about the man Tiger and what motivates him to such great heights. I am not interested in the sordid details of his affairs – though I suspect that there will be those who are.

I must admit that I did read about how he allegedly told Elin not to show emotion when he won tournaments and thought that a bit strange. Having read that I found myself silently berating Tiger during this mornings round because he doesn’t seem to be enjoying himself. To me he is playing golf with what looks like a mind set on revenge!

Please smile Mr Woods.

He seems filled with anger. I hope not, as that will not win him friends and I think he needs some of those right now. Maybe Hank Haney will turn out to be one of them when his book is finally released.

Here’s to both the 2012 US Masters and the latest Tiger Woods book making 2012 a year to remember. May golf and golfers worldwide be the real winners from both events!