A Look Into the Poll Question: Tiger Woods

The next participant in the poll question 'If You Could Hit It Like One Historic Golfer In Their Prime With Modern Equipment, Who Would It Be?' is Tiger Woods.

Tiger's ballstriking has been a very debatable issue over the years as he once was easily the greatest ballstriker on earth and now has slipped a bit, most notably due to his inaccuracy off the tee with the driver. But to add fuel to the controversy, Tiger used to be an excellent driver of the golf ball. Take a look at his 'Total Driving' rankings over the years:

1997....................9th
1998...................14th
1999...................1st
2000.................1st
2001.................39th
2002.................11th
2003.................45th
2004.................87th
2005.................83rd
2006.................28th
2007.................45th

As I posted before in my statistical analysis of Woods' game, he's become more of a bomb n gouge type of player, but his bombing has not improved nearly to the level the rest of the tour's bombing has improved. However, he's become a much, much better 'gouger.'

Tiger has gone through at least 3 different swing changes in his career, going from his high school swing to a Butch Harmon style swing to a Hank Haney influenced golf swing. I actually believe that his 'swing overhauls' have actually hurt the game of golf because the rest of the golfing public tends to think they need a 'swing overhaul' themselves when they really need to develop one good swing that is repeatable first, then if they want to take their game to the next level consider a 'swing overhaul.'

Tiger's shining moment as a ballstriker came in the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach where he demolished the field and showed a precision, accuracy and power in ballstriking that the game probably has never seen before.



Currently, Tiger's problems with driving accuracy seem to mostly stem from a 'laid off' move at the top that Tiger appears to want to correct, but cannot correct it on a consistent basis. Despite fighting his swing in the Masters, he still finished tied for 6th. If he can regain his old ballstriking form, he will likely be untouchable.




3JACK