Which Tiger will return? By Andrew McHardy
There was recently some breaking news regarding the long-awaited return of Tiger Woods’s comeback to competitive golf. I hear many comments flying back and forth about the look of his new swing. Some saying he is done and won’t ever return to his best form, others saying his new swing looks great!
Unfortunately, I must agree with the former. I have been a huge fan of Tiger for many years and I hope I turn out to be wrong for the sake of our sport. Many people watch golf because of Tiger, whether that is because they want him to win or fail but the point is they watch.
From what I have seen lately his swing looks even more exaggerated than it was in 2014. When I say exaggerated I mean it looks like he is protecting his back from further damage.
In my opinion the biggest difference in his new swing is the lack of hip rotation through impact. In the golf swing, when the hips start to unwind on the way through the left leg straightens as a result. The more the hips rotate the more passive the hands become causing the clubface to become more controlled when striking the golf ball. If the hips do not turn as much as we can see in the picture on the right, the hands and arms become very active allowing the clubface to hit the ball further off line. The biggest sign of this is the gap between his legs. This has also led to his right foot starting to lift off the ground sooner as the body starts to rotate. This is an incredibly difficult thing to do unless the golfer is very flexible and incredibly strong. This is a huge reason why the top golfers today manage to swing the golf club so fast but manage to keep the golf ball in play so much of the time. What worries me the most about Tiger is that with the lack of body rotation compared to his old school swing will likely cause him to lose a lot of distance. When or if he comes to teeing it up alongside the likes of Dustin Johnson and Rory McIlroy will he settle with being 30, 40, 50+ yards behind off the tee. The old Tiger would have known he has the best short game in the business to make up for it, but will that still be the case. Jordon Spieth on the other hand knows with his short game he can more than make up for his lack of distance. One thing is for sure, I cannot wait until he is back playing again amongst the words elite and I will be more than happy to say I was wrong.
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