Tigers amateur/rookie swing

[GrahamD]

This video is from 1996 I believe playing college golf, I'm amazed how much better tigers swing is here looks liken there is no hand action through the ball which he has alot of now and he keeps his height much better, and the swing is shorter, why the hell did he change it in the first place

[Zeph]

Where do you see a shorter swing?

His head dips there too, perhaps not as much as today, but that is not why he's struggling anyways. His old swing was wilder, the current one is more controlled.

How you see hand action on that blurry video is beyond me.

[golfro]

i like his follow through but man, his backswing is super high. Maybe thats where you think his swing is shorter but just look at how much shoulder turn and his steep his right arm comes up. Thats a super long backswing.

[GrahamD]

Where do you see a shorter swing?

It just looks as if he gets through the ball alot better in this swing compared to now, and his current swing he has almost no control over, I bet he was better with this swing, remmeber when he won the 97 masters?

If you pause at the top you will see the club is a good few degress short of parallel, and his head barly dips at all, way less than today

[SpringBokVol]

That is a really good swing. I mean, it is really sound.

[Zeph]

His old swing relied on timing the hands perfectly. His current swing is better, at least once he gets the fixes Sean is having him work on in order.

His head maybe dips 1 inch less on that swing than a recent one.

I can find lots of swings where he's not even close to parallel with the club on the backswing, current swings.

[JWL1957]

Middle 30's muscles will not let him swing the way he used to. He's not as loose/fluid as he used to be. Tiger is going to be swing hunting for a long time if he thinks that he can still pull it off the same way he did even 3-4 years ago.

Good luck.......... but entering middle age kinda sux.

[motteler621]

His old swing relied on timing the hands perfectly. His current swing is better, at least once he gets the fixes Sean is having him work on in order.

Im not sure about this swing and being parallel but for S&T; you dont go to parallel. You do have a full shoulder and hip turn though, right?

[GrahamD]

Middle 30's muscles will not let him swing the way he used to. He's not as loose/fluid as he used to be. Tiger is going to be swing hunting for a long time if he thinks that he can still pull it off the same way he did even 3-4 years ago.

I don't think it's to do with his age, more to do with all that muscle he packed on his upper boy, which actually makes the hips a little slower, tiger swings with his upper body nowadays but in his younger days it was mostly lower body fire power, I prefered his old swing, looked much more naturally powerfull

[JWL1957]

I don't think it's to do with his age, more to do with all that muscle he packed on his upper boy, which actually makes the hips a little slower, tiger swings with his upper body nowadays but in his younger days it was mostly lower body fire power, I prefered his old swing, looked much more naturally powerfull

I tend to agree with you, but he does look too rigid in his swing.

[sean_miller]

This video is from 1996 I believe playing college golf, I'm amazed how much better tigers swing is here looks liken there is no hand action through the ball which he has alot of now and he keeps his height much better, and the swing is shorter, why the hell did he change it in the first place

That is a very youthful swing - wish I had some video for a comparison of my swing today and my swing from from 14 years ago - I bet it was glorious(lol!).

[jamo]

That old swing probably actually has more wrist movement.

[RC]

Don't forget... he had been working with Harmon for 3 years and this is a very refined swing -- one I like a lot better than his Haney era swing. It was a swing where he could unload and not worry about where the ball was going because all the movement people are talking about was movement that followed naturally from his core body power. Forget the wrists, forget the backswing, forget timing... when Tiger would unwind, all those things had to go the way they went as a natural response to the motion of his core. He did not have to think about a thing. This is the swing he believed he could use to hit miracle shots. It might not have been perfect in some eyes, but it was something he trusted. In 1997, he tightened up a few parts of this swing, and refined his hold off shots becoming totally confident in them, and when the Master's rolled around, he was almost flawless in execution with his swing. You could see it in his eyes... he knew he could hit a particular shot. For the technically minded, just look at his right arm extension through the shot. If you can get to that position, you have a great swing.

[laconic517]

Tiger back then was well across the line. Some people can play like that (Tim Clark) but not everyone.

Also remember Tiger had big issues with distance control back then.

[InTheFairway]

The modern Tiger is more controlled and not as long as the young tiger. In the young tiger you can see the incredible torque he had as he winded up during his swing but he ended up "spinning out" of shots a lot of times. As he progresses during his career he is going for accuracy, and less for distance which i don't think will ever be a problem for him. If he is in the fairway more than not he doesn't have to go for those miracle shot as much.

[RC]

I would disagree with the idea that the modern Tiger (at least up until now) is more controlled. He pushes and flips more shots than previously. I see more spinning now than when he was more linear.

[GrahamD]

I would disagree with the idea that the modern Tiger (at least up until now) is more controlled. He pushes and flips more shots than previously. I see more spinning now than when he was more linear.

Exactly, Tiger has almost no control over his current swing, he has to resort to hitting hold off fade shots and not hitting driver to be able to compete

[iacas]

I would disagree with the idea that the modern Tiger (at least up until now) is more controlled. He pushes and flips more shots than previously. I see more spinning now than when he was more linear.

Agreed. Hidden in his impressively fast hips was how far FORWARD the hips got in his earlier days. Sure, they spun like crazy, but they got forward more. Tiger still spins them like crazy (maybe 80 to 90%), but he's lost a good bit more of the forward.

I keep saying the three things I'd fix with Tiger would be hand path, shoulder pitch, and keeping his left knee flexed a bit longer so he can go forward more. Hand path first, but the other two in no particular order.