Seriously, how can Tiger drive it so poorly?

[iacas]

One thing people tend to forget about tiger is that hes arrogant, he does not want to be 30 yards behing other players, butch and him argued about that subject endlessly, hes swinging at 120-130 whilst losing his height on the downswing at that speed, if he wasnt so insanely talented he,d probably whiff a few lol

Said it before and will say it again - his head dropping means nothing. It's seventh on a list of five things he needs to fix, and the last one or two of those are really optional.

I'm going to go out on a limb here (not really) and guess that you can't tell us WHY his head dropping is bad. It's just something you've heard and it sounded good so you've latched on to it. LOTS of good players dropped their heads. I looked briefly but I remember seeing a video in which the person who made the video showed that Brandel Chamblee AND Johnny Miller both dropped their heads significantly. It's a power move, to squat. Sam Snead did it, too, rather famously.

[golfro]

Said it before and will say it again - his head dropping means nothing. It's seventh on a list of five things he needs to fix, and the last one or two of those are really optional.

I'll echo this and say Padraig Harrington stated that he ASPIRES to compress down the way Tiger Woods does on his downswing.

[BonoVox]

Just watching golf it seems a lot more players are hitting those real bad drives. But I think a big part of it is they hit the balls so far. Dustin or Buba for example. Putting them out there 370 yards. All you have to is be off is a degree or two and at that distance it could put you 20 or 30 yards right or left of someone who is "bombing" it 290.

The fairways don't get wider the farther you hit it.

[iacas]

I looked briefly but I remember seeing a video in which the person who made the video showed that Brandel Chamblee AND Johnny Miller both dropped their heads significantly. It's a power move, to squat. Sam Snead did it, too, rather famously.

[bigoak]

I don't care for his newer swing plane. He gets caught with the club behind his body. I wouldn't worry about the head dropping unless it fell off. Bubba has a plane which is the opposite. Somewhere between the two would return Woods to the old swing plane when he made his mark. needs to be Harmonized and not Hanitized.

[TN94z]

Just watching golf it seems a lot more players are hitting those real bad drives. But I think a big part of it is they hit the balls so far. Dustin or Buba for example. Putting them out there 370 yards. All you have to is be off is a degree or two and at that distance it could put you 20 or 30 yards right or left of someone who is "bombing" it 290.

Agreed. Not to mention the clubhead speed they have. If they make a slight mishit, it is exponentially worse than ours because of the swing speeds. They will take the risk reward many times because they have 100% confidence in their short games where the 10 handicap probably does not. If tiger "wanted" to hit it 270 in the fairway, he will just pop a 3 wood out there.

[Tiger Spuds]

Foley also has views on Woods' much criticized lowering of the upper body into the ball. "Hogan's head probably dropped more than Tiger's," said Foley, "but Tiger has been dropping his head away from the target as well. That's a death move that changes the path of the club and requires compensation with the hands. If you're hitting balls with your hands, you're in trouble. Even the best players can only do that successfully two days out of four."

[iacas]

Foley also has views on Woods' much criticized lowering of the upper body into the ball.

I agree with that. Tiger's going to have to maintain the flex in his left knee longer and push the hips forward more to get the secondary axis tilt in properly instead of "faking it."

[whatwhatwhat]

Said it before and will say it again - his head dropping means nothing. It's seventh on a list of five things he needs to fix, and the last one or two of those are really optional.

Thats exactly what Im saying its a power move, dropping his head a foot forces him to re-route his downswing plane, which in turn makes it incredibly difficult to keep the ball straight and the club on the correct plane......simple analogy 1997-2002 no squat=good driver, 2003-2010 squat=sucks, 2010(sean foley) no squat=big improvement, find a pattern in that statement. He drops his head away from the target as well as towards the ground, this is a no no, many players drop they,re head (mcilroy) but keep centered, tiger fails to do this and therefore cant drive the ball straight to save his life, so yes I know what Im talking about so dont insult me with throw away comments, what about all the gym work in place of normal practice? I guess you didnt want to comment on that did you? Yeah you went out on a limb.....and lost it

[CPT]

You can't just dial back the tempo you have in your golf swing.

I remembered I heard Tiger said during some interview that he rarely hit his shot more than 80% of his total force. Looking at how he swings his driver, I'm not so sure about that. He loves going after it quite hard, and this is his style since he was very young.

On the other hand, I don't think Ernie Els will swing it the way Tiger does when he would like some extra yards. It's all about the tempo, which is really each his own.

[iacas]

dropping his head a foot forces him to re-route his downswing plane

Not tremendously, no. He has to re-route the downswing plane because he's above it going back and tries to drop it under coming down. Again, head drop is roughly #7 on a list of five or so things to fix.

simple analogy 1997-2002 no squat=good driver, 2003-2010 squat=sucks, 2010(sean foley) no squat=big improvement,

First, that's not an analogy. Second, Tiger squatted in 2000. Plenty of video evidence to back that up.

The gym comment wasn't worthy of a response. "Less time in the gym, more time getting the ball in play" won't help. Tiger doesn't know how to get the ball in play right now. He hasn't for years. He hits more balls in the right rough than anyone since 2003. By a good sized margin. Foley will help him, if only because Foley knew a lot before and now knows a good amount now. You're an S&T basher (without demonstrating any sufficient knowledge of the mechanics involved), but Foley's going to layer in some pieces that are pretty basic in S&T instruction, and Tiger will get better.

I remembered I heard Tiger said during some interview that he rarely hit his shot more than 80% of his total force. Looking at how he swings his driver, I'm not so sure about that. He loves going after it quite hard, and this is his style since he was very young.

I think some if it's how "balanced" you look and how "aggressive" it looks. If Ernie were to start snapping his left knee like Tiger still does instead of maintaining the flex a bit longer, and if Tiger can fix the high right shoulder (evidence of him trying to save the shot), his swing will look a lot smoother. Tiger's swing speed doesn't change a whole lot - it's his mechanics that make him look like he's giving it a lot of effort when it's just that things aren't really in a great sequence.

And no, that's not for every swing, but a good many of them just "look" like he's giving it more because he's throwing in six compensations... IMO.

[RC]

Tiger cared about length. I know he used to be fixated about his length, it was an important matter to him to be one of the longest, and maybe at one time the longest of his peers. He wanted to be "relatively" longer than Nicklaus (on a comparative basis) and even asked if he was. A friend told him he wasn't. His swing has changed, he does not have the same leverage and sequencing he once had.

Now I will speculate (because I do not consider the above speculation) -- he still tries to blast it out there and is simply not is the right position to do it as he once did, so he deploys some upper body compensations trying to swing harder. This approach has not been particularly effective for him or others who try to get distance by trying to time compensating moves to gain length. He's trapped, he is not in a position where the power can be turned on efficiently. That is my opinion. There is a thought about all this... yes, the modern golf swing is a rotary motion, but it still has a huge linear component in the core body muscles. I used to watch Tiger closely and he moved his core forward through the shot as quickly and powerfully as anyone I had ever seen. What most saw was a lighteningly quick upwinding of the hips, and not the attendant shift left while the club stayed in position to come into the shot without corrections, flips, or saving moves. It was awesome to watch. He moved through the shot, his head dipped, and never did it look contrived -- it looked efficient and like a 100 percent transfer of power into the ball. Those wild pushes and funny looking come overs were extremely rare, where now they seem to happen far too often. His old dropping head did not fall back, it stayed behind the ball at impact and then rose into the follow-though moving forward into a picture of balance.

[iacas]

Yeah, RC, that's part of the "left knee staying flexed longer so he can push forward more" part. We can take that offline if you want, but I agree that most people saw the hips unwinding and forgot to notice how far forward they'd gotten. He's faking the secondary axis tilt right now and spinning more than sliding. Part of that's set up by his takeaway, and part of that is just his improper feeling for how to deliver the clubhead.

[senorchipotle]

One thing people tend to forget about tiger is that hes arrogant, he does not want to be 30 yards behing other players, butch and him argued about that subject endlessly, hes swinging at 120-130 whilst losing his height on the downswing at that speed, if he wasnt so insanely talented he,d probably whiff a few lol

how does wanting to hit is past your playing partner make one arrogant? hell, that's the reason why most guys buy new drivers, cause someone in their group got a shiny new one that's supposed to give them more distance off the tee. so they get one as well. it's just competition. by your logic, wanting to put an approach closer than your playing partners is arrogant as well.

[InTheFairway]

PGA Golf is dominated by the long hitters, so if a player wants to be in the top 5 they have to be a long hitter and cant afford to lose much distance.
Tigers driving came up in an interview with hank haney...Hanks comments were along the lines that Tiger is placed at a different standard than the rest of the field. Last year 2009, when he won 7 times, he finished 9th in total driving. But yet a lot was made about his driver problems. And even in this years masters, he hit more fairways than mickelson who won. So it seems people have a higher standard for Tiger and pay attention to his misses than his good drives.

[ghalfaire]

PGA Golf is dominated by the long hitters, so if a player wants to be in the top 5 they have to be a long hitter and cant afford to lose much distance.

Tiger's average driving distance for 2009 was just a hair under 300 yard and he was T21 in driving distance. He isn't listed in 2010, probably has not played enough. But the tour average is 286.9 yards (per the PGATOUR web site) and that includes drives not in the fairway. As to who dominates the tour only two of the top ten in driving distance appear in the top ten in scoring average. I believe Tiger himself said in a press interview at one time that hitting fairways was not that important if you carried the drive far enough. I suppose that is true if you keep it in play. I would suspect that GIR is a more important statistic.

[sean_miller]

I believe Tiger himself said in a press interview at one time that hitting fairways was not that important if you carried the drive far enough.

Was this before the groove rule change?

I read that Tiger liked to outdrive his opponent and to specifically hit the right side of the fairway so he could go up and wait at his ball while being in his opponent's peripheral vision. A gamesmanship tactic.

[JWL1957]

I am no swing coach, but I think Tiger always had some minor fundamental flaws. I think he was gifted with the athleticism to swing through those flaws for many years, and he had that undeniable determination to beat everyone silly. The guy has the mentality of assassin on the golf course. I have never seen anyone like him, not even Jack.