carsb
Beat up Radials
Posts: 36
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Post by carsb on Mar 30, 2012 1:24:35 GMT -5
I've just gotten through Hank Haney's The Big Miss and I thought I'd share my views on it.
As sport books go, it was an extremely compelling read. The prose is concise and efficient for the most part. It isn't exceptionally well-written, but Hank offers enough details and insight to ensure it is a page-turner.
What is most striking for me is that Hank comes across as incredibly insecure, condescending and judgmental. He goes to great effort to justify his work with Tiger, and takes an excusatory stance when recalling shortcomings and failures. This was consistent throughout the book and was a source of frustration for me. He even goes as far as to suggest he played a critical role in Tiger's dominant 2000 season. What he fails to do is question the shortcomings of the method he was trying to impose on Tiger. When Hank tries to explain the finer details of his swing theory and his solutions for Tiger's misses, his explanations and methods left me confused and consistently thinking there were surely better ways to combat Tiger's big misses.
I've read some people suggesting that this work would become an important historical document about the true nature of Tiger Woods. While I have no doubt there is truth to Hank's depiction of Tiger (socially awkward golfing genius), the book is a little too self-serving for me to take it as gospel and the way in which Hank seems to overanalyse conversations and criticisms is at times laughable (popsicle anyone?).
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Post by cloran on Mar 30, 2012 6:30:44 GMT -5
carsb... you friggin' nailed it. That is EXACTLY how the book reads... nice job my man!
The over analyzation of each and every contact he had with Tiger is insane... he's a very insecure, scared man.
Popsiclegate is a perfect example. He says he asked for the popsicle and quotes Tiger as saying (paraphrasing) "Yeah...go grab one..." HH says he slept in Tiger's house for 30+ days/year, and based on the quoted response from Tiger, I get the impression that Tiger gave him free reign to help him self/relax/be a guest. If someone was staying at my house a few days/month you'd better believe I'm not going to wait on them. You want it... go get it. Don't ask for it... just help yourself.
After reading about 1/2 the book I sat down to watch an episode of the Haney Project. I could FEEL his insecurities. The way he looks at the ground a lot, doesn't interact much, smiles and laughs uncomfortably.
About the swing: hank admits that he doesn't know what makes his theory tick... he just wants people to swing "on plane" or parallel to that plane throughout the swing. That's it.
He really seems like a guy that stepped in shit a few times and is almost embarrased by the success he's had.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 30, 2012 7:08:07 GMT -5
Great reviews.
3JACK
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carsb
Beat up Radials
Posts: 36
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Post by carsb on Mar 30, 2012 8:45:42 GMT -5
carsb... you friggin' nailed it. That is EXACTLY how the book reads... nice job my man! The over analyzation of each and every contact he had with Tiger is insane... he's a very insecure, scared man. My final thoughts were - yeah Tiger is a weird guy ... but at least you can understand why he is so weird. Hank is just a weird guy end of story. I do think he helped Tiger *manage* his game and he gave him good ideas about practice. But when he discusses moving Tiger to his infamous weak palm grip it made me shudder... same when he moves Tiger towards rotating his forearms and getting laid off. It is very telling that he makes a point to say that the big miss of the tee is something Tiger will always have, and then he goes on to whine about his injuries and work ethic ... more excuse-making. It looks like Hank will always use Tiger's high winning percentage as evidence of the correctness of his theories. However I believe this is more an instance of correlation rather than causation... I think Tiger's tee-game went to sh*t under Hank, but that he improved other parts of his game that aren't necessarily measurable. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a *great* book, but it is more interesting as a study of Hank rather than as a study of Tiger. I would imagine Tiger's version of some of these events would be along the lines of "Gee, Hank sent me this totally emo email the other day... and he wonders why I'm so awkward with him all the time."
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 30, 2012 9:12:34 GMT -5
What's funny is that to this day Butch Harmon says that Tiger has the greatest work ethic of any player he has coached. Yet, with Haney he's complaining about the work ethic? Go figure.
From a metrics standpoint, it's hard to get all of the information on Tiger since some of the metrics didn't go back to Tiger's glory days. Still, you can piece some of the metrics together and get the idea of the differences between Butch-Tiger and Haney-Tiger. What I have so far is:
Advanced Total Driving: Butch, by a long shot.
Putting: Haney. Tiger had some really good bouts with putting under Butch, but he was more inconsistent than anything under Butch. Under Haney his putting was unbelievable.
Short Game: Haney.
Birdie Zone: Haney
Safe Zone: Butch
Danger Zone: Haney. Under Butch, Tiger was elite, under Haney he was historically great...perhaps the greatest of all time at one point.
Fairway Wood/2-iron: Butch
Now, it seems like that would favor Haney. But, it really doesn't if you delve into the numbers.
Tiger went from 'elite' in the Danger Zone under Butch (top-10 player) to having some historically great years in the Danger Zone. There was noticeable improvement under Haney, but he was already one of the very best on Tour under Butch.
His Birdie Zone play went from very good under Butch to better.
But, the dropoff in driving, IMO, puts it in Butch's favor. And I believe if Tiger's putting had not been off the charts, he would have been screwed. Also, the intimidation factor was at full throttle under Haney. How many times did we see guys collapse under pressure against Tiger?
If anything, I think Haney helped Tiger with his iron play and not much else. He became a world-class putter on his own and his Birdie Zone and Short Game play improved because he was hitting his prime.
Also, we don't have most of the metrics for the historically awesome 2000 season, which Tiger never came close to replicating under Haney
3JACK
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carsb
Beat up Radials
Posts: 36
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Post by carsb on Mar 30, 2012 9:33:13 GMT -5
Agree 100% about the dropoff in driving being the most damning observation. The true test was trying to figure out Tiger's driving game, and his answers were perplexing at best.
And to clarify, Hank's complaints about Tiger's work ethic, referred to a steady decline of hours and energy he put into practice during the later years of the relationship. It is a fair complaint I guess ... I just question it in a context where it seems he is doing his utmost to convince you of how successful he was as his coach.
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Post by cloran on Mar 30, 2012 10:11:00 GMT -5
Based on the success TW had under hank ... and considering how dysfunctional their relationship was... I am now convinced that TW will have a huge comeback with Sean.
HH was so insecure I don't know how they accomplished anything together. The book really is a look into the psychology of hank, not a tell-all on TW.
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Post by iacas on Mar 30, 2012 10:24:39 GMT -5
And to clarify, Hank's complaints about Tiger's work ethic, referred to a steady decline of hours and energy he put into practice during the later years of the relationship. It is a fair complaint I guess ... I just question it in a context where it seems he is doing his utmost to convince you of how successful he was as his coach. The more time Tiger spent practicing his driving the worse he got under Hank. Maybe practicing less was a good thing and even Tiger knew it! P.S. Tiger started with Hank as single or at least childless. As much as we know Tiger was a douche in his personal life, I've heard he was a doting, caring father (obvious "cheating on their mother" stuff aside). I don't particularly care - just saying that having two kids will leave a guy who CARES about his kids with less time to practice than a childless guy.
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Post by gmbtempe on Mar 30, 2012 10:54:04 GMT -5
And to clarify, Hank's complaints about Tiger's work ethic, referred to a steady decline of hours and energy he put into practice during the later years of the relationship. It is a fair complaint I guess ... I just question it in a context where it seems he is doing his utmost to convince you of how successful he was as his coach. The more time Tiger spent practicing his driving the worse he got under Hank. Maybe practicing less was a good thing and even Tiger knew it! P.S. Tiger started with Hank as single or at least childless. As much as we know Tiger was a douche in his personal life, I've heard he was a doting, caring father (obvious "cheating on their mother" stuff aside). I don't particularly care - just saying that having two kids will leave a guy who CARES about his kids with less time to practice than a childless guy. Watching Haney's show its obvious he lacks certain technical skills that I see in many teachers I read. I guess you could still be an effective teacher its just harder for me to think you are elite.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 30, 2012 11:37:17 GMT -5
P.S. Tiger started with Hank as single or at least childless. As much as we know Tiger was a douche in his personal life, I've heard he was a doting, caring father (obvious "cheating on their mother" stuff aside). I don't particularly care - just saying that having two kids will leave a guy who CARES about his kids with less time to practice than a childless guy. That's really a great point, Erik. 3JACK
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Post by mchepp on Mar 30, 2012 13:35:44 GMT -5
To start I completely agree with carbs. This is more a view into Hank's psyche rather than Tigers. Hank does have some confidence issues and is probably why he wrote the book. He likely felt people did not know his side of the story, and by writing this now everyone knows his side. Plus he got a nice payday.
To Tiger's driving, Hank points out that during the time they worked together Tiger switched from the 43.5in steel shafted driver to a 45" graphite shafted driver and that his distance improved. Yes, his accuracy got worse, but Hank argued that everyone on the PGA Tour got worse as well. We would have to look into the stats to verify this.
As to the work ethic, I think Hank was attempting to talk more about Tiger's focus than his time. He stated before he would not take phone calls and that towards the end of the time he was taking numerous calls and texts, maybe that was family, true, but we know now that it was certainly more than that. Hank has worked with golfers who have families, Mark O'Meara is a perfect example so he knows that family can put demands on your time, but I don't think he was saying that family was taking too much of his time.
He also felt Tiger was too into the weightlifting and not focused on practicing golf. Really that is only an opinion, but he did back it up with saying that Steve Williams, Tiger's trainer, and his knee doctor all told him the exact same thing.
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Post by Richie3Jack on Mar 30, 2012 13:52:51 GMT -5
To Tiger's driving, Hank points out that during the time they worked together Tiger switched from the 43.5in steel shafted driver to a 45" graphite shafted driver and that his distance improved. Yes, his accuracy got worse, but Hank argued that everyone on the PGA Tour got worse as well. We would have to look into the stats to verify this. It's already been done. Essentially, just about everybody's distance improved and fairways hit got worse. So, they got that correct. However, Tiger's distance didn't not improve as much as the Tour average in distance improvement. And his % of fairways hit went down FAR more than the Tour's average decline in % of fairway hit. It's really denial and an excuse. Tiger's driving got far worse under Hank. And now it's already far better. 3JACK
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Post by gmbtempe on Mar 30, 2012 13:59:43 GMT -5
To Tiger's driving, Hank points out that during the time they worked together Tiger switched from the 43.5in steel shafted driver to a 45" graphite shafted driver and that his distance improved. Yes, his accuracy got worse, but Hank argued that everyone on the PGA Tour got worse as well. We would have to look into the stats to verify this. It's really denial and an excuse. Tiger's driving got far worse under Hank. And now it's already far better. 3JACK Yea his theory gets blown up by this years stats.
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Post by woodbury on Mar 30, 2012 14:37:23 GMT -5
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Post by gmbtempe on Mar 30, 2012 14:53:46 GMT -5
Interesting exchange, got to credit Haney for taking the heat because most would have hung up.
I will read the book and not let the media tell me what I should be thinking and then commenting (ie this whole deal down in Florida.
Do I think he broke a certain code of how I do things? Yes Should Tiger be surprised that people around him write a book? No Did Tiger bring ALL of this on himself? Yes
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