2020-05-01_Golf_Digest

issue 4. 2020 | golf digest 73

christian iooss (2)

PROLOGUE:

THE LONG WAY BACK

AFTER SURGERY

curtis strange (on Woods’

spinal-fusion surgery in 2017):

The consensus after that was

that Tiger would never win

another major. But you never

say never.

rocco mediate (who also has

a history of back problems):

If he had come back with

the same golf swing he had

before the injuries, you never

would have heard of him

again. But I was watching his

tournament in the Bahamas,

and I watched one swing, and

I went, Oh, somebody figured it

out. The club isn’t behind him.

He’s not up and down as much.

All of a sudden, now the back

will hold.

peter kostis: His swing now

is constructed to take pressure

off his back. He used to control

the club with his hands and

arms; his body followed that

swinging motion. Somewhere

around the end of Hank Haney

[as Woods’ teacher] and the

beginning of Sean Foley,

Tiger started to “body” his

swing. He got more physical.

He generated his arm swing

through his body motion,

rather than the other way

around. And that’s when he

lost his way. That’s when he hit

a lot of foul balls. Since the

last surgery, he has gone back

to swinging his arms again.

He lets his body accommodate

itself to his arm swing. In that

way, he was swinging in 2019

the way he swung in 1997,

albeit with a different body

and effort level.

frank nobilo (CBS): Once the

surgery took, he didn’t take

as many risks. Go back to the

[2018] Open Championship

at Carnoustie. Oddly enough,

none of us really agreed with

his strategy—it appeared

too conservative. He was

more than a decade removed

from winning a major

championship. The other guys

had watched, and they were a

decade better, and they’re all

playing aggressively. He just

kept plugging away. So I think

what he got out of Carnoustie

was the fact that that type of

golf, as proven in the Nicklaus

era, would still work in the

heat of the moment.

thomas bjorn: I thought the

first 27 holes he played on the

weekend at Carnoustie were

the most telling indications

keeping an eye on the leaders

▶ A forecast for rainy weather on

Sunday prompted a change from two

to three players in the final pairing.