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Butch on Tiger: “I have no idea what biomechanics is…”

Published

9 years ago

Feb 23, 2015

In an interview with Golf World’s Tim Rosaforte, Butch Harmon said he’d be “more than happy” to spend a couple hours with Tiger Woods if he called asking for help with his game.

No one’s holding their breath on that one. As Harmon said, Tiger’s pride won’t let him make the call, even though the conversation may lead to a solution.

Also in the the interview, and what may provide more insight into the state of Tiger’s game, was the last quote in Rosaforte’s interview.

“I have no idea what biomechanics is,” Harmon Said. “And I’m being serious.”

That’s interesting. Tiger’s path toward golfing perfection led him to now ex-golf coach, Sean Foley, and his current swing advisor, Chris Como, who are both experts in the field of biomechanics.

Under Harmon, one of the most respected coaches in golf, Tiger won eight major championships. Yet Harmon has no idea what biomechanics is? That’s quite the juxtaposition, even if Butch wasn’t being 100 percent serious.

Woods’ game nowadays, under the watchful eyes of biomechanics experts, is plagued by tournament-ending injuries and problems with his short game. And he hasn’t won a major since 2008, before he changed his swing to be more biomechanically correct with Foley.

The Tiger of today talks about his body being “explosive” and “deactivation” of his “kinetic chain.” Maybe we’d see more of him on the PGA Tour if retraced his steps and explored the path he traveled before he became so obsessed with moving perfectly?

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38 Comments

JW

Aug 12, 2015 at 2:19 pm

Tiger has bio-mechanics help you win? NO
Tiger you should be coaching the genius who created bio-mechanics.
OK Tiger’s you tell me bio-mechanics and nothing or Butch, Haney and a return to glory; your call Tiger’s.

Reply Report comment
Andy

Jul 8, 2015 at 2:14 pm

2 words: JIMMY BALLARD

Reply Report comment
dcorun

Mar 6, 2015 at 1:05 pm

If your back hurts, your whole body hurts. You start to walk different which can cause your hips to start acting up, and your knees and feet also. He needs to rest and then get back to the basics that made him one of the greatest. Playing by feel not biomechanics. Point A to Point B to and so on. Segment golf not free swinging golf. Tiger needs to read how Ernest Jones taught, who is one the most underrated teachers ever. Look him up or Manuel de la Torres who teaches his style. Reading their books and practicing what they taught took 10 strokes off my game and that’s no BS. The game is getting way too technical. Learn the basics and then just swing the club. Ernest would have loved Bubba Watson. Think target and swing club head at it. Read the Little Red Book while your at it also.

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laurie james

Feb 26, 2015 at 12:17 am

In Hank Haney”s book, “The Big Miss”, Hank talks about Tiger and his military weight training and his sudden gain in weight and bulk. This Hank believes caused the body to beak down , as he is lightly framed.

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- Pat M
  
  Jun 9, 2015 at 8:52 am
  
  Yeah the military training idea was really stupid. Bad for the knees and other parts of the body.
  
  Reply Report comment
dave douglas

Feb 25, 2015 at 9:24 pm

His game went down as soon as drug testing started. coincidence ? no

Reply Report comment
- Busterpar
  
  Feb 26, 2015 at 11:33 am
  
  Give me proof, troll.
  
  Reply Report comment
- Pat M
  
  Jun 9, 2015 at 8:55 am
  
  Odd how he had the fracture where he beat Rocco and then took time off. Drug testing started a week later. The falling and pained leaning on clubs was more acting.
  
  The whole Lindsey Vonn thing was either a PR concoction. Or because she is a champion who may still have a career, she felt his was over and he is kind of a loser now. Yeah he has boatload of cash but pretty much has to pay for it.
  
  Reply Report comment
talljohn777

Feb 25, 2015 at 8:03 pm

Tiger needs to go back to sleeping with every woman he sees, that was when he was at his best. It would certainly de-stress him and take his mind off of golf then he can get back to just playing golf….

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Bar

Feb 25, 2015 at 12:06 pm

I damaged two discs 35 years ago From that day to this I can only swing about 70% or I will damage myself again ( and do now and again ). When I hurt my back I was told by the doc ” once your back is damaged there will always be a weakness ” All this BS about building up your core etc to protect you back is just that, BS. How do people who have good backs and strong cores damage their backs in that case. Tiger needs to slow down his swing to the tour average and practice his short game which used to be the best except maybe for Harrington in his prime. You never know he may even hit a few fairways. If he keeps up this trying to murder the ball he will end up a cripple and no money is worth that.

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- Busterpar
  
  Feb 25, 2015 at 3:29 pm
  
  You got that right. As a back injury sufferer myself, it only gets worse and worse with time. If you have never had a back injury you have NO IDEA, I repeat, NO IDEA what Tiger is going through. I wouldn’t wish the pain we endure on a daily basis to anyone – well, maybe for a day to shut them up!
  
  Reply Report comment
Ryan K

Feb 24, 2015 at 6:34 pm

Tiger needs to take his amateur biomechanist hat off and replace it with his professional golfer’s cap. I hope he makes the move I’d love to see him back on top.

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Joe Peel

Feb 24, 2015 at 3:49 pm

Tiger is over schooled. He is too old to make a complete swing change and he no longer knows how to score. I am a Tiger fan, but fear that he may never again be a serious contender due to stuborness and injuries.

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Dave S

Feb 24, 2015 at 3:42 pm

Who am I to tell the most talented golfer of all time how he should swing? In fact, who is anyone to tell him that? Tiger should rely on ball flight as his guide. I risk sounding like an old guy when I say this (I’m only 31), but Hogan and Jack, etc. never had the benefit of having their swing analysed by computers (i.e. Trackman) during their careers and they had some of the best swings the game has ever seen. Hogan – known as probably the best ball striker of all time – judged his swing by what the ball flight looked like, bc at the end of the day, that’s what matters, right?! Look at Trevino and Palmer… two amazing ball strikers and WGHOF’ers who’s swings look biomechanically hideous. No doubt that in this day and age, some teacher/coach would have ruined both of them.

Tiger is the dude… he should just play his game.

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David

Feb 24, 2015 at 12:59 pm

A bunch of well said and educated comments here. I honestly don’t have too much to say or input. As a fan I wonder if Tiger Woods would not benefit from going back to Butch. As I fan I would like to see it as well. However, there are always two sides to every story.

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Jim

Feb 24, 2015 at 12:36 pm

Let’s not forget that one of the reasons that Tiger left Butch in the first place was that Butch was constantly selling himself as the creator of Tiger’s swing, etc. His constant self promotion led to the parting of the ways. And although I like Butch he still tends to spout off about how he could help Tiger quickly when all others have failed (at least lately). Don’t think Tiger wants all that distraction and would rather work quietly to fix his game. We’ll see what happens later this year when Tiger returns I guess.

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- Dave S
  
  Feb 24, 2015 at 3:50 pm
  
  Exactly. Butch knows very well that Tiger will never call him, so he can continue to say little things like this with impunity, making himself sound like the swing whisperer. People make livings by riding Tiger’s coattails and Butch is no different. Yes, he was a well respected coach before TW, but he’s untouchable now. Haney is still hocking self-branded training aids on Golf Channel to this day despite no longer really being a force in the pro coaching game… he11, he started his own golf ranch with that TW $$. Butch’s position now is somewhat analogous to the back-up QB on a football team who comes in at the end of of a season when the starter’s hurt and leads the team to the playoffs, only to go back to being 2nd string the next year when the starter returns from injury. Everyone’s seen him do great things, but unless the starter gets hurt or plays poorly enough, we’ll never see him do anything wrong… so the admiration will remain.
  
  Reply Report comment
Steve Wozeniak

Feb 24, 2015 at 12:29 pm

I have been writing about this for years now. Butch is a great Teacher because of his father, Claude who learned a ton from Hogan, and Hogan learned from Byrd Jack Grout was in the mix as well back then.

Look at the latest article in this blog, Trackman A poor coaches Crutch, and a good Coaches tool.
Steve Wozeniak PGA

http://www.stevewozeniak.com

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A

Feb 24, 2015 at 12:24 pm

Sports biomechanics is a loose term and is most simply “the physics of sports”. But the problem is that a number of self-proclaimed “biomechanics instructors” claim that their understanding of “physics” makes them good teachers of a golf swing. What they don’t seem to understand is human anatomy, kinesiology (“human kinetics”) and psychology (mental functions and behaviour). Just because you can correlate trackman and k-vest data, doesn’t mean you are teaching a sound swing!

At a very basic level, the body is designed to move in a way where bone doesn’t crash into other bone and squish the cartilage between the bones. The body is designed to move most efficiently around the ball and socket joints of the body (i.e. hip and shoulder sockets) – instead you’re told to steady the hips and rotate to the physical limit of your spine! That’s insane – no wonder you see back injuries and knee injuries. Moreover, there’s hyper-attention on reaching positions in the swing – that’s not how the mind works. It can’t manage minute positions in a fraction of a second and maintain focus on the target. It needs to internally figure out how to get the ball from “here to there”, and the target has to be the focus.

Take Bubba. He and his swing are the polar opposite of the players coached by the “biomechanics experts”. His mind is tuned to a shot (a destination for the ball and the path it needs to take to get there), which frees him up to be creative!! His body just does the rest – it does everything it needs to do to get out of the way of his swing (he doesn’t resist with any body parts, body parts aren’t crashing, bones are flowing efficiently around the ball socket joints, and there is no strain!!) He not only murders the ball with a lackadaisical, free-flowing, strain-free swing, he hits his targets without thought to positions – it’s why he has had such great GIR stats.

Golf is the one sport where terminology betrays reason, and the trendy term for 2012-16 is “biomechanics”. Representing the younger side of the golfer spectrum (in counter to Butch, but in agreement), “What does biomechanics (as it applies to golf) even mean?” – I have no idea.

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- NMGolfer
  
  Feb 24, 2015 at 1:29 pm
  
  The first bio-mechanics golf swing expert was long drive recorder holder Mike Austin. Mike was the first to get a college degree in kinesiology, the curriculum for which they tailored specifically for him to better understand the “bio-mechanics” of the golf swing. Mike taught a free flowing swing not unlike what Bubba has autodidactically arrived at. Mike was scorned by the PGA teaching pros who in his day. Today they still think they know better. And so those that seek advice from the game’s professionals are bounced from one gimmick (X factor etc.) to the next whilst recovering from injury in the interim. One day the golf world will come to know and appreciate all that Mike Austin had to offer this great game.
  
  Reply Report comment
  - Steve Pratt
    
    Feb 24, 2015 at 3:23 pm
    
    Speaking of Mike Austin, he was a genius 50 years before his time. Even though some of his concepts would be deemed ‘radical’ by today’s standards, latest scientific inquiry is proving them out to be highly optimal. Tiger was not terribly far off this model in his younger years.
    
    Reply Report comment
  - Barry S.
    
    Feb 25, 2015 at 12:55 am
    
    NMGolfer, unfortunately for the golf world people teaching Mike’s formula IMO don’t have a grasp of what he was actually doing through no fault of their own. Mike Austin’s teaching style was very unusual to say the least and he changed the hand action after his stoke which threw people off. He was also very protective of his intellectual property. It took me years to see it but it’s in plane sight if you know what to look for.
    
    Reply Report comment
- Roosterredneck
  
  Feb 25, 2015 at 9:07 am
  
  I agree with what you’ve said and to add , the muscle mass is something to consider . Tiger muscled and tightly wound while Bubba is long lean and loose.
  
  Reply Report comment
marty

Feb 24, 2015 at 12:10 pm

Eldrick is too old to go back to his original swing that got him to his injured state now. When will the madness stop. It is over for mr. Woods. He can play, but not win.

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cody

Feb 24, 2015 at 12:04 pm

oh jeez, nothing to see here. Move along.

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sixunder

Feb 24, 2015 at 11:19 am

Harmons record speaks for itself bar none. No one close, no one getting close, and no one ever will.

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theo

Feb 24, 2015 at 10:34 am

Tiger doesn’t ever tip his hand. He doesn’t like the public knowing what he’s up to fore than a few tweets about stuff we already knew. And the Public apology “My name is Tiger and I’m a sex addict” was enough to harden this principle he lives by. Having to tip THAT hand KILLED him.

So there is be no Butch, because when the press got wind of that it would be like tipping his hand that he was very desperate and clueless about the current state of his game.

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- random dude
  
  Feb 24, 2015 at 12:16 pm
  
  Everyone take note – this is it. Right here. Theo put it best – Tiger lost his SWAG when he got busted and that’s what’s killing him. Not biomechanics, not injury, not NOT calling Butch, not stack and tilt, not anything but his lack of SWAG. If he went back to running around with a bunch of bar smuts and strippers, he’d have that ice water running through his veins again.
  
  Reply Report comment
adam

Feb 24, 2015 at 10:33 am

Golfers are getting too fine with using biomechanics. It’s a very tough concept to follow as the golf swing is very advanced when you get down to the nitty gritty of it. Instead of being so finite in your movements, find a swing that’s easily repeatable, efficient, and not hard on the body. My swing is easily repeatable and I’m sure using proper biomechanics I could have a more efficient swing but if you don’t get it, it could lead to a mental block like has happened to many of us in the past. Tiger – check your ego at the door and throw biomechanics out the window. Go with Butch and help your game.

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Tom Stickney

Feb 24, 2015 at 9:58 am

Butch is a coach not a teacher. We should all be better at that in the instructional business…myself included.

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Brandon

Feb 24, 2015 at 9:56 am

Eldrick(he ain’t no Tiger no more), does need to put down his pride and make the call. I am all about trying to be as efficient as possible, but this over obsession with perfect motion and perfect angles is why the players of today could never be as accurate and as efficient as the players from decades ago. Efficiency is free flowing, it is not hitting this position and having this angle and making sure my shaft is here and then firing my glutes. He needs to remember that the ball doesn’t care what his body is doing, he needs to get back to his teenage instincts of playing golf.

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Booger

Feb 24, 2015 at 9:50 am

Enough with these useless articles. How about writing about guys who are playing good golf.

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- random dude
  
  Feb 24, 2015 at 12:13 pm
  
  Because as long as Tiger is “possibly” relevant, no one really cares too much about the other field. First we followed Tiger because he dominated, no we follow for the soap opera. It’s just like the WWE, fans tune in for the storyline. Take DJ for example – fresh off a coke suspension then goes 4th and loses on an incredible prayer putt to a no name most never knew of in his first few tourney’s. But everyone started rooting for DJ because there was a storyline… some controversy… and it looks like some triumph if he keeps this up.
  So it will be nice when everyone stops saying “what about the other guys,” ’cause to be honest, it’s because of Tiger the game is what it is today. Even the stock market on a Monday after Tiger wins a major is fluctuated…
  Get a golf score tracker app if you really give a —- about the other players on Tour.
  
  Reply Report comment
- A
  
  Feb 24, 2015 at 12:27 pm
  
  See Max Adler’s article: http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/2015-03/undercover-tour-pro
  
  That’s why people care about Tiger, and not the one time winners – because in 20 years, no one’s going to remember their names.
  
  Reply Report comment
ShutSteepStuck

Feb 24, 2015 at 7:32 am

Tiger needs more than a few hours with Butch. In a sense Butch’s offer was no offer.

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RG

Feb 24, 2015 at 1:27 am

This is how messed up Tiger’s head is..he will not call Butch Harmon. A reasonable man would start by talking to past coaches and ask if they see anything that might help, but not Tiger. I will say this, if there is any doubt as to the best method/teacher just look at the case study that is Tiger Woods. Butch knows that the simple truth is that we are all differebt and must do what works best for the individual. All you method guys should listen up and pay attention to the master that is Butch Harmon.

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- timbleking
  
  Feb 24, 2015 at 9:46 am
  
  Yes but what is Tiger’s point? Being the best and winning the remaining Majors that are missing to break Jack’s record? Pretty sure, but he has his own mind on how to achieve this, and since a long time, he thinks that biomechanic is the key. Period.
  
  Is he right, is he wrong, we all have an idea but he remains his own boss.
  
  Reply Report comment
Mike

Feb 23, 2015 at 8:49 pm

If Tiger wants to save what’s left of his career MAKE the call

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Coolest thing for sale in the GolfWRX Classifieds (1/16/24): Cobra Forged One Length irons

Published

3 months ago

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Gianni Magliocco

At GolfWRX, we are a community of like-minded individuals that all experience and express our enjoyment of the game in many ways.

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Currently, in our GolfWRX buy/sell/trade (BST) forum, there is a listing for a set of Cobra Forged One Length irons.

From the seller: (@adamwittman): “4-PW, GW, lw. Nunchuk shafts. $350 tyd conusa.”

To check out the full listing in our BST forum, head through the link: Cobra Forged One Length irons

This is the most impressive current listing from the GolfWRX BST, and if you are curious about the rules to participate in the BST Forum you can check them out here: GolfWRX BST Rules

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What GolfWRXers are saying about Kevin Kisner’s new Callaway X Forged CB irons

Published

4 years ago

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Gianni Magliocco

In our forums, our members have been discussing Kevin Kisner’s new Callaway X Forged CB irons which he has in the bag at this week’s CJ Cup. WRXers have been commenting on the switch and the clubs themselves in our forums.

For lots more photos, check out the full thread here.

Here are a few posts from the thread, but make sure to check out the entire discussion and have your say at the link below.

btyh: “Holy offset.”
Glf_LU: “These are interesting. Not going to make a rush to judgement until I see them in person. It does look like a little more offset than I would expect to see in this model.”
bcflyguy1: “Kisner is not one to make a lot of equipment changes (see the GBB driver he’s still using), so if these do have staying power in his bag that will be interesting to see. I have to wonder if there’s something different about his set, because like others have mentioned there appears to be more offset on his than I recall seeing in the samples I’ve had in hand.”

Entire Thread: “Kevin Kisner’s new Callaway X Forged CB irons”

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WATCH: PGA Tour players play hole blindfolded and it’s hilarious/amazing

Published

6 years ago

Jun 25, 2018

GolfWRX Staff

As part of a Srixon campaign, four PGA Tour players recently participated in a three-hole challenge, with each hole being a different game; hole No. 1 was blindfolded, hole No. 2 was costumes and distractions, and hole No. 3 was alternate shot with a baseball bat. The teams were Smylie Kaufman and Sam Ryder against Shane Lowry and Grayson Murray.

Watch the full video below, since it is quite entertaining (albeit not the type of golf that Old Tom Morris surely had in mind), but in particular, make sure to check out the first hole where Lowry and Ryder play a full hole completely blind folded. It’s amazing to watch how badly Ryder struggles, and how Lowry nearly makes par.

What happens when 4 #PGATOUR pros take a day off?
Luckily, the cameras were rolling.
Watch @shanelowrygolf, @graysonmurray, @smyliekaufman10, and @samrydersu in #SrixonVS. pic.twitter.com/C4LJwQgmZ7

— Srixon (@SrixonGolf) June 25, 2018

Cleveland-Srixon’s marketing department has been hard at work crafting these viral-esque ad campaigns; if you remember, former long-drive champion Jamie Sadlowski recently dressed as 80-year-old Grandpa Jamie to fool range-goers. That video has since gathered over 1.2 million views on YouTube.

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