March 12, 2012

"He always walks with a limp a little bit," Stricker said. "He's so gansta," he didn't add.

I keep having flashbacks to Peter Alliss's commentary in 1997 at Augusta as Woods romped home. Through his usual fog of late afternoon gin, having acknowledged how impressive it all was, Alliss sounded a note of caution that one day Woods too would get old and have to change his swing, and that if he didn't do it early enough, he'd be plagued with injury later in his career.

Good call.

posted by JJ at 10:42 AM on March 12, 2012

He took on Butch Harmon in 1993, who changed his swing a little from his junior swing (took out some of the lateral movement), then he switched to Hank Haney (who put back some of the lateral movement) and now he's with Sean Foley (who seems to have found a bit of a middle ground). Within those three coach changes, he's also had at least two periods of "we're rebuilding my swing" but he hasn't changed coach, so I'd put it at about five major changes.

What Alliss meant though was that he'd have to change his swing in such a way as to reduce the stress on his body. Haney's changes in particular did precisely the opposite and he ended up loading up that left leg and the lower half of his back so much on the follow-through that injury was perhaps inevitable.

Saw a statement today from Tiger saying it's only a strain this time and he hopes to be hitting balls again by the end of this week and fit to play at Bay Hill next week.

posted by JJ at 09:15 AM on March 13, 2012