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The Evolution of Tiger Woods

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Evolution-of-Tiger-Woods

Love him or hate him, Tiger Woods has made a huge impact on the game of golf.  Many speculate that Tiger has lost his mojo, yet many still remain in their armchairs pulling for the man who once claimed a 15 shot victory in the U.S. Open championship.

I hear golfers constantly debating whether or not Tiger has gotten worse over his career, which swing coach was the best, and speculations about what his career would have been like if he had stayed with Butch Harmon.

In the midst of all this discussion, I have yet to see someone back up anything they are saying with statistics and objective facts.  Although it is impossible to come to a firm conclusion about something with so many variables, I think we can get a little bit closer than we have in the past.

To bring some clarity to the subject, I have compiled PGA TOUR statistics on Tiger from 1996 (year he turned pro)-2015.  I am no statistician, but the numbers don’t lie.  In this post, I will be splitting Tiger’s career up according to swing coach (with the exclusion of 2015-forward), and analyzing some of the differences between each era.

Please note that all of my conclusions are speculative observations of the facts.  Be sure to share your own in the comments section below the post!

But without further adieu, let us begin the EVOLUTION OF TIGER WOODS.

Childhood and Amateur Career

As we all know, Tiger has seen the spotlight from a young age. Growing up in Orange County, California, he learned the game from his father, Earl, who would take him out to the local Cypress Navy 9 hole course after hours.

At the age of 2, Tiger appeared on the Mike Douglas Show where he was a guest to not only Mike Douglas, but also Bob Hope and Jimmy Stewart:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o92UYBvBdMs&width=742&height=558[/embedyt]

After his early claim to fame, Tiger managed to win nearly every tournament he played in as a junior, attempting to match or better all of Jack Nicklaus’s early achievements.

In this video, a young Tiger Woods (14 years old) is interviewed about his high school golfing days:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dHjdiT6wgA&width=742&height=419[/embedyt]

Upon watching this video and others, I believe that a large part of Tiger’s early confidence came from Earl’s belief in him.

After a wildly successful high school career, Tiger went on to win 3 Junior Amateur Championships in a row, and then 3 U.S. Amateur Championships immediately following his junior titles.

In my opinion, this feat may have been more impressive than anything Tiger has done on the professional level.  Unfortunately, there is no video footage of his first five major amateur victories, but below is Tiger’s sixth and final victory as an amateur.  This victory would put him on top as the only player in history to win three consecutive U.S. Amateurs:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvWKn7y5wMw&width=742&height=419&listType=playlist&list=PL69BCF69A48766049&plindex=0[/embedyt]

Although these are only brief highlights of Tiger’s fruitful junior and amateur career, they are often underrated in the minds of golfers.  At a young age, he showed the maturity of many professional golfers, and simply couldn’t be beat.

This became evident to many when at the age of 19, tiger tied for 41st in the Masters, and just a year later, won the NCAA championship at Stanford with a final round in the 80s!!  Was it really that easy for him??

The Butch Harmon Era (1996-2003)

In 1996, Tiger made his debut on the PGA Tour. Despite his shy nature, he opened up to the professional golfing world quite fast:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmII1xGfuCg&width=742&height=419[/embedyt]

Not long after, he claimed his first professional victory at the Las Vegas Invitational:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri9UnDZn_b8&start=780&end=848&width=742&height=558[/embedyt]

And then, he made his first hole in one on tour:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpzFyvqNO-8&start=4&end=19&width=742&height=558[/embedyt]

But wait.. Just a year later, in the 1997 Phoenix Open, he did it again!

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufscYVbYLQQ&width=742&height=558[/embedyt]

Tiger did not waste time in his first years on tour. His golf swing may not have been as “technically sound” as it later became, but the amount of fire he played with during the Butch Harmon era was unprecedented.

After overhauling his swing in the late 90s, Tiger was ready for action at the turn of the century.  He claimed four major championship victories in a row (“Tiger Slam”), including a 15 shot victory at Pebble Beach in the 2000 U.S. Open (the video is long, but wanted to include it anyways):

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8RzfyDs5aY&width=742&height=558[/embedyt]

After a successful run, Tiger decided that his days with Butch Harmon were over.

There are many speculations as to why Tiger decided to leave Butch. Some say that he had connected with Haney through his good friend, Mark O’Meara. Others say that it was entirely due to his knee injury.

I am no golf historian, and will not attempt to prove or disprove any of these speculations.

Instead, let me highlight some of Tiger’s key statistics from the Butch Harmon Era:

Butch-Harmon-Averages

Stats from PGATOUR.com

The Hank Haney Era (2004-2010)

The Hank Haney Era marked a new journey for Tiger.  He began to focus on improving his swing for sustained success, and settled into his “celebrity” status on tour.

As I will discuss later in this post, the Haney Era (by the numbers) was the most successful time period of Tiger’s career.

2004 was a transition year, but Tiger came back by storm in 2005, winning 6 events, and 2 majors.

But I’d argue that 2006 rivaled Tiger’s 2000 campaign as one of the most historic seasons to date. In this year, Tiger recorded a 9&8 victory against Stephen Ames in match play, and 2 victories early on. Then, he suffered a tremendous loss at his father’s death (May 3), which forced him to take some time away from the game.

Most may have expected him to struggle upon returning.  This was not the case.

After returning to golf, Tiger carded 6 consecutive victories to wrap up the 2006 season:

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfm2hwfoELg&width=742&height=419[/embedyt]

Unfortunately, as we all know, the Hank Haney Era was also characterized by a surgery, and a scandal that would change the face of Tiger Woods forever.

I do not have strong opinions about what happened, and would like to keep the focus on Tiger’s golf game, so here are the key statistics during the Hank Haney Era:

Hank-Haney-Averages

The Sean Foley Era (2011-2014)

The Sean Foley Era may be the most deceptive time period of Tiger’s career.  Not only did Tiger get used to hiding from the press, but also faced the first criticism of his career.  On top of that, this era marked the departure of long time caddie, Stevie Williams.

With the combination of the scandal, Stevie’s pointed comments, injuries, bad press, and speculations about his future, Tiger recorded zero major victories during the Sean Foley Era.

Despite this, he still managed impressive 2012 and 2013 seasons, recording a round of 61 at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational, which matched his previous career low competitive round.  The last time Tiger had shot 61 was all the way back in 2005 at the Buick Open.

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbjpdwQaqsg&width=742&height=419[/embedyt]

Unfortunately, the Foley Era ended in flames as the previous two did. It may not be right for me to claim that bridges were burned between Foley and Woods, but it sure seemed that way in the media.

Nevertheless, here are the key statistics during this time period:

Sean-Foley-averages

Comparing Coaches

Over the course of his professional career, Tiger had enormous levels of success. Despite this, I believe that many have the wrong perception of how it all went down.

As I said, I have gathered data from 1996-2015, and combined it all together into several graphs, which may reveal something interesting about Tiger’s career…

It turns out, Tiger played significantly better while with Hank Haney than he did during his run with Butch. Sure, he didn’t win any major championships by a margin of 15 like he did in 2000, but who’s to say that the competition didn’t get better?

As you can see in the graph below, Tiger’s average score was lowest during the Hank Haney era:

Butch-Harmon-average-score-68.72-1

On top of that, this scoring average may have been even lower if it wasn’t for his 2010 season (clearly a result of the scandal).

So, it is clear by the numbers that Tiger shot lower scores on average during the Hank Haney Era than any other time period.

But that doesn’t reveal the entire truth. So let’s dig a little further, and look at Tiger’s winning percentage (total wins including majors divided by the total events played over the time period) during each era:

Hank-Haney-produced-highest-win-percentage-1

If it wasn’t evident by his scoring average during the Haney era, it is clearly stated in this graph. The 2008 season may have been skewed due to Tiger’s leave from golf (surgery), but it is still clear that his highest win percentage occured between 2004 and 2010.

Although tiger was shooting lower scores and winning more often during the Haney era, there is still a small reason why I’m not discounting the work of Butch Harmon.

As you can see in the graph below, there was something that happened to Tiger while working with Hank Haney.

His driving accuracy plummeted in relation to his ball striking (GIR):

Butch-Harmon-2

Did Tiger win so much in the Haney era because Haney was a better swing coach??  Or had Tiger simply become a smarter and more experienced golfer? The previous graph reveals that Tiger’s swing didn’t actually improve during the Haney era, but arguably got worse!

So how did he manage so many victories, and such a low scoring average??

Upon seeing this, I began to look at his short game statistics between the eras. Unfortunately, this did not prove anything.  Tiger had a higher scrambling percentage during the Harmon Era than any other.  So not only did he hit the ball better during the Harmon Era, he also got the ball up and down more often!

I did notice that his average putts per round was the lowest during the Haney era, but only by .02 strokes per hole in comparison to the Harmon era.  Could .02 strokes per hole make that much of a difference?

Or could the “Tiger intimidation factor” be a real thing?

There are many uncertainties and speculations to be made, but one thing is for sure:

Tiger managed the title of world #1 for 683 weeks of his life.

Even through all of his setbacks and leaves of absences, Tiger has spent 65.67% of his professional career as the world’s #1 golfer.

I’d say that’s fairly impressive 🙂

Concluding Remarks

Although speculating on Tiger’s career is probably not a task for an average guy like me, it was still eye opening to break down the yearly stats for this golfing legend.

But I’d love to hear from YOU!

What memories do you have from Tiger’s career? Leave them in the comments below!


Cover Photo via Flickr

Zach, otherwise known as "The DIY Golfer" has a passion for many things, but none quite live up to his enthusiasm for golf.  In his High School District tournament freshman year, he fired a 103.  Since that humbling moment, Zach has been on a perpetual search for the underlying truths of golf.  Thanks to this unending search for a better golf game, he has managed a personal best of 64, and has gained a new sense of understanding for the game of golf. In his time away from the course, Zach enjoys reading, writing for Golficity (and his personal golf blog), traveling, and spending time with friends and family.  He also loves meeting new golfers, so be sure to drop a comment below!

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