Wanna be Tiger’s next coach?
- Updated: August 26, 2014
Local pros give their take on wanting — or not — to be the guy to fix former World No. 1
Tiger Woods walks up the fairway at Augusta National. (Photos by Mary Muskewitz)
Anniston Country Club pro Jake Spott (left, with Freeman Fite) would jump at the chance to be Tiger Woods’ next swing coach “in a heartbeat.”
Kenny Szuch, the City of Anniston’s director of golf operations, said Tiger Woods needs something other than a swing coach to get him back on track.
“To turn his game around and get him back on track would be unbelievable. Who wouldn’t want to coach the best player in the world?”
— Anniston CC pro Jake Spott
“I’d rather work on Charles Barkley’s swing than Tiger Woods’.”
— Pine Hill’s Cory Etter
By Al Muskewitz
East Alabama Sports Today
Tiger Woods is in the market for a swing coach again. Anybody — everybody — it seems, is potentially a candidate.
The pool appears wide open and there’s no telling who’s going to jump into the deep end.
Woods announced Monday he and teacher of the last four years, Sean Foley, are no longer an item. There is no timetable for finding a replacement and with Woods not playing again until his own World Challenge in December he has a lot of time — and candidates — to think about it.
Because the field for Swing Coach No. 4 is wide open, consider the seven pros at Calhoun County’s eight golf courses potentially in the mix.
Not all of them would want the job.
In a quick survey by East Alabama Sports Today on Tuesday, three of the county’s pros said no way without hesitation, two said absolutely yes, one gave a qualified yes and one said he’d have to think about it.
Of course, the chances of Woods calling any of them for the job is as unlikely as Tom Watson picking the No. 12 player in the world for his Ryder Cup team — that’s what Woods is this week — but they give lessons so they’re as qualified to be in the conversation as any of the Golf Digest Top 50 teachers.
The ‘nays’ run away quickly because they simply don’t want to deal with the fickleness of the most polarizing figure in the game. Those who would jump at the chance were willing to accept all that goes with it for the prestige and experience that comes with working with the best player of his generation.
“The old Tiger Woods who revolutionized the game, the fearless Tiger Woods, was very coachable,” Anniston’s director of golf operations Kenny Szuch said, “because everything was in the attack mode and everybody was afraid of him. That Tiger Woods is gone; you’ll never see him again. This Tiger Woods has injuries, other issues, and I don’t know how coachable he is.
“I think me and a zillion others would say the same thing: Tiger — just like Lighthorse Harry Cooper told J.C. Snead at Doral when he wanted a putting lesson — ‘just knock the ball in the hole;’ and then he got in his cart and drove away. I’d love to talk to him. We wouldn’t even go to the range. We’d just have a five-minute talk. What’s going on between those ears?”
Woods, famously, previously worked with Butch Harmon and Hank Haney and won all 14 of his major titles with them. He hasn’t won a major since 2008 and remains four behind Jack Nicklaus’ all-time record.
He has won eight tournaments with Foley — five last year — but injuries reduced him to playing only seven events this season. He missed the Masters and U.S. Open because of back surgery and his struggles coming back from it reduced him to just another guy in the field in the British Open and PGA Championship, where he missed the cut.
He finally shut it down again a few days later, saving captain Tom Watson the agonizing decision of whether to pick him for the U.S. Ryder Cup team. He did look in good spirits when he appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Rory McIlroy, although he didn’t swing a club when the current No. 1 and host Jimmy Fallon engaged in an on-stage break-the-glass competition.
“To me, he’s looking for somebody to be a yes man and nobody he went with so far has been a yes man,” Indian Oaks pro Ron McClellan said. “If you want it fixed, do the things that brought you out of college to make you the No. 1 player in the world; now, you’re not feared by anybody.
“After Harmon and Haney and this guy (Foley), Tiger needs to go out and play golf, quit worrying about swings and play golf; he’ll be a whole lot better off. If he wants to beat Nicklaus’ record, another swing coach isn’t going to help him.”
It’s just not worth the emotional rollercoaster for Pine Hill’s Cory Etter to get involved. He said the best thing Woods could do was go back to Harmon, the oddsmakers favorite as the replacement, although Harmon’s comments Monday that Woods should go it alone make that return seem unlikely.
“I’d rather work on Charles Barkley’s swing than Tiger Woods’,” Etter said.
But there’s always someone willing, and unless Woods takes Harmon’s advice, there will be another coach at his station on the range when he returns.
Anniston Country Club pro Jake Spott wasted no time after the Foley firing posting on his Twitter page he was open to taking new clients. Even after reading Haney’s tell-all book following his split with Woods he said he’d just do it “in a heartbeat.”
“These guys who teach him don’t just do it to make him better,” he said. “You’re going to get so much exposure teaching the best player. To turn his game around and get him back on track would be unbelievable. Who wouldn’t want to coach the best player in the world?”
They wouldn’t have to ask Silver Lakes assistant Brennan Clay twice, either.
“Because he’s my idol and he’s the best player who ever lived,” Clay said. “If he says ‘Brennan, be my coach,’ I’d say where do I sign and what do you want to work on?”
Jason Callan, the director of golf at Silver Lakes, wouldn’t be as quick to jump. “I’d have to think about it,” he said.
Cider Ridge pro Doug Wert would have to do some thinking as well. He knows what it takes to build a swing good enough to win on the Tour. He was a high school teammate of PGA Tour champion Jeff Maggert.
“Given the right situation, it’d probably be quite an honor to work with him,” he said.
Send that resume to . . .
Al Muskewitz is Content Editor/Senior Writer of East Alabama Sports Today. He can be reached at musky@wrightmediacorp.com and followed on Twitter @easportstoday1.
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