Biography & Autobiography |
Nonfiction |
Sports & Recreations |
9780307985996 |
Summary
Summary
The Big Miss is Hank Haney's candid and surprisingly insightful account of his tumultuous six-year journey with Tiger Woods, during which the supremely gifted golfer collected six major championships and rewrote golf history. Hank was one of the very few people allowed behind the curtain. He was with Tiger 110 days a year, spoke to him over 200 days a year, and stayed at his home up to 30 days a year, observing him in nearly every circumstance: at tournaments, on the practice range, over meals, with his wife, Elin, and relaxing with friends.
The relationship between the two men began in March 2004 when Hank received a call from Tiger in which the golf champion asked him to be his coach. It was a call that would change both men's lives.
Tiger--only 28 at the time--was by then already an icon, judged by the sporting press as not only one of the best golfers ever, but possibly the best athlete ever. Already he was among the world's highest paid celebrities. There was an air of mystery surrounding him, an aura of invincibility. Unique among athletes, Tiger seemed to be able to shrug off any level of pressure and find a way to win.
But Tiger was always looking to improve, and he wanted Hank's help.
What Hank soon came to appreciate was that Tiger was one of the most complicated individuals he'd ever met, let alone coached. Although Hank had worked with hundreds of elite golfers and was not easily impressed, there were days watching Tiger on the range when Hank couldn't believe what he was witnessing. On those days, it was impossible to imagine another human playing golf so perfectly.
And yet Tiger is human--and Hank's expert eye was adept at spotting where Tiger's perfection ended and an opportunity for improvement existed. Always haunting Tiger was his fear of "the big miss"--the wildly inaccurate golf shot that can ruin an otherwise solid round--and it was because that type of blunder was sometimes part of Tiger's game that Hank carefully redesigned his swing mechanics.
Hank's most formidable coaching challenge, though, would be solving the riddle of Tiger's personality. Wary of the emotional distractions that might diminish his game and put him further from his goals, Tiger had developed a variety of tactics to keep people from getting too close, and not even Hank--or Tiger's family and friends, for that matter--was spared "the treatment."
Toward the end of Tiger and Hank's time together, the champion's laser-like focus began to blur and he became less willing to put in punishing hours practicing--a disappointment to Hank, who saw in Tiger's behavior signs that his pupil had developed a conflicted relationship with the game. Hints that Tiger hungered to reinvent himself were present in his bizarre infatuation with elite military training, and--in a development Hank didn't see coming--in the scandal that would make headlines in late 2009. It all added up to a big miss that Hank, try as he might, couldn't save Tiger from.
There's never been a book about Tiger Woods that is as intimate and revealing--or one so wise about what it takes to coach a superstar athlete.
Author Notes
Hank Haney was born August 24, 1955. He is an American professional golf instructor best known for coaching Tiger Woods and two-time major championship winner Mark O'Meara. He is a graduate of the University of Tulsa, Haney owns and operates four teaching facilities in the Dallas, Texas area. Haney's philosophy as a teacher is to teach his students to become their own best teacher by getting them to understand the flight of the golf ball and how it relates to the swing, with emphasis on swinging the golf club on their own correct swing plane. Haney has changed Tiger Woods' swing from an upright to a flatter golf swing. Haney tries to get his students to swing on the same plane angle which the golf club is on. In 2008, Haney started working with former NBA star and current NBA analyst Charles Barkley on the Golf Channel's The Haney Project: Charles Barkley, in an attempt to fix Barkley's infamously bad swing. On Monday, May 10, 2010, one day after Woods withdrew in the final round of The Players Championship, Haney informed Woods that he would no longer be his coach. Haney has a videogame of his own, Hank Haney's World Golf. Hank Haney has received several awards throughout his career such as: Golf Magazine Top 100 Teacher, Golf Digest Number 5 Teacher, Golf World's Top 50 Golf Personalities Worldwide and D Magazine (Dallas) "The Best of Dallas" - "Best Golf Instructor. He has also written a book entitled Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods which made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2012.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
Readers who come to this thoughtful memoir from Tiger Woods' former coach looking for still more insider details about the sex scandal that began with the golfer's SUV hitting a fire hydrant will be sorely disappointed. Above all, this is a golf book. Haney contends that he knew nothing about Tiger's philandering, and the details he does provide about his relationship with the notoriously tight-lipped superstar certainly support that claim. Haney was Tiger's coach from 2004 through early 2010 a period during which the golfer won six major championships, two less than he amassed under the tutelage of his previous coach, Butch Harmon and the focus here is almost exclusively on what happened on the driving range and the golf course during that time, as Haney oversaw an extensive swing-rebuilding process. Why would the best golfer alive and, quite possibly, the best who ever lived choose to make dramatic alterations in a swing that had produced unparalleled results? Simply, to get better. Woods' single-minded drive for perfection, in Haney's view, is the dominant aspect of the golfer's personality and the factor that helps explain his refusal to let others, even those closest to him, inside his head. Haney's decision to leave Tiger after the Masters in 2010, he argues, came not from any feelings about the scandal but from his difficulty dealing with a pupil who was so unwilling to work with him. Golf devotees will continue to argue over whether Haney's swing changes helped or hurt Tiger, though statistics suggest that in the Haney era Tiger was more consistent than he had been in the past. The real takeaway here, though, is the up-close look at the obsessive drive of a champion like no other and how that obsession may have driven his off-course aberrant behavior. If there is a revelation here, it isn't about sex. It's about how Tiger's fanatical commitment to body-building, including his adoption of various super-rigorous Navy SEAL training methods, may have contributed to significant injuries. That will be argued, too, but Haney makes his case fairly and honestly, emerging not as a self-serving, tell-all author but as a man who has devoted his working life to the intricacies of the golf swing and who, finally, remains thankful to have spent six years with the best golfer on the planet.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Golf legend Tiger Woods's former swing coach reveals both professional and personal secrets in this candid and sometimes salacious account of his six years with the celebrity athlete. Haney provides an impressively thorough and clearly explained breakdown of Woods's stroke and analysis of his psychological and physical approach to the sport he until recently dominated. Haney also uses his insider status to provide fans with intimate details of Woods's personal life. Far from objective, this is a highly opinionated but well-informed account of what it was like to work closely with Woods. Haney does an acceptable job of narrating his own book, with a performance marred only by a few sloppy edits and inexplicable but forgivable changes in voice tone. VERDICT This book seems to have been written for two distinct audiences-golfers interested in the technical intricacies of Woods's world-famous swing and curious fans seeking tidbits of his heavily guarded private life. Both should be satisfied. [The Crown hc was a New York Times best seller.-Ed.]-Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.