Tiger Woods Needs Butch Harmon
Pebble Beach is the site of some of golf’s greatest moments. Outside of Augusta it may be the most famed annual stop on the PGA Tour. As another week on the Monterrey Peninsula is upon us, it’s tough not to think about one of the most commanding performances in golf history. Last week it was Torrey Pines, the site of Tiger Woods’ greatest victory. Now it’s Pebble, the site of his most dominant one.
His victory at the 2000 U.S. Open was the game’s player living up to his title. There was no second or third place it was all about him. He was on a different level. His fifteen shot victory was just absurd. At -12 he was the only player under par and the rest of the field was so far behind that it might as well been the “The Tiger Woods Invitational.”
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Now as our attention returns to Pebble Beach the guy who once lapped the field, is getting lapped by them. Tiger isn’t playing this week and and for the foreseeable future. When that time does come, I can almost guarantee you that he will not be the player we saw in 2000. It’s long believed that we would never see that player again, but now it’s almost a certainty.
After dominating the field at the 1997 Masters Tiger decided it was time for a new swing. It’s almost the same as if a team won a Super Bowl by forty-five points and then decided they didn’t like their quarterback. The 2000 U.S. Open this “new swing” threw six touchdown passes. Fifteen years later Tiger is again rebuilding, and according to him he wants to get back to that same swing he won with at Pebble. So why not call Butch Harmon?
It was Butch who was the mechanic behind the “Tiger Woods Ferrari.” The two somehow took the swing that produced the most dominating performance at the Masters and made it better. With Butch, Tiger arguably had his greatest calendar year ever when he pulled off the famous “Tiger Slam” and his win at Pebble Beach started that streak. Then after eight majors and countless records, Butch was gone.
Tiger has won majors without him, six to be exact. Except none were as dominant as the eight prior. To go back and criticize him for ending the relationship with Butch thirteen years ago is beating a dead horse. Just now if he wants his “old swing” then why not call the man who helped you find it in the first place? Instead Tiger has brought on Chris Como to help recapture his glory days. That’s the same as the Chicago Bulls wanting to run the triangle offense and not calling Phil Jackson. So why doesn’t Tiger call his own “Zen Master?”
Instead of making the obvious choice he’s decided to take a trip down memory lane with a guy who doesn’t know how to get there. Como and Tiger need a GPS to find their way back to the past, when really the directions are on a sheet of paper crumbled up in Harmon’s closet. In 2000 Woods laughed is way around Pebble, now he can barely walk it. The back is a completely unpredictable animal, and that may never fully heal, but the swing can be fixed. He may not be the guy winning by twelve shots with his eyes closed, but he could show flashes. To get there it’s very simple, call Butch.