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PGA Tour Pairings for the Ages and Foley & Tiger

by Jeff Skinner

With all the talk about the top players being paired together, especially Phil and Tiger, Helen Ross gives us a rundown of the best pairings on the PGA Tour over the decades. It starts with Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson in the 40’s then Sam Snead and Cary Middlecoff in the 50’s.  The 60’s gave us Arnold Palmer and Billy Casper.  Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson dominated the 70’s and Ross lists Curtis Strange and Seve Ballesteros as the best of the 80’s.  Greg Norman and Nick Faldo are forever linked throughout the 90’s and the 2000’s…you guessed it, Phil and Tiger.  I’ll take Jack and Tom any day in any decade.

Sean Foley is in the subject of Farrell Evans in an interview on Golf.com. Foley is an interesting guy.  He’s as much a spiritual coach as he is a swing guru.  He takes some shots at Brandel Chamblee and Hank Haney and will bet his house that Tiger will beat Jack’s 18 majors.  Foley is a quirky dude: How has your life changed since you started working with Tiger? I definitely have more critics than I knew. But that doesn’t really bother me. The beauty of working with Tiger is that he lives three minutes from me [near Orlando]. So I typically drive over to Isleworth a couple of days a week to meet with him for an hour and a half to two hours. How it will go in tournaments this season? I have no idea. But I think I have a good idea of my balance of happiness and it hasn’t done anything to change that. I love that “balance of happiness stuff.”

Steve Elling at CBS Sports talks about how Tiger’s short game has been affected by his swing changes.  It seemed no matter how poor the full swing was he could always count on the short game to bail him out.  That’s not the case this year.  Tiger insists that he wants the same swing right through the bag, from driver to putter.  “I changed my entire release and how I did it with Hank,” Woods said. “You want to have the same type of swing with the putter all the way up to the driver. It’s the same motion just smaller, and the pitch shot is the same.” That’s news to Hank, Butch, me and just about every other golfer in the world.

So Tiger took some time after practice to answer some questions and one answer really shocked me.  He was asked if he admits that he needs to play more to get better, why doesn’t he?  “Well, because I have a family. I’m divorced.  If you’ve been divorced with kids, then you would understand.” Is he serious?  Playing the single dad card, come on Tiger.  That’s a crock.  If you wanted to play you would find a way.  You’re telling me that you spend more time with the kids now then you did when you were married?  I doubt it.   Forget the divorced dad bit, no one buys it.  You’re Tiger Woods.  You do what you want with little regard for anyone else, even your kids.

 

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