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Tiger's Turbo Swing

Efficient use of body physics has made Tiger Woods' drive the most powerful in golf. A noted golf writer explains how he does it.

Tiger's Swedish wife, Elin, accompanies him on all his tours. The two first met at the 2001 British Open, where she was working as a nanny for Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik. They celebrated their first wedding anniversary last October.

From the March/April 2006 Issue

Tiger's New Swing: An Analysis of Tiger Woods' New Swing Technique
by John Andrisani, 160 pages, St. Martin's Press, $18.95

Only a supreme perfectionist would do what golfing great Tiger Woods has done. After compiling one of the winningest records in the history of golf, and then admittedly going into a slump for three years, Woods decided to trade in his highly successful golf swing for a new one that could make him even better than he had ever been before. In March 2004, he approached golfing guru Hank Haney for pointers. The resulting redo of Woods' approach and body posture at the tee has helped him to consistently drive the ball farther than anyone else in golf.

What's his big secret? Woods isn't talking, but golfing writer John Andrisani, after rigorous analysis, has plumbed the body physics of Tiger's "Turbo-Drive" swing, and explains it in his book, Tiger's New Swing.

Here are a few of Andrisani observations:

When Tiger sets up for a tee shot, he tilts his left hip up higher than his right. (He used to keep his hips level.) This position enables him "to contact the ball on the upswing and hit a highly controlled power-fade shot."

In his backswing, Tiger turns his shoulders while leaving his hips more or less in place. This "builds resistance between his upper and lower body" and "creates powerful torque" that is "transferred through his arms and hands to the club," maximizing speed.

Tiger's most important secret may be a "unique body alignment" when setting up a shot: having his shoulders "dead square to the line the ball will start flying on" rather than on the target site, an alignment that differs substantially from that of golfing greats Ben Hogan, Sam Sneed, and Jack Nicklaus.

Of course, Tiger still retains many of the winning techniques he has learned from other great teachers, which Andrisani also describes, including Tiger's ability to tune out everything else and focus completely on his shot. His mental prowess, the author notes, came partly from working with psychologist Jay Brunza but also from his own Thai mother, who taught him early the art of Buddhist meditation, the "letting go" practiced by the Zen masters.

Tiger's new swing put him on the upswing in 2005, which may foreshadow an even greater year of the Tiger in 2006. Viewers who will be observing the Tiger technique up close can decide for themselves if Andrisani is correct.

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