I have recently finished reading The Big Miss, which is Hank Haney’s story about how he coached Tiger Woods. It is interesting to note all the media excerpts from something that you have read yourself, because it tends to be a one-sided story, where we are basically told that Tiger Woods was not particularly nice socially. Obviously, we should all endeavour to be the very best that we can, and not to get inflated opinions of ourselves, but it is also unfortunate, when somebody has achieved in any field, that we always try to drag them down or attack them because we don’t feel that they are a good enough husband, father, kind person or some or other criteria.

At the end of the day, Tiger Woods puts his sporting ability out there, and we are welcome to comment on that, but just as we don’t normally really know the boss socially, we don’t know Tiger in that way and we cannot judge him simply by what others say, because we don’t really know how Tiger Woods felt about those type of people and whether or not they were allowed to become involved in his life. For example, Hank Haney says that Tiger never really spoke to him socially, and even when he spent time at Tiger’s house, Tiger never really spoke to him much, so there is some criticism to be levelled, that he cannot really know what he is talking about when he talks about Tiger Woods as a person when he himself makes it clear that Tiger never really let him into his life.
What he can talk about is Tiger’s ability, and the title of the book basically relates to Tiger[‘s desire to eliminate bad misses from his game – a miss with a golf club that leads to taking penalty shots, for example. What Hank Haney does say, and of course he is no longer Tiger’s coach, is, and these are the quotes that are not really being quoted in the media, but should be, “I firmly believe that no-one has ever played the game of golf as well as Tiger Woods. … Even with deeper competition than ever, Tiger’s total career winning percentage of 26% from 1996 through to 2011 is more than twice that of Jack’s 12%. … Tiger is even more dominant when it comes to closing out tournaments. He has gone on to win after holding or sharing the lead going into the final round at officials events 48 out of 52 times, and off the charts conversion rate of 92% and that is probably his most admired record among his peers and past greats. More than any other player, Tiger has expanded the idea of what is possible.”