Tag: Hank Haney

Hank Haney casts critical eye at Tiger Woods’ latest comeback

“Can you practice enough if you’re Tiger to climb up the mountain (again)?”

As Tiger Woods’ former coach during his peak years of dominance, Hank Haney brings a unique perspective on Tiger’s swing and latest comeback.

Haney and Woods split in 2010, and ever since writing “The Big Miss,” he’s been persona non grata with the Tiger camp. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have a great eye for Tiger’s swing. In fact, it may be one of the reasons he is so unabashedly honest about Tiger’s game. (Others might argue his takes are sour grapes but I appreciate his candor.) Haney didn’t answer or return a call on Sunday after Tiger finished playing 72 holes in the Bahamas, his first competitive rounds since the Masters in April. But Haney did review Tiger’s performance this week on his podcast, noting that the swing looked good to him and he was impressed with his length off the tee and that he didn’t “look to be in excruciating pain like he was last year.”

Haney, however, isn’t rushing to hand Tiger a 16th major after he finished 18th out of 20 players in the Hero World Challenge. Haney said that when he was working with Tiger, Albany, the host course of the tournament, would have been a par 67 not a par 72 as it is on the scorecard for Tiger, who shot even-par 288, 20 strokes behind winner Scottie Scheffler.

Hank Haney first started working with Tiger Woods in March 2004.

“Back in the day, and I understand back in the day is a long time ago, but back in the day if there was a tournament that Tiger Woods signed up for that had five par 5s, I already would have penciled it in as a victory,” Haney said on The Hank Haney Podcast. “He said, ‘I didn’t take care of the par 5s like I was supposed to, I would’ve been maybe double digits.’ Double Digits? That would’ve lost by 10. I understand he hasn’t played and he’s rusty and everything else everyone wants to say, but back in the day I could’ve shoulda-coulda-woulda for every tournament Tiger ever played and he would’ve won.

“When you lose by 20, there’s no shoulda-coulda-woulda. You are so far – that’s five shots per round – you are so far out of contention.”

Haney wondered how much Tiger would be able to practice, and would it be enough for him to be competitive playing such a limited schedule.

“He’s got get some semblance of a game because no matter how much he wants to tell you he can hit all the shots, and he can do this and he can do that, you’ve got to do it and you’ve got to show it and that’s the thing that’s missing there,” Haney said. “Can you play once a month and climb up a mountain? Can you practice enough if you’re Tiger to climb up the mountain (again)? The advantage he has is that if he can start climbing just a little bit up the mountain, next thing you know he can start flying up the mountain because he has all this knowledge stored up in that brain of his that tells him what to do and he can do it. It’s just can he get some momentum going up that mountain?”

Tiger said he was pleased that he completed a tournament without a setback and despite being sore said he recovered better than he expected. He was encouraged with how his body responded after a seven-month layoff and another surgery to fuse the subtalar joint of his right ankle.

“How long will he deem that a success if he’s not competitive?” Haney asked rhetorically. “The answer to that is who knows, we’ll see.”

‘Don’t count Tiger out’: Golf legends talk injuries and Tiger Woods’ mental toughness

From the inspirational story of Dennis Walters to Ben Hogan, golfers have shown the power of the human spirit to prevail.

Dennis Walters has a message for all the doubters who say Tiger Woods is finished after suffering multiple injuries to his legs and shattering his ankle in a single-vehicle collision on Tuesday in Los Angeles.

“I’m betting on Tiger,” said Walters, who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2019. “He’s proven he can overcome almost anything.”

More than 45 years ago, on July 21, 1974, Walters, an aspiring professional golf, was driving a cart down a gravel path. He was riding a golf cart down a steep hill when the brakes failed and he was thrown from the cart, severing his spine. He couldn’t feel his legs when he woke up in a hospital bed and knew his dream of playing on the PGA Tour was over. He has been paralyzed from the waist down since that day.

“The one thing I have learned is not to really believe anything doctors predict,” Walters said. “Medicine is not an exact science. When you combine the human will and the human spirit to overcome things, that is a very powerful force and I believe if it is possible, Tiger can do it. I’d never count him out. His mental capacity far exceeds anyone I’ve ever seen. I think that’s his strongest weapon once he gets to the point that he is able to physically rehab. If he wants to do it, I’d say Tiger Woods will be OK.”

Tiger Woods car accident
A tow truck recovers the vehicle driven by Tiger Woods in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on February 23, 2021, after a rollover accident. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/ AFP via Getty Images)

Walters predicted that the healing process the next few months will be difficult physically, but the bar will be set even higher mentally. When Woods spoke on TV on Sunday, he was nearing the point where he thought his surgically-repaired back might allow him to begin preparing for a return in time to play the Masters in April. He must start over again. Walters knows the feeling. Six months after his accident, Walters wasn’t making any progress so he confronted his doctor.

“He said, ‘You’re never going to walk again.’ That made me cry,” Walters recalled. “I said, ‘How about playing golf? He said, ‘Forget it.’ I said two words to him and they weren’t happy birthday!”

Essex County Golf Club in West Orange, New Jersey, where Walters once had qualified for the U.S. Amateur, was across a road from his rehab center. Walters told his doctor that he was going to return some day and hit golf balls from the parking lot on to the course.

“I came back a year and a half later and did that. My doctor said, ‘I’m never telling anyone they can’t do anything,’ ” Walters said. “It’s folly to predict what a human being can do. That’s my reasoning for saying, let things progress and see what happens. I’m betting on Tiger Woods. To what degree? I don’t know, but if Tiger Woods is given a chance, he might be able to give us more thrills like he has all these years.”

Walters has toured the country performing more than 3,000 golf exhibitions, and was Woods’ opening act when he did junior clinics early in his career. It was a letter in the mail from golf great Ben Hogan, who had suffered his own life-threatening injuries after being hit by a bus head on in 1949 and recovering to win six majors, and his support that provided a psychological lift for Walters.

Count former PGA Championship winner and NBC golf commentator Paul Azinger among those who agree that Tiger isn’t done yet.

“You can’t forget that nobody fights back harder than Tiger,” Azinger said.

“I will never stop believing that he won’t make a Ben Hogan recovery until he doesn’t,” Woods’ former instructor Hank Haney tweeted.

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Woods has won a major on one leg, endured five back surgeries and come back time and time again, but this is different.

“This is his greatest challenge,” former U.S. Open champion and ESPN golf analyst Curtis Strange said. “This is something he can’t control. He’s got a beat-up body in that hospital and it’s going to take time to heal. Only then can he think about golf. But regardless, this isn’t the end of Tiger. He still has so much to offer the game.”

Comebacks have defined Woods’ career. This one may require him to re-learn how to walk and there’s no telling yet what the crash has done to his balky back. But Strange remains hopeful, too.

“Look at Alex Smith,” he said, referring to the Washington Football Team quarterback who recovered from a gruesome injury to his leg that was believed to be career-ending. “Did it seem possible he could play football last year? But he did. What seems impossible can happen.”

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PGA Tour’s motion to dismiss Hank Haney lawsuit denied by district court

The PGA Tour’s motion to dismiss a Hank Haney lawsuit regarding the termination of his radio show was denied by a district court on Monday.

A judge for the Southern District of Florida has denied the PGA Tour’s motion to dismiss Hank Haney’s lawsuit against the Tour related to the termination of his show on SiriusXM’s PGA Tour Radio station.

The former golf coach filed a lawsuit against PGA Tour, Inc. on Dec. 18, 2019, seeking damages for harm he claims the PGA Tour caused by allegedly interfering with his show.

The Tour argued Haney’s claims were “bereft of factual specificity.” Alternatively, the Tour said that even if Haney’s allegations satisfy pleading standards, Haney has “still failed to allege facts demonstrating that Defendant unjustifiably interfered with Plaintiffs’ contract and/or business relationship.”

But the court disagreed. From the ruling Monday:

“The Court, having reviewed the parties’ submissions, the record, and being otherwise fully advised in the premises, finds that the allegations teed up in this case—like a well-hit drive on the golf course—have avoided pleading hazards under Rule 12(b)(6), remained in bounds, and left Plaintiffs with an opportunity to take their next shot.”

In a statement to Golf Digest’s Brian Wacker, Haney said he was pleased with the decision. “Discovery will show the evidence in our favor is overwhelming and indisputable, and evidences a disturbing influence the PGA Tour exercises in the golf world, including on media outlets.”

The PGA Tour has said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

In his lawsuit, Haney claims the Tour had “long-standing animus” toward him dating from a desire to “settle an old score” relating to his 2012 book, “The Big Miss,” about his relationship with Tiger Woods, whom he coached for six years.

The lawsuit alleges the Tour forced its Superstores and other shops to cancel orders of Haney’s book, directed the Golf Channel in 2013 to discontinue Haney’s TV show, the “Haney Project,” and convinced sponsors to discontinue relationships with Haney.

Last May, Haney was originally suspended, then dismissed at the Tour’s instruction, from his radio show with Steve Johnson due to insensitive comments he made about the potential winner of the U.S. Women’s Open.

HANEY: Remarks about Korean golfers ‘based on statistics and facts’
TIGER: Hank Haney got what he deserved

Haney, who instructed more than 200 tour professionals throughout his career, issued an apology after facing backlash in the media and from players. His lawsuit states SiriusXM accepted the apology and agreed there would be minimal, if any, consequences.

The lawsuit claims that his dismissal “cost [Haney] advertising revenues that would have amounted to millions of dollars over the life of the agreement.”

As part of his deal with Sirius, which was signed in November 2017 and was set to continue until Feb. 15, 2021, Haney received $250,000 per year plus a percentage of the advertising revenue generated by the program.

Since his dismissal, Haney has a new podcast on iHeart Radio.

 

Hank Haney files lawsuit against PGA Tour after radio show firing

Haney says PGA Tour wanted to “settle an old score” against him in a lawsuit filed after he was fired from a Sirius radio show.

Hank Haney is taking on the PGA Tour.

The former golf coach and current on-air personality filed a lawsuit against the PGA Tour, Inc. Wednesday morning in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Haney is seeking damages for harm he says the PGA Tour caused by allegedly interfering with his show on SiriusXM’s PGA Tour Radio station.

In his lawsuit, Haney claims the PGA Tour had “long-standing animus” toward him dating from a desire to “settle an old score” relating to his 2012 book, The Big Miss, about his relationship with Tiger Woods, whom he coached for six years.

After a controversy surrounding the U.S. Women’s Open, Haney was originally suspended, then dismissed from his show with Steve Johnson due to insensitive comments about the potential winner of the Open:

Johnson: “This week is the 74th U.S. Women’s Open, Hank.”

Haney: “Oh it is? I’m gonna predict a Korean.”

Johnson, laughing: “OK, that’s a pretty safe bet.”

Haney: “I couldn’t name you six players on the LPGA Tour. Maybe I could. Well … I’d go with Lee. If I didn’t have to name a first name, I’d get a bunch of them right.”

The lawsuit claims that his firing “cost [Haney] advertising revenues that would have amounted to millions of dollars over the life of the agreement.”

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