[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] well let me explain something when i go through my my warm-up routine for a tournament let's say this week at the american express championship i will start off with my sand wedge and i'll progress to my eight iron mar four iron three wood driver and i'll go back to my eight iron hit a couple sixties and then i will hit whatever i'm going to hit on the first tee whether it's two iron three or driver whatever it is i'll try and rehearse what i'm gonna do on the first tee and if i from all the way to the point where i'm pulling the club out of the bag go through my whole routine if i hit a poor shot i do it again so when i get to the first tee so i can always say to myself well i just did it about 15 minutes ago i know i can go ahead and hit the shot right down the pipe i got my eight iron here i have to hit a couple sand wedges my arm i normally hit about 158 yards [Music] now you say normally does that mean you're swinging a hundred percent and your radar to get at 158 my irons i generally swing at about 80 percent most of my clubs and then occasionally i'll either crank it up or crank it down depending on the shot but this is being in the wind you know just a normal 8 iron should go maybe 151 150 somewhere around there [Music] i believe what makes tiger so good is just his trust in himself you know he we all know he's a great player but he just has trust and belief in himself he practices hard and when he gets to any kind of difficult shot or any shot he just trusts himself and he has a complete 100 trust in his ability back in 97 um i made a concerted effort after i'd watched my swing at augusta even though i i'd played well i didn't like the way it uh it really looked it was a kind of cross the line shut and i was swinging all out in order to try and keep up with the club and get it square so i decided to work on my swing dial it back and and really gain some control over my game because day in and day out um i didn't really have a whole lot of control honestly tiger is a very uh anal person who uh likes to be in control and if he doesn't feel he's in control i think he that makes him antsy and so when he decided to change his swing i think you know he took it upon him so it was a big challenge for him to to prove to himself and others that you know he could take it to the next level to a higher level and i think the results speak for themselves i'll go back to my old swing for you i'll show you the difference you know that that right there this one is the reason why i couldn't really control a golf shot i mean i could hit it over here i could hit over there i couldn't be precise and i watched a lot of the guys on tour play and i found that everyone had perfect distance control my buddy marco mira i've played with so many rounds of golf and he just always seemed to be around pin high and he said you know the key to golf is always being pin high if european high on each and every shot you're not going to be too far off and i took that to heart and i've tried to work on that and even to this day when i'm swinging well i'll be walking on the green i tell stevie hey pen hi baby you know so i'm that's one of my big things is always trying to be hit that number that i'm always trying to hit whatever it may be you saw my natural shot is primarily a little draw but i'm swinging well it's about a one or two yard draw uh i'll hit a nice little hook for you i start the ball with his people here on the right the media hey i'm a trained pro hey don't aim for the media don't nothing why not all right i'll start the ball at this big tree over here right at this right of the jumbotron and i'll hook it over to the 150 yard sign with an 8-iron it's very simple all you have to do is just close the club face hit as hard as you can and really release the heck out of it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he can hit one shot at a time to the best of his ability more often than anybody else on the planet and there might be other guys get the ball farther than him or straighter him and maybe even have more shots than he has but he hits every shot to the best of his ability more often than everyone else and that results in lower scores and a lot of trophies [Music] what i've found with hitting long irons the biggest thing that i'm always focusing on is making solid club contact and it may sound simple it may sound kind of repetitive you may hear it from a lot of different people but what i've found if i can hit the ball solid with a long iron it'll it'll go the right distance it'll bore through the wind and a lot of times when i'm swinging poorly i'll get away from mechanics and i'll just focus on just hit the ball solid for a while just go ahead and just make solid club contact and we'll just kind of figure it out from there my foreign usually goes about 212 yards as you can see most of my shots here are drawing if i want to hit a fade one of the things that i will do is that in order to hit a draw or fade i'll try and keep it very simple i try and keep the club face pointed at the target and line up my body to wherever i want the ball start out at and swing my body along i swing my club along that path and let the club head do the work for me so let's say if i wanted to fade i'll line up on the 200 with my face line up left my body let's say it's a jumbotron i know and then swing along my body line let the club face cut the ball for me now if i want to hit one low a nice little flat ball out there what i'll do is i'll put the ball back in my stance more towards my right foot i'll scoot in a little bit closer to the ball that allows me to feel as if i'm more on top of the ball i can cover it more more with my right shoulder kind of squeeze and hit it flat what i also try and do is try and feel the emblem on my glove goes at the target as long as i can keep it going there and because i have a neutral grip it's very simple to do because if you have a strong grip you'd be very difficult if you're trying to get the emblem or glove going at the target you hit a straight left if you had a weak grip you hit it right it's one of the benefits to having a neutral grip so i'll put it back in my stance stand a little closer to the ball [Music] try and get the envelope on my glove going right at the target as long as possible [Music] this game is always evolving our our court our field of play it always changes and it changes every day one day may be dry one day it may be soft and because it rained or might have a little dew on the ground windy all these all these different variables happen and you have to adjust you have to be so adaptable uh at any moment because it can change and your game plan changes too you gotta be flexible in your game plan and your mental strategy evolves as the day goes along what kind of advice for bunker shots with an iron would you would you give players as amateurs try to improve their game well i think it's very important to to stay level and as you dig in in the bunker try and get your stance more set what you find is that you're obviously going to be a little bit lower than you normally are and obviously i choke down because of that i take one more club and what i really try and feel on each and every fairway bunker shot i really try and feel as my chin never goes down on my downswing i have a tendency to kind of squat this is one of my tendencies one of my things i fight so i try and feel as if i stay tall throughout the entire shot where i can go ahead and pick it right out of the sand with as little grain as possible moving as i dig in i'll choke down i really try and feel as if my chin stays tall stays very high [Applause] bunker shots used to practice you know hitting pitch shots three houses down um from the home he grew up in in cypress california there was a park just down the street and he would go over and and hit pitch shots over a jungle gym where his father would train him when he was a young boy still under the age of 10 to hit wedge shots flop shots over his father fearless earl woods fearlessly earl woods would stand there and teach his his son to hit shots over him right looking right in his face okay i hit a high one here for you a nice high eight iron if i want to hit one higher well first of all i'll show you a normal eight iron again [Music] that's just my normal flight with an 8-iron now if i want to hit one higher what i do is i put the ball up in my stance which is more towards my left toe if not off my left toe [Music] i drop my right foot back just a little bit which puts my head further behind the ball i really try and feel as if the emblem on my glove again this time goes towards the sky was up towards the sky not at the target but up at the sky which helped me get the ball in the air [Music] there we go first time i saw him hit was just amazing i mean this guy can hit first of all any shot you want to hit the way the ball comes out the face is extraordinary i love to just watch him hit i mean i love the rhythm of a swing just you know seems like a picture perfect shot every time he has that sense of enthusiasm and just a an unbridled joy especially when he plays well you can see he gets such a buzz out of it you can almost see the gooseflesh stand up on the back of his neck and in his forearms he lives for this stuff he loves the game tiger's got a phenomenal short game and you know he's worked very hard on that and uh you know he relies on what he has to rely on and back uses his backup to to do what he has to do to win i have to say the routine is probably the most important thing in putting or any golf shot because he kind of just focus on the routine and not necessarily the result and my routine as i said a 36 degree walk around the hole as i step up into it i've actually already got my ball lined up where i wanted to start with the side stamp i walk up to it i'll take one look i'll take two practice strokes one and as i start the downswing on the second practice stroke i'll start looking up and get a feel of putting to the picture i'll explain that in a little bit put the club behind the ball one look set my stance two looks pot [Music] there you go [Applause] [Music] no one you know my dad had a very creative way of explaining to a little child distance you know i see people step off putts you know one two three four five okay it's a 15 foot putt i need a 15 foot stroke i wouldn't have a clue what a 15 foot stroke is but i do know this my father taught me as a little boy says he couldn't explain to a three-year-old what the difference is a mile or an inch what he did was every look i take from the ball is a picture so i take the picture of that right there one and my second look i take another picture get up over the ball i look i take a last picture and then all i do is think about is putting to the picture and that really helps free up your mind you don't have to worry about distance because all i'm doing is putting to the picture and i'm telling you what down the stretch in tournaments when i'm really nervous it may not look like it but i'll tell you what i'm i get pretty nervous out there um i will i will go back to that i'll say okay come on tiger just put to the picture just like pop used to say there's some days some weeks you're gonna have maybe you're driving your weakness or something least your product is your weakness or sometime your iron pleasure you've got to rely on what you have to have the driver yeah what about it the peep the one people always want to talk about i hit it short and straight that's me are guys really hitting it farther than you now oh yeah i'm getting old [Music] pretty much i'm not what i used to be well how do you manage just to push it around old man to contend with these young guys no but you know the guys are working out now the guys are getting stronger all the young kids coming on now you know i hit it to hit a long ways but they eventually start throttling back a little bit but trying to get more control but a lot of college college kids hit it so much further than we do on tour it's scary they're all all just pounding it which you know i did davis love did fred couples did we all did back in college but on tour with the rough being as high and fair was narrower you start throttling back to try and get the ball in play so let me show you a nice normal drive here [Music] what is a nice normal drive that one just like that i can't see that far i'm getting old all i can see is the platinum card at 250.
I can't see beyond that 300 out there somewhere my normal drive goes about a little over 290 and um it's a little bit in the wind so i've been doing well to get to that sign [Music] sorry bug tiger swing has always been is he about is he comfortable on the follow-through and when he's comfortable on the follow-through when he's upright and you know looking at the target whatever that's that's when he's going to play well that's when he's going to win by 8 or 12. when you stop your swing especially on the t whether it's a camera clicking or a noise or something else that distracts you yeah well it's just like baseball it's a check swing didn't like it start again it's a little harder to stop though why there's a little more momentum going no the torque of your body up here yeah it's the same thing concept-wise isn't it it is no but i've i've always been able to do it and i think that's from from playing baseball sometimes it hurts i stop it so late it puts a lot of strain on my elbow and my shoulder i'm stopping it so late and holding on so hard that sometimes it does hurt a little bit as part of part of championship golf now more so than ever before are more distractions because there are more people out there now there are more cameras um you know golf has become louder and it's it's it's changed it's evolved and there are more distractions so you have to understand that and accept that let me hit to a shot that i'll hit you know down a stretch in a tournament if i'm trying to get a ball in play um i'll go to a what i call like a little trap fade a low low fade what i'll do is i'll screw it a little bit closer to the ball maybe you know half an inch three quarters of an inch and i will actually try and hit the ball i will try and do this hit the ball a little bit on the heel i was always taught by my old pro my old pros from the with the old persimmon drivers hit the ball in the heel it'll be a heel cut i'll start off the left and always cut back and i've always tried to always try to do that let's get a little closer to the ball put it on the heel just hit a nice little heel cut a little low cut out there [Applause] [Music] and you'll go to that something to rely on something to roll on something get the ball in play it's going to be further than my 3-wood say if that's in the wind and you know long par four and i can't quite hit three wood but i'm also uh [Music] uncomfortable on the whole so i'll just go to that shot it's not gonna go as far as the ones i've been hitting but it's gonna be in play and that's the name of the game now if i want to bomb one hit a little bit further what i'll do is i'll tee the ball up a little higher just a touch and what i'll try and do is obviously i'll speed up my swing those swings that you saw right there about 80 and i'll crank it up to about 90 percent maybe even 95 at times depends on how comfortable i feel that day what i'll do is i'll i'll put my head further behind the ball i don't mean by putting my head behind the ball like this okay what i'll do is i'll take my right foot and drop it back an inch down the target line which naturally puts my head back that much more which allows me a little bit more time to release the club more full and get more distance out of it something like this [Music] what i think makes tiger the best player in the world is his ability to stay in the present he has this ability to hit one shot at a time with no future or no past like i've never seen anybody do that he can be distracted but when it comes time to hit his next shot he's 100 into that shot and i really think that's what makes the difference i just take great pride in what i do that's all and i guess because i take great pride in what i do i'm gonna give it everything i got you know in order for me to give it everything i have i have to block everything out and get into my own little world in order to do that and that's what i have found to be successful for me [Music] people thought this was computer generated i'm here to tell you that is not the case and all it stems from is back when i used to grow up at hartwell golf park because it really got bored when you also used to always play hacky sack and do all the things i always try to get to a thousand bounces well your right arm really gets sore so i learned to go lefty just for a little while trying to get my right ear break [Music] there we go [Applause] [Music] you can't play the perfect game in golf um what you can do is you can beat it to a certain extent my dad always said that par is is a playing field it's what par is 72 71 70 whatever part may be on that particular course well anything under par you beat the golf course [Music] [Music] you