Tiger Woods likes to keep those around him on their toes, so they’re never quite sure of where they stand or how firm their footing is in his world.
Hank Haney, his erstwhile coach, privately would complain Woods often deliberately hit bad shots on the driving range before a tournament round, just to rankle him, test his mettle.
“You’ve really got to understand that life’s a game to Tiger,” a Woods insider says.
And it seemed he was playing mind games in the aftermath of the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, when he appeared to throw his caddie, Steve Williams, under the proverbial bus.
“I fired at the pin on 10,” Woods said in describing one of six Sunday bogeys that cost him a 15th major. “Steve said, ‘Take dead aim right at it,’ and in my heart I said no. There was no chance.
“I went against my own … instincts.”
Woods complained of “three mental errors” that cost him a fourth U.S. Open. It wasn’t clear whether they were his errors or he thought they were made by his caddie of 11 years.
At the time, I thought Woods was just frustrated after a disappointing afternoon.
But others — knowing Woods isn’t in the habit of criticizing Williams — read the tea leaves to say the New Zealander was on his way out of Team Tiger.
I never thought that was going to happen, but I twice gave Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg, the chance to set the record straight on the relationship between Woods and Williams.
He didn’t respond — a reflection of how little things have changed in the wake of the sex scandal.
On Tuesday, Woods said there was “no tension there, not at all” between him and Williams, who’s on his bag again this week at the AT&T National in Philadelphia.
“You guys are reading way too much into it,” he told journalists. “I was asked what happened (in the final round at Pebble Beach), and I made three mental mistakes out there, three mistakes I don't normally make.
“Do Stevie and I make mistakes on the golf course? Of course, we do. We're not perfect. We made mistakes at the wrong time. It happens. It is what it is. We're great competitors, and we both want to win. I just made a couple mistakes, and hopefully that won't happen this week and we can win an event.”
So Williams can sleep easier, if there ever is any easy sleeping in Tiger’s world.
Certainly, Haney didn’t do much given his latest revelations about life inside Tiger’s world.
In a long interview with Golf Digest, Haney reveals there’s no place for insecure personalities around Woods.
"I don't want to throw Tiger under the bus," Haney said several times. "He's still my friend."
I’m not sure Woods would feel the same way after reading the interview.
“It didn’t get dysfunctional,” Haney said of his relationship with the world‘s No. 1. “It was always dysfunctional.”
Haney acknowledges what was an open secret after the Masters: that he’d been cut off by Woods, even though Woods kept telling the media that Haney was still his coach.
“I talked to him only two times after (Augusta),” Haney says. “That was his way of blaming me.”
Haney also details behavior he calls dysfunctional.
“I sent him an e-mail on everything I thought he should do and work on. I got no acknowledgement at all, but that wasn't unusual,” the swing instructor says.
“Then it got to the point where I didn't know what he was doing or thinking. Yet the whole time he was telling the media I was still his teacher and that I was going to continue to be his teacher and I was talking to him every night.”
The interview is just as revelatory about Haney, who is widely considered to be too thin-skinned.
“Even when he won majors, I never enjoyed it for more than one day,” he says. “Or one night. Often, the morning after he'd won a major, I'd wake up and my mind would just be spinning, thinking of what he had to do to get better. Remember the stretch when he won seven tournaments in a row? I remember wondering, 'How much time has this bought me? How long can he go without winning before they're on me again? Two weeks, a month?' And I knew if he didn't win a major, it would be even worse.”
Even though Haney did officially jump in May as Woods’ coach before he was not as much pushed as left to twist in the wind, there’s a discernable bitterness in him about how the relationship ended.
Asked by the magazine whether Woods was generous, Haney responded cryptically.
“Generosity is relative,” he says. “I don't have anything signed by Tiger, no. Not one thing.”
More disturbing given Woods’ boyhood dream to eclipse Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors is Haney’s view that Woods isn’t as committed to his game, perhaps because of the secret party life he’d been living.
“In the last few years, he hasn't worked at it quite as hard as he did before,” Haney says. “I don't know if it's because of the knee or other activities or what.”
In the end, Haney sees the man he spent six years alongside as unknowable.
“Tiger's different. I'm sure that's why he's the golfer he is. I don't take that personally. It's not for me to judge how he should be,” he says.
“I always felt like I knew Tiger from observing him. I did not feel like I knew him from knowing him.”
