From 1993 to 2004 Tiger Woods became the greatest golfer the world has seen while working with coach Butch Harmon.
The pair of them never settled for second best.
And in 1997 they rebuilt Woods’ swing.
It was to prove fruitful because once the swing was grooved Woods dominated the game like no-one has since, but it was hard work getting there.
In this video there is no hiding how much Woods hated a drill that Harmon insisted upon.
“This is a drill that I absolutely could not stand,” he says and practically spits out the follow-up: “And still can’t stand.”
Woods demonstrates the drill: “Take the club up to the top, and stop, and then come down, and hit the shot.
“This is a drill that he made me do for hours upon hours. We were out there sweating, it’s was 100 degrees out there, we were both working pretty hard, and it was something I needed to do.”
While Woods gets over the terrible memories of those hours of practice, Harmon takes over to explain his methods.
“The whole key was to get him in a position at the top where he just felt that as he transferred his weight, his arms would fall down in front of him.”
Here’s where it gets interesting, though, because there is a lesson to be learned.
“This is good for the average golfer who is watching,” says Harmon.
“Here’s a guy who’s the best player in the world, who hits more balls than anybody on the planet, and it’s taken him over a year to feel comfortable with that move.
“Even though he’s hitting thousands of balls where a recreational golfer takes one lesson of 30 minutes from their local PGA pro and they figure they’ve got it!
“That tells you how hard you’ve got to work at this game.
“This man works harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. Greg Norman worked harder than anyone I’d seen until Tiger came along and he works even harder than Greg did.
“And to be good at any level you have to put in the time. You have to work.”
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