Tiger's equipment secrets

Tiger Woods - reveals his swing secrets

Tiger Woods has been revealing some of the secrets of the equipment he uses and his philosophy about his golf swing and how it emerged.

It coincided with his equipment manufacturer, nike, launching its new 360 Fitting System for customising clubs to provide golfers with a Tour-level fitting experience.

Last year at the US Masters when you broke your 4-iron (on the 11th) there was a lot of talk about somebody running in and getting you a replacement and bringing it out. What sort of extra equipment do you take with you when you are at a tournament and how likely are you to maybe switch something in between rounds?

TIGER WOODS: No, no one brought anything out. When I go to tournaments I always bring a back-up putter, wedges, fairway woods and driver and they're always sitting in my locker. I don't really carry a back-up set of irons. I don't really foresee myself breaking any irons.

But my wedges are slightly different for different conditions, different grasses, different bunkers, things like that. And then obviously my 2-iron, I've got a couple of different 2-irons with different lofts, one for like a 'British' Open, one for normal tournaments. My fairway woods are slightly different lofts, depending on how windy it is or carry distance, what I need for the week. And then driver. I always carry a back-up just in case I crack it.

Q. In the last few years with all the technological changes that have been going through, how much do you change your clubs when you take one or two or three out of your bag at a time, and what is your philosophy on not wanting or wanting to make a bunch of changes with your equipment?

TW: I change wedges probably a little more frequently. The amount of practising I'm doing on my short game, the amount of bunker shots I hit, I'll wear down my grooves pretty quickly. I change my full set of irons probably nine or 10 months. Because of the nature of my warm-up and practice sessionsI go sand wedge, 8-iron, so my 8-iron gets a lot of pounding. And then my 7-iron, 6-iron, 9-iron seem to be like practice clubs. I'll eventually start hitting some hot balls. The grooves will start getting a little worn, just the nature of the amount of balls I hit.

How has technology elevated your game through the years?

TW: The game has changed so much, I mean, from the first tournament I ever won in Las Vegas. I remember playing against Davis Love in a play-off. He used a persimmon driver, so time has changed even in my era. It's amazing how the standard shafts of golf clubs has gone from 43.5 (inches) to now 45 and 45+ in length. Everybody had steel shaft; now no one has a steel-shafted driver. The drivers back when I was growing up were I think smaller than the 3-woods nowadays.

Things have changed. Things have gravitated towards the average golfer and has made the average golfer play golf better; made it easier and more enjoyable. I think that's why people are actually probably shooting better scores than they used to, because obviously the game of golf has become a little bit easier. But it's still hard.

Then again, golf courses have become designed harder, a lot more difficult now. Bunkers are deeper, golf courses are a lot longer than what I ever grew up playing. I remember back when I was young, a long par-4 was 420 yards. That was a long hole. Now in every US Open there's a par-4 over 500 yards. That's just the way it is; it's changed.

Q. You once said that Moe Norman and Ben Hogan were the two guys that owned their golf swings and you wanted to be the third. Where does equipment fit into that equation?

TW: Well, obviously you have to have sound mechanics and you have to have a golf swing that's repeatable day in and day out, but having equipment that obviously fits you and fits your personality. There's no way that Hogan could have swung with Moe Norman's clubs and vice versa. I could never swing with Jack's clubs and he couldn't swing with mine. Everyone's equipment is going to be slightly different.

But it's finding that equipment that enhances your skills and how you believe you should play. That's the trick of it. And having the availability of all the Nike staff here to help me along the way, as I said earlier, helped me understand numbers.

I understand feel, but I didn't understand the numbers behind it. They've shown me just a ton of detail how I could get better and they've enhanced that. They've enhanced my ability to understand how to fix things. That's why I said, with my back-up clubs I have variances in style of play because I didn't understand that before. I would just do it with my hands. But now equipment allows me to do it, as well.

The latest Nike Sumo range of drivers, hybrids and fairway metals

Any thoughts of putting a hybrid in the bag?

TW: I can still hit my 2-iron halfway decent.

You know what? I can see that happening because in my teens I used a 1-iron, in my '20s a 2-iron, and now as soon as I turned 30 I put a 5-wood in. So obviously 40 will be a hybrid or a 7-wood. Senior Tour will be some kind of 9-wood or some kind of 11-thing (laughter). Maybe my bag will start looking like Allen Doyle's !

Belly putter on the way?

TW: Belly putter, cross-handed saw grip (laughter).

You've said many times that you love playing links golf courses and you enjoy shaping the ball and moving the ball around. Can you talk about that?

TW: The golf ball and, obviously, construction of the golf ball and the golf clubs allows you to hit the ball so much straighter than ever before, especially on miss-hits. I've occasionally hit the persimmon driver that I grew up with and I hit it probably only 10 or 15 yards behind my driver. But when I miss-hit it, it's like hitting 3-iron out there, and it goes absolutely nowhere. That's the biggest difference.

But shaping the golf ball now is not like how (Lee) Trevino used to shape it or Chi-Chi (Rodriguez) - both ways. Shaping the golf ball basically means changing trajectory now because the golf ball goes so much straighter.

It used to be if you drew a ball, you drew it early, it was never late, and then it would fade and fall right. Now, if you notice, it draws and straightens out or fades and straightens out, so the game has changed. I think manoeuvering the golf ball now is basically changing trajectory.

When you were a kid and your dad was fitting you, with different clubs did he have that kind of knowledge? Or was he just one of those kind of equipment guys that wanted to know as much about it as he could?

TW: I think I got that from my dad, a little bit nerdy in that sense. He felt he was average build ( 5ft 9 in) and had average arm length. They did a ratio, with my height and arm length and came out with certain numbers and length of clubs.

As I grew we would add extensions in there, but as I told dad that would throw my weighting off, I had a counterbalance effect to it. We only would do that basically every half inch I would grow, add a counter balance to it, and then we'd have to reshaft them. So that's kind of how we did it. He created this whole ratio thing that worked out, and I didn't have to make adjustments where I saw the other kids did.

The only difference between what's available now and what I grew up with was he had X shafts. Well, X shafts cut down to this length is like a quintuple X, you know? So I had to generate all my speed, all my power myself. I didn't have any help with the shaft. Nowadays kids can have lighter graphite shafts that actually will play very similar if not identical to what we play as adults. That would be the only difference between how I grew up and how the kids are growing up now.

When did you stop doing that system with your dad?

TW: Probably 13.

This is the longest break of your career. How long before you took your clubs out? How did it feel when you started swinging again?

TW: I put them away right after Presidents Cup and I didn't basically do anything until this past week.

First day, I hit it like a god, okay? Next day I hit it like a 5-handicapper, third day is like an 18, and then the next week or two I'll try and get back to hopefully a zero-handicapper. That's kind of the progress.

I don't know why it's like that. I always start off hitting it great and then have this immediate fall-off, start thinking about my game and it goes all to pieces and then I've got to build it back up again. So it's kind of fun.

What do you think this will do for you next week at your tournament (the Target World Challenge)?

TW: I think it's the freshness. That's one of the reasons I don't play as much as a lot of the guys. I enjoy being mentally fresh. This time I got a chance to work on my body and get it stronger than I've ever had it, which is fun, and I haven't put on any weight, which has been great. I've leaned up a little bit. I've never had an off-season. I've never taken an off-season.

Most guys gear up during the off-season and get their bodies ready for a season and then hopefully maintain it and have a little bit of a fall-off throughout their season.

Since we play all year-round, we're always in a continual maintenance phase. You never get a chance to make big gains. Well, I finally got a chance this off-season and it's been fun. I'm looking forward to getting back out and competing. This past week I started really missing getting out there and trying to beat people. Anybody at Isleworth who wants a game, we'll go out there and play, and hopefully the cash goes my way.

How often would you change your shafts compared to the actual clubs and how important is the shaft for your game?

TW: That's a very good question. I have played exactly the same se-tup in my irons since I was about 14. X-1s tipped a quarter. I haven't changed in 17 years. Irons have been exactly the same. Driver shaft is obviously different, 43.5 to now a 45-inch graphite, but I haven't changed a thing in my irons.

It doesn't mean I haven't tried. I've experimented with other shafts, but I've got this innate feel now built in for all these years of what has been working for me.

What are your iron specs? Are you making any changes to your equipment this year?

TW: No, same irons as of right now. I just put a backup set in because towards the end of The Tour Championship and Presidents Cup I started hitting my 8-iron a little hot. It was almost like, basically, a 7.5-iron, so I had to get that set out. But as far as changing anything, no, I have not found anything yet.

V-grooves? How much are you working with Nike on to adjust your game for the future?

TW: I think it'll be a simpler adjustment for me than most guys because my golf ball spins a little bit more than most of the other players. So going to V-grooves, I wouldn't have a problem at all. Some of the other guys who play harder golf balls might have to make a bigger adjustment. I think the biggest adjustment to be made obviously as everyone can see is out of the rough.

You don't really hit fliers. A lot of times out of the first cut is when you can actually spin the ball more than out of the fairway. It'll be interesting to see how guys - if or when the V-grooves get passed - attack par-4s or short par-4s and par-5s. Wow aggressive are they going to get because now that spin has changed, especially at harder venues like a U.S. Open or some of the other tournaments that have made the greens much firmer, what are they going to do? It'll be interesting to see strategy-wise how that changes.

How important is it to try to get average golfers to play the right equipment?

TW: Well, ego (laughter). We all feel that we should swing with driver specifically, less loft, stiffer shafts than we ever should. I mean, how hard has it been to get people to switch to hybrids? It's all ego-based. Obviously if you can change that perception, I think that's when you start seeing improvement in your game.

But sometimes you need help. That's why we have the fitting system, to actually prove it to you that this is the way you need to go. I remember last time we did a demo one of the guys grabbed a driver. I said 'What driver do you want to use?' I had one with an extra stiff shaft, one with a stiff shaft. He said, 'extra stiff.' Whatever. First drive he slices it off into the road. I mean, how can you miss an airport? But he missed the entire airport and sliced it on the road. I thought, maybe you'd want to go to a stiff shaft. It's proving it to them that's the biggest challenge.

Do you think we're getting to a point with equipment, about where we need to be? Do you think that 10 or 15 years from now we'll still be talking about a football-shaped driver that is revolutionizing the game? Or do you still think there's a lot of work to be done?

TW: If you would have asked me five years ago I thought we were getting pretty close to the limit. But then all of a sudden we have these innovations that take us to another level and actually lead the industry down a certain path. I never would have foreseen that happening. Even back in '99 and 2000 people thought that the wound ball was the way to go. Now here we are with a solid construction ball and no one has a wound golf ball anymore. That's within seven years, our entire industry has changed.

How is it going to be 15 years from now? I don't know, it'll be interesting to see where it goes because I never would have foreseen us going to, as a whole, going to a square-shaped driver other than what we've all been accustomed to, the pear-shaped driver look. Physics works, and anything to help people play better we're going to do.

You mentioned you brought feel to the equation and then all these numbers came to be. Do you have a specific example maybe of how those numbers helped to correct you with something or how your feel told you something and then the numbers gave you something totally different?

TW: Let's go back to drivers. If I hit a certain shot, let's say if I want to hit one in play, and I hit kind of a low spinny fade, I was always curious as to why sometimes this golf ball went further than I ever thought even a normal drive would. And then on the launch monitor I actually would launch it lower, I would take spin off, so I actually would hit a hotter golf ball. I never understood why. I would hit this low bullet out there. Okay, cool, it went a lot further than it should have. Well, it's understanding that and how I can manipulate that spin with the driver and how to keep the ball in play, or how to take spin off with my 3-wood.

These things I never really understood. Wedges, for instance, I never knew why we're actually spinning the golf ball more out of the first cut of rough with these grooves than we do out of the fairway. Why is that? Obviously, the data shows why. You don't understand these things as a player, you just feel them and you see it, you understand it, you adapt to it. But it's nice to have knowledge that backs it up so you don't feel crazy. It's like, I'm doing things I really probably shouldn't do; why? Then all of a sudden you have an answer, and it's nice to have that answer, it really is.

It's comforting because down the stretch on Sunday, you can see a certain shot. If I hit it this way, it's going to do this. No surprises. We don't want any surprises out there on Tour.

Should there be a standardised ball?

TW: I don't see how we can get the entire industry to believe and go with that. There will be some serious fighting going on if that's the case. That's what separates us from all the other sports is that we have a lot more options.

It could happen. Augusta has threatened to do it but they just lengthened the golf course so we're playing from downtown Augusta. We'll see what happens down the road. If you asked me 15 years down the road, that might be the case; I don't know.

Would you be in favour?

TW: I wouldn't be against it if it was a spinny ball (laughter).