Advertisement

Former Sean Foley protege thinks Tiger Woods should leave his coach 'on the range'

Shane Bacon

While Tiger Woods was starting his round at the PGA Championship, a former protege of Tiger's swing coach had some advice for the most recognizable golfer on the planet.

Parker McLachlin, a former PGA Tour champion, thinks Woods should drop Sean Foley and fast, pointing to the struggles Woods has had off the tee the last few years.

The words might come off harsh, but McLachlin lived through the ups and downs of working with Foley, starting with the swing coach in the fall of 2008 and ending his relationship with Foley at the end of 2010.

McLachlin thinks the issues with Woods' golf swing have a lot to do with the work he's done with Foley, and isn't out to attack his former teacher, more give advice for a man he loves watching play golf.

"I'm a Tiger fan, so it's hard for me to watch the most talented golfer of all time be so confused about where the ball is going," McLachlin told Yahoo.

As Kyle Porter over at CBS points out, Foley actually spoke of his work with McLachlin in a Golf Digest story in 2011, saying, "The biggest mistake a teacher can make with a tour pro is to change the grip. I learned the hard way with Parker McLachlin."

McLachlin isn't the only person in golf that thinks Woods has made a mistake with Foley. Paul Azinger, joining the Mighty 1090 show (audio right here), talked Tiger and his struggles on the golf course. Azinger thinks it's the instruction that has been a big problem for Tiger the last few years.

"His instruction, I just feel is way off base at this point. For him to have a two-way miss and not be able to fix it ... I've never been the player that Tiger Woods has been, but I never had a two-way miss, at least nothing that ever lasted more than a day. If a player can eliminate one side of the golf course, and generally right-handed players want to eliminate left, it's easy to eliminate left if you have proper instruction, if someone is giving you good advice.

"It's as simple as this; if you know you can't hit it left, why would you ever miss it to the right? That's all it is at this level for us. If you know you can't hook it, if you know you can't pull it, why would you ever miss it to the right? Tiger has to get back to that, but he's playing golf swing, he's playing mechanics.

The only way Tiger can suffer a two-way miss for this length of time is he is not being fed good information. If you can't fix Tiger Woods in 5 to 10 minutes, you're telling him wrong, and for him to listen to it, and for him to not know this, is shocking to me."

The issue that a lot of people forgetting is how stubborn Tiger can be. His own caddie, Joe LaCava, mentioned this week that "tough and stubborn would be two good words" to describe Tiger, so maybe he just thinks that with this instruction and his ability he will just be able to figure it out at some point.

And let us not forget that a healthy Tiger Woods won five times last year and was the PGA Tour Player of the Year, so when his back isn't giving him problems he still has the ability to dominate no matter how bad he's missing it off the tee, but I tend to agree with both McLachlin and Azinger on Tiger's golf swing.

When you eliminate one side of the golf course as a pro, you make the game very easy, and right now, Woods doesn't know where it's going when he stands on the tee.

That makes the game tougher than it should be, and we're seeing that this week at Valhalla, as Woods struggled to an opening round 74 that saw him miss some drives by 30 and 40 yards on his back nine.

More PGA coverage:

- - - - - - -

Shane Bacon is the editor of Devil Ball Golf and Busted Racquet on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shanebaconblogs@yahoo.com or