One of the most pressing topics among today's golf media is the relationship between Tiger Woods and his new swing coach, Sean Foley. Almost no one writing on this subject believes Woods is on the right track with Foley; instead, the condemnation is almost universal that Foley is not the right guy. Pundits as diverse as Peter Kessler on XM Radio (who never played professionally) and Golf Channel's Brandel Chamblee (who did play professionally) are on record as being skeptical, to say the least, of Foley's work with Woods.Woods recently addresses these critics, saying he's seeing progress and the whole thing is a "process." He pointed out that when he first changed his swing under Butch Harmon after winning the 1997 Masters, pundits were saying what a mistake it was because he stopped winning and dominating at the same rate. He also noted that the same reaction and chain of events occurred when he started working under Hank Haney. Well, we all know how those turned out. Woods had one of the most dominating stretches in the history of the game after re-tooling his swing under Harmon, and he continued to win tournaments and majors under Haney's tutelage.Based on past history, it is reasonable to believe that Woods will return to his winning, and perhaps dominating, ways shortly. Once he gets Foley's changes down, it would be surprising not to see Woods back as the world's number one player. And, there is a lesson in this for all of us as teachers that we can impart to our students. Many are understandably impatient when it comes to progress after or during a series of lessons. But, we can use arguably the most gifted golfer ever as a prime example. If Woods, with all his talent and abilities and time to work on the game, can accept that improvement is a process and takes time and there will sometimes be steps backwards, then hopefully our students can understand this, as well.
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