Hank Haney Writes Book About Tiger

Hank Haney has written a book, "The Big Miss", about the six years he spent as Tiger Woods’ swing coach. “I get asked all the time about Tiger, what it was like to work with him,” Haney said in a telephone interview. “I felt like I had a front row seat to golf history. It just kind of chronicles a little bit of what I went through, what I dealt with, how I coached and the observations I made.” Haney began working with Woods at the Bay Hill Invitational in 2004, and ended a month after the 2010 Masters. Most of the people involved with Woods have signed a nondisclosure agreement. Haney said he signed no such thing—“I didn’t even have a contract,” he said—although he said the book was not intended to “take jabs at anyone.” Haney was asked whether he thought Woods will like it. “If he reads it, I don’t think it will be a book that bothers him. It’s hard to say,” Haney said. “Anybody who reads it will think it’s interesting, very fair and honest, and that’s what I wanted to do. I was on that job for six years. There were 110 days a year I was with him. I stayed at his house for close to 30 days a year. You make a lot of observations.” “The period of time that I dealt with Tiger was much more unique, in terms of having the scandal, Torrey Pines with the broken leg at the U.S. Open, other things, too,” Haney said. “It was a totally different time.” As for the serial adultery, Haney said he didn’t know about it and doesn’t delve into that chapter of Woods’ life in the book, except for his return from the scandal after going nearly five months without competition. “It’s something you can’t NOT talk about it,” Haney said. “My last tournament was the Masters, and that was his first tournament back from the scandal. I didn’t know anything about the girls. That’s not something I could specifically comment on. Everything I comment on is what I observed and the facts I knew. I didn’t know anything about that. “But I did know about how he interacted with me about that, what my observations were and other areas in terms of how I dealt with and the aftermath.” Haney said he knew all along he would be writing a book. Haney said he hasn’t seen the finished product, but “we’re very close.” “It was an incredible opportunity,” Haney said. “We had a great run and I enjoyed it, but a lot of things happened in six years that made it feel a little longer. I had a lot of great observations from being in the position I was in.”