The practice sessions Tiger has today follow much the same formula as they did in his youth. If he is working on his swing, he uses a six or seven-iron while, when it comes to warming up, he opts for his eight-iron. The usual pattern of events is that all these clubs will be worn out and ready for replacement after nine months, if not earlier.
What has changed is the intensity of the work Tiger does at a tournament site. “I realised very early on that all my more focused work had to be done at home,” he said. “It’s impossible to get down to any serious stuff at a tournament because of the distractions. Steve [Williams] does his best to get me a bit of peace and space and he gets a bad rap for it, which is unfair. But that’s the way it is... What I’ve learned is that it’s better if I keep the emphasis on staying loose and fresh.”
He said he enjoys a bit of banter with his peers when they set up shop beside him on the range before adding that he misses old friends such as Mark O’Meara, Mark Calcavecchia and John Cook, all of whom have moved on to the senior arena: “We used to have so many great practice rounds together,” he said.
Far more than you would think, he picks up on people’s practice ground idiosyncrasies and, by way of an illustration, he opted for the contrast between Jim Furyk and Freddie Couples. “You have Jim,” he began, “who is extremely focused and doesn’t talk to me or anyone else. And then you have Freddie, who hits one ball before standing back to talk to his caddie, Joey.”
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