Hank Haney: Record pursuit taxed Tiger Woods
espn.com / 2-28-12
Tiger Woods' quest to break Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major championships weighed heavily on the former world No. 1 golfer, his former swing coach, Hank Haney, said in a book excerpt released Tuesday.
"There was more urgency and less fun. ... He never mentioned Nicklaus' record, but it started to weigh more heavily at every major," Hank Haney wrote in "The Big Miss," his book about his time coaching Woods. "And Tiger's actions indicated he believed he had less time to do it than everyone thought."
SNIP
In the excerpt, Haney detailed Woods' extreme workouts and how they intersected with his fascination with the military.
"Tiger did two tandem parachute jumps, engaged in hand-to-hand combat exercises, went on four-mile runs wearing combat boots, and did drills in a wind tunnel," Haney wrote about four days Woods spent in special-ops training at Fort Bragg, N.C. "Tiger loved it, but his physical therapist, Keith Kleven, went a little crazy worrying about the further damage Tiger might be doing to his left knee.
MORE: http://espn.go.com/golf/story/_/id/7625661/tiger-woods-pursuit-jack-nicklaus-record-took-toll-ex-swing-coach-writes
And there's this: According to Haney, Woods was seriously considering becoming a Navy SEAL, one of the military's most physically and mentally demanding units.
In the middle of his prime golfing years, mind you.
Wow.