There have been better books set in the world of golf than The Big Miss, Hank Haney's account of his time as Tiger Woods's swing coach (the great Golf Digest writer Dan Jenkins used to knock out a minor classic every year or so), and there have arguably been better books about Tiger Woods (Tom Callahan's His Father's Son, a hard-boiled biography of Earl Woods, is crammed with good old-school reporting and reveals a great deal about the golfer by examining the father who shaped his life). But there has never been a golf book as keenly anticipated or as energetically hyped.
Woods has always been able to transport golf from the margins of popular consciousness into the mainstream, dragging along many in his starburst slipstream. Haney, who worked for the golfer for six years, was one of the many. A hitherto respected swing coach with a high profile in golfing circles, he became a notable and widely quotable figure on the broader sporting landscape after he started working with Woods in March 2004. And good value he was too. For as long as it lasted.
The partnership ended in May 2010. Six tumultuous years, crammed with glory, despair and, finally, disillusionment. "I feel like I have been a great friend to you," Haney wrote to Woods in a series of text messages foreshadowing his resignation. "I don't feel I have gotten that in return." The Big Miss takes all the hurt and anguish contained in those two lines and spreads it across 247 pages.
Haney has been on the publicity circuit in the States this week, where he has been anxious to make sure people have not misunderstood his intentions. "This is a golf book," he has said more than once. Repeated protestations of this kind tend to set off alarm bells, hinting perhaps there at an uneasiness lurking in the mind of the man who is protesting. And so it turns out in The Big Miss
To be fair to Haney he is temperamentally serious, and seriously steeped in golf. No doubt he set out to write a book purely about golf. Now that the work has been published perhaps he still genuinely believes it is a book purely about golf. Unfortunately for him, he forgot to tell the publishers, whose advance marketing of The Big Miss had little to do with the fundamentals of Woods's swing (comprehensively covered in the book, albeit at a level of understanding way beyond the casual golf fan) and everything to do with gossipy, mostly unflattering (about Woods and others) tidbits which are thrown around its pages like so much confetti at a bad wedding.
The juiciest morsels were all "leaked" in advance.
Woods is allegedly a bad tipper. He allegedly watched porn at the 2006 Ryder Cup in order to make his room-mate Zach Johnson, a born-again Christian, feel uncomfortable. He thinks Phil Mickelson is "too opinionated" and too much of a know-it-all. Apparently, he was once furious with Ian Poulter for "mooching" a lift on his private jet, describing the Englishman as "this dick" in a text sent to Haney during said journey. And what about this defenestration of Woods's personality on page 132: "... selfishness, obsessiveness, stubbornness, coldness, ruthlessness, pettiness and cheapness". Haney is quick to express his gratitude for the opportunity given to him by Woods. He just has a funny way of showing it sometimes.
Perhaps it is best not to get caught up in such minutiae or to overestimate their force. This is the business of revelatory publishing, after all. A few eggs – and confidences – were bound to be broken. In any case, the Poulters and Mickelsons of this golfing world have been around too long to allow Haney's pinpricks to pierce their skin.
But what about Elin Nordegren? Woods's former wife was generous enough to host Haney at her marital home while he was coaching her then husband (around 30 nights a year, by Haney's estimation). For this she has been repaid by her guest revealing confidences and details about her marriage for edification of the reading public. Or to put it another way – to sell a few books.
The best that can be said about these "revelations" is that there are not many of them in The Big Miss. The worst is that they constitute an unforgivable betrayal.
And the Woodses are not the only victims. In his account of the personal scandal that wrecked the golfer's marriage and derailed his career for more than two years, Haney is quick to clear the reputation of Woods's former caddie Steve Williams (he knew nothing of his employer's philandering, according to the coach) but then goes on to reveal the fallout from the scandal had caused "tension" between the caddie and his wife. And this is anyone's business?
The point is not that Haney has overstepped the boundaries of common decency in spilling such beans – though he has – but that in doing so he has fatally undercut his argument that this is purely a golf book. It is not. It is to some extent a gossip book set in the world of the most famous golfer on the planet. It has been sold as such and it should be read as such.
Haney will no doubt cringe at the comparison but in pandering to the insatiable public appetite – not to mention, one imagines, his publisher's demands – for celebrity gossip he has banished himself to the same category as the cocktail waitress and porn stars who emerged in the aftermath of Woods's scandal desperately seeking to capitalise on their tangential involvement with the fallen star. Like them he pays homage to the "good" Tiger Woods. Like them he feels abandoned and betrayed by Tiger Woods and like them he feels his reputation has been unfairly traduced. The Big Miss is screeching revenge. His attempt to set the record straight. This is a pity because the suspicion is he could have written a really good book, one that was purely about golf.
