When Tiger first turned pro in 1996, he hadn’t yet received one string after another of overcoaching and big jumps in technique.
Young Tiger was pure and unimpeded – both physically and mentally. You can just see the speed and fluidity jump off the screen on his driver swing. He was free:
What made Tiger so great, in my opinion, is how he kept taller through the downswing, allowing his chest to turn from the top and bringing his arms around him.
Tiger at his worst started crunching his upper body and dropping his head as much as 8 inches, and this tended to make his arms get stuck behind him. His angle of attack got much steeper, and the club got stuck behind the handle causing him to block the ball right a lot. He got really really crooked with the driver.
This wasn’t the only fairway wood that Tiger chunked/skied during that low period. He was actually popping up shots with NO TEE – which takes a really extreme swing style to do.
Did you note how far down his head drops from address to the halfway down position? Watch again and note the tree line in the background. This caused his legs to stand up at the last second to save the shot – which I think placed more stress on his back and left knee.
I think in Tiger’s comeback he is starting to stay tall and turn freely again like he did in 1996. You can kind of see that he’s planning on doing this in his practice swings. At the beginning of the year he was still dipping but not as bad. I think this got even better at the Masters on many drives:
His swing plane is much more rightward now, like it was in 96. He’s not laid off like during the Haney days, or steep like the Foley days. One big upgrade is his right foot action, which rolls inwards now just like Nicklaus, Snead, and Hogan all did. Most of his career he simply plantar flexed, which you can see in the first video. I think this takes some stress off his lower back.
The rest of 2019 should be very interesting watching Tiger!