Steiny In Email Meltdown Over Hank's Book Excerpt!
My download of the April Golf Digest got sidetracked by slow WiFi on the plane so I haven't read the tablet-only release of the April issue, but I see the standout from today's excerpt-of-the-excerpt was Hank Haney's revelation that Tiger was obsessed with military training to a greater degree than most realized.
During four days of special-ops training in Fort Bragg, N.C., "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. 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...One morning I was in the kitchen when he came back from a long run around Isleworth, and I noticed he was wearing Army boots. Tiger admitted that he'd worn the heavy shoes before on the same route. 'I beat my best time,' he said."
Even though it was just a paragraph in a GolfDigest.com slideshow, it was enough for Tiger ten-percenter Mark Steinberg to unleash a rant to writers, report several agencies including FoxSports.com's Robert Lusetich.
"Based on the excerpts published today, Hank Haney's claim that his book is about golf is clearly false," Steinberg wrote in an email to FOXSports.com.
"His armchair psychology about Tiger, on matters he admits they didn't even discuss, is ridiculous. Because of his father, it's no secret that Tiger has always had high respect for the military, so for Haney to twist that admiration into something negative is disrespectful.
He has a point. Steiny would know about twisting a tale!
"The disruptive timing of this book shows that Haney's self-promotion is more important to him than any other person or tournament. What’s been written violates the trust between a coach and player and someone also once considered a friend."
Well an NDA would have taken care of that. Isn't that the agent's job?
Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 11:06 PM
Reader Comments (58)
Love that last line Geoff...i mean he was smart enough to have a pre-nup...but no NDA?
I can't wait to read this book. Tiger has been gang the middle finger t everyone around him for years - glad to see Hank give one back.
Makes me wonder what level boffin' the neighborhood is at in Steiny's eyes.
I find this comment interesting since it was Woods/Steinberg who decided to disrupt the Accenture MP tournament (a sponsor that dropped him) a couple of years back with a big announcement. The timing of his announcement even offended some his peers. I think it was E. Els who was one of the players who spoke out against it.
File this under short memory.
Friend? Ha! Talk to anyone around Tiger and ask about how he treated his friends. How about his little IMG Isleworth girlfriend - me thinks she was dating one of Tiger's friends when he started "dating" her. That's the real Tiger Woods. Again, good for Hank for giving the big F-U you Tiger and his dispicable cronies.
I really hope Hank spills the drug stuff....because it's juicy.
@ Kevin re: "As for the NDA, that's not something you should have to do with someone you think is your friend." You defend TW with this remark when at the same time he required a Pre-nup -- Wasn't Elin considered to be (sic) "someone you think is your wife"? You know what they say about life in the fast lane? The wrecks be ugly!. Shoddy work by both TW and his boy Steinberg for not requiring a NDA. Should have been SOP. That is the responsibility of the 'employer'.
@ Anthony re: Accenture Match Play vs. TW's apology / announcement...... EXACTLY
Hank was the one who came out and said that wasn't what he was going to write about. He wanted to tell the golf world about working with a champion because it was so interesting. What's this have to do with how he won his majors. It's personal stuff that any one, including you, would expect to be kept in confidence. At least the llittle gossip queen should of been a man and stood up from the beginning and said that yes he was going to be a part of the TMZ crowd and be a sell out because his feelings were hurt when Tiger wouldn't stand up for him when Hank was getting slammed by every human being in the country for screwing up his swing.
From 1996 to the present the entire World of Golf was been encompassed by the World of Tiger, although that seems to be diminishing, perhaps for the better for all concerned. But you and your predecessor(s) orchestrated that and were enabled by the golf media.
The entire Tiger persona, pre-hydrant, was about his golf, with a few exceptions that we now know were somewhat contrived (a photograph of wife/mother, children, dog in domestic bliss comes to mind).
How Tiger trained is about his golf, and Tiger would agree. Wasn't a workout photo of Tiger placed on a magazine cover as part of some kind of "coverup" deal?
That he trained in a manner that flipped out his physical therapist is most certainly about his golf.
Oh, and Hank may also be out of line. We'll see about that. But you are not helping.
It's sad that both of these people will do anything for money, yet funny that Steinberg is calling out Haney.
"Tiger Woods considered giving up golf to become a Navy Seal, according to a new book by his former coach Hank Haney.
Woods, whose partnership with Haney ended in 2010 following the former world No1's sex scandal, has links to the military through his father Earl, who served in the army and fought in Vietnam.
Haney claims in his book, The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods, that Woods was "seriously considering" the career change.
"I didn't know how he'd go about it but when he talked about it, it was clear he had a plan… I thought: 'Wow, here is Tiger Woods, the greatest athlete on the planet, maybe the greatest athlete ever, right in the middle of his prime, ready to leave it all behind for a military life'." "
And this:
"Haney also wrote in the book, excerpts of which have been published by the Golf Digest magazine in the US, that Woods lacked confidence in parts of his game. "One of the adjectives most often used to describe Tiger Woods was fearless. But the more I observed him close up, the more it became clear he wasn't.
"Sometimes, to make it less of a big deal, he'd remind me that he had never considered himself a particularly good driver, at least in comparison with the rest of his game. 'That's why my name is Woods,' he'd joke. 'Maybe it would have been different if I'd been named Fairway'.""
The latter, in particular, does exactly what Haney promised (and without in any way demeaning Tiger, as far as I read it -- which is still just in this excerpted text): offers an insight into the golfer. The military stuff presumably has a context -- didn't all this happen after Earl died? And might it also be the portrait of a normal, anguished young man who has lost someone so close to him and is paying a passionate, if somewaht reckless, tribute by throwing himself into this exercise?
For someone with a dodgy knee to run in army boots is a bit reckless, and we now know that despite his pose as master of control, there is a strong reckless streak in Woods. So far, what I have read only goes toward illuminating a little about the previously highly secretive, uber-controlled, life of someone who has spent his life making himself the ultimate superstar. He has taken the money and the plaudits and managed to conceal enough of his true nature that he spent a long time beyond criticism. A reality check, inadvertently begun by his own further recklessness, is well overdue.
After reading this excerpt I still am not convinced any lines have been crossed, it's all about trying to get and keep Tiger in golf shape against a number of forces.
I don't know who wrote the little paragraphs that accompany the photos on the golf digest page but I have to take exception to the last or second last slide that says:
"I thought, Wow, here is Tiger Woods, greatest athlete on the planet, maybe the greatest athlete ever"
Tiger was one of the greatest golfers on the planet and probably one of the greatest ever, however he was not and is not one of the greatest athletes, probably not even in the top 50.
That whole NDA thing is so puzzling to me from all of you? Aren't we all MEN? Haven't you ever said ANYTHING in your life around your TRUSTED friends that you really would rather they didn't tell other people? So if you all of a sudden found fame and one of your old friends went out and told the local paper about one of the stupid things you did when you had one too many drinks, or were hangin out at the strip club on a golf trip to Myrtle, it would be your fault because you didn't get a NDA? I guess I better get one of those forms from my lawyer so that I'm protected from weasles and rats like Hank. What has this world come to?
I'm sure TW honestly believed that running in combat boots, sprinting with weighted vests in 100 degree heat, and running obstacle courses with elite military duded would help in his quest to beat Jack's Major's record...the truth is that it didn't...no matter what his trainer, coach, and agent told him, TW did what he always does...whatever he wants and damn the consequences.
Hindsight is 20/20...but you have to be willing to stop and look back before one can chart a proper course forward.
This, to me, proves that Hank was never really that close of a "friend" to Tiger despite the latter's insistence to the media...Hank was merely a tool for TW to use and discard as he saw fit....unlike the other posse of enablers that have hung around Eldrick since he signed his first multi-million dollar contracts. Talking about Mr Bell, Steiney (post Hughes Norton), and his former "best man" Steve Williams.
S&T is on to something: Romano and Barkley and GC prove his assertion.
Apparently in the full excerpt (rather than the GD slideshow), Haney is very against Tiger's SEAL training. Regardless Steiny is clearly overreacting, in the sense that his reaction is just going to cause more people to buy the book.
As for there being an implied covenant that colleagues don't tell stories about colleagues - and that somehow Hank is a gossip girl - sorry, that's exactly what NDAs are for. Real life isn't Skull & Bones or high school team sports, where secrets are kept in the locker room. Especially when there's money to be made.
HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAH. Nice.
One other thing - I agree that this boot camp/SEAL stuff is fair game for Haney to discuss. It's just as relevant as all the other 'mentally strong due to Earl's military tactics' stuff we always read about. I don't think Haney's alone in his concerns about the impact of that training.
You're right to redirect our focus. Haney is a perfidious rat bastard.
Now, I feel better!
And can anybody please be specific with regard to the claim of wrongdoing on the part of Haney?
Did he get the story wrong? (I certainly don't know; but I don't get the impression that Steiny is disputing the particulars; he and Tiger will have ample opportunity to do that.)
Did he violate a legal non-disclosure agreement? (None that I am aware of.)
Did he violate a moral/ethical/informal non-disclosure agreement? (Well, maybe this isn't how friends treat friends. I am not writing any books about my friends, but neither they nor I am that interesting. I am mostly laughing at the presumed 'teaching pro/golfer privilege' being invoked. I never learned that one in 2nd year Evidence.)