In Defense Of Steiny...

Words I never thought I'd type. But a reader who is also a litigation attorney has seen some of the discussion about Team Tiger never having secured a non-disclosure agreement with instructor and author Hank Haney, and offered this in an email explanation:

In light of Hank Haney’s recent comments regarding the absence of a non-disclosure agreement, it is my insight that any purported non-disclosure agreement that attempted to cover this book would be overbroad and unenforceable.  As such, the absence of a non-disclosure agreement is really a straw man argument.
 
As a litigation attorney, I come across many NDA’s and confidentiality agreements in my practice.  Generally, NDA’s cover “confidential information,” which covers data or information proprietary to the non-disclosing party.  “Proprietary” is simply another term for ownership.  As Haney claims that these are his memories, he would have a factual basis to argue these stories were not proprietary to Tiger and he is free to write about it.  So even if an NDA was in place, Haney could find a way around it.
 
To come up with an agreement that forbade Haney to ever talk about anything said between him and Tiger would be truly overbroad.  I would never recommend a client to sign such documents, unless it is within the context of litigation and the agreement is to resolve a lawsuit.  Additionally, no golf instructor like that would ever sign such agreement, as it would hinder their abilities to market themselves.