FRED COUPLES: That's a great question and I do pay attention to that stuff. I have worked with Butch for the last three or four years. He's got a swing up there of Tiger that looks about, and I'm not a golf guy, I don't really know, I can tell a couple of things, but it looked absolutely unbelievable. It's been at least two years or three years since he's gotten Hank I mean, time flies.
Anyway, to make a long story short, by watching him, I think he's so talented that you can visually see the swing change, where four years ago or in the late 90s when he won Pebble Beach and all of these tournaments by 10 and 12, 15 shots, he was clearing much harder and wasn't as off balance as much. And I think what you can tell was last year, a lot of the times with the speed that he has, he was a little bit off balance. Some of the times, when you make a swing, mis hit the ball a little bit, it's going to go off line, but when you're actually off balance because of his power, it's going to go really off line.
One of the things if you ever watch a guy like John Daly who swings really hard with a driver, he's never off balance. And now what I see is Tiger swing better, but more on balance 99 out of 100 shots. So he hits the ball so far that he's going to hit it further off line than most people, and I think any long hitter he's not going to pick on them. But if you're a stat person, you're going to say, well, he's really way down in driving, but in reality when you're hitting what is he hitting, 330? As the fairway goes, 330, 30 yards longer than most people, so when he's in the rough, it's not a big deal. And when people look at it, in the old days he was using a baby driver, he was using a 3 wood as a driver and he was hitting it long and he was hitting it much straighter. Then people were catching up to him. So with the big headed drivers, they have to be longer and now he's picked up length that's incredible, but he's got incredible balance.
So his swing is getting tighter, getting better and he's getting back to a point which he's dominant, which he's been this year. He may come in here and he's going to tell you. I'm more comfortable, my swing is getting more grooved, but a lot of golf is balance. He's not falling down, 130 miles an hour, the driver, if you're a little off, you're going to lose some accuracy.
Q. Are players talking as much about it anymore?
FRED COUPLES: Well, he won two majors, finished second and fourth in the other. So that's what he's geared his whole life around, TPCs and Memorials and the Deutsche Banks and the World Golf Championships. So he's winning those and he's playing well every week. He does take time off and when he comes back, very rarely is a guy going to win right away. So he'll take five or six weeks off. So if you take his record amongst when he's playing, it's pretty remarkable. If you take six weeks off and come back at I can almost guess, Byron Nelson, I think he usually takes off after Augusta. And a lot of times he'll come back to the Buick in Flint; although he shot 61, I think it's pretty remarkable.
So what I see is a guy who certainly is not out there to make mistakes, so when he's working on a swing, a lot about the game of golf is swing and he knows what he's doing and he's trying to perfect his swing. Would I be shocked to have him do this for three or four more years and then do something else? No. He's that talented. There are not many guys that can change their putting stroke, let alone a full swing when you swing 135 miles an hour, and he's able to do it, because I honestly believe he's probably the most talented player on the Tour and certainly when he plays his best, he's usually unbeatable.
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