One of the ways Tiger Woods seemed to be like no-one else on tour while at the peak of his powers was the way he dealt with pressure, particularly when he simply had to make a putt with the tournament on the line.
Most golf fans can probably recall a moment where Tiger Woods sent the crowds into a frenzy by finding the bottom of the cup to secure yet another win. There seemed to be no stage which would show more of Woods’ competitive spirit than the putting surface.
From the outside, it does appear that very little has changed about Woods’ putting game over the last three decades. Everyone can probably draw a mental image of what Woods’ putter looks like, while there has been no drastic attempt to change his grip.
But it seems that Butch Harmon did notice something worrying about Woods’ putting in their early days together.
How Butch Harmon got Tiger Woods to change his putting grip pressure
Speaking in 2000, Harmon explained that he previously felt compelled to get Woods to lighten his grip – even when his methods seemed to infuriate Woods.
“I’m laughing because years ago, when you were first a rookie on the tour, I gave Tiger this putter to practice with. He used to put this death grip on there, you can see his hands losing the blood, he’d hold it so tight,” he said.
“I had this grip that had a beep in it, so when you putt it and squeeze it too hard, it would beep. I said, ‘here, I want you to take this to the course, and I want you to putt with this because your grip’s too tight’. Well, he absolutely couldn’t do it, he’d just start back and it would be going beep, beep, beep. So it made him so mad, he’d squeeze tighter so it would just beep the whole time, and it got to the point where he says, ‘look, I’m not taking it to the course, it’s embarrassing, I can’t do it’.
“And you started using it in your room every night and pretty soon he got to where his hands were on there lighter, where he could make his stroke and he wouldn’t have this thing go off. The key was that it just gave him much better feel.”
Where Woods ranked for putting on the PGA Tour between 2004 and 2009
It is remarkable just how consistent Woods’ putting was. It must have certainly been incredibly demoralising for his opponents knowing that he can turn anything around on the greens.
When it comes to the strokes gained data available, it is incredible to look at just how good Woods was over a number of years. The 2006 season is something of an anomaly between 2004 and 2009, but otherwise he does not fall outside the top five for strokes gained putting in that period.
| Year | PGA Tour rank for strokes gained putting |
| 2004 | 1st |
| 2005 | 5th |
| 2006 | 21st |
| 2007 | 2nd |
| 2008 | No data due to injury |
| 2009 | 2nd |
When you consider how good the rest of his game was throughout that time, it is not hard to see why he was so dominant for more than a decade.
Clearly, Harmon getting Woods to not strangle the putter had a huge impact on his fortunes.
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