Sean Foley calls Tiger Woods’ reputation as a lousy tipper ‘bulls***’

Tiger Woods’ reputation as a lousy tipper is complete bunk in the eyes of his former coach, Sean Foley, who believes the former world No. 1 gets too much bad press and not enough for his generosity.

Foley recently opened up in a lengthy interview about his time as Woods’ instructor and took the opportunity to rip Rick Reilly and Dan Jenkins for calling his ex-pupil cheap and thanked an unlikely source for making his ‘dream’ job possible.

“They can talk about how he doesn’t tip or whatever but it’s just more bullshit. I’ve seen him tip caddies at local clubs $400 so I don’t know where that comes from,” Foley, weighing in on the Woods-Jenkins flap, told Scoregolf’s Rick Young ahead of Tiger’s return to competitive golf this week at the Hero World Challenge.

“Seriously, saying he doesn’t tip? How come he [Jenkins] doesn’t mention Tiger raising $300 million for kids?” Foley fulminated. “Tiger is the epitome of the double-edged sword. Anything he does great doesn’t get mentioned. Anything he doesn’t, it’s all over the place. Can you even imagine what the fallout would be if it was him and not Mickelson who called out Tom Watson at the Ryder Cup?”

We imagine Twitter would have detonated and killed the Internet had Woods dared call out Watson as Mickelson did, but that was probably a rhetorical question from Foley, who recalled how he happened to become Tiger’s right-hand man.

”If Stephen Ames doesn’t call me, who knows what I’m doing right now? That is someone I didn’t know very well who picked up a phone one day and reached out. It was an incredible opportunity that came my way,” said Foley, who had, until last week, kept his own counsel about his time with Woods.

Woods and Ames traditionally appeared in the same sentence only when someone referred to the journeyman from Canada by way of Trinidad and Tobago as the poster boy for any competitor who dared suggest he belonged in the ring with the former heavyweight.

Ames, you may recall, as the lowest seed in the 2006 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, made the mistake of opining that, “Anything can happen, especially where [Tiger’s] hitting the ball.” Woods, who chose to respond with his game, showed Ames exactly what could happen when, the next day, he bludgeoned his playing partner, 9&8 (at 3:30 in the video, below).

While it was common knowledge that Ames was the first player of some repute to work with Foley, Woods’ ex-coach recently credited his countryman with lifting him from obscurity to renown as the guru behind the video cam of the world’s preeminent golfer.

“From the deal with Stephen, Sean [O’Hair] comes along, then Justin [Rose], then Hunter [Mahan], then Tiger, Westy [Lee Westwood], [Matt] Every and another 30 different guys who aren’t so much on a full-time basis,” said Foley.

Sean, you had us at Tiger, who will on Thursday make his first foray into competition since he took an extended leave to rehab his back and parted ways with Foley. Unlike Woods’ contentious split from Foley’s successor, Hank Haney, Tiger’s breakup with the instructor who came before consultant Chris Como was amicable.

“Tiger called me and we had this very heartfelt discussion. We know what we went through together. I know the state I found him in and so does he,” Foley said in the wide-ranging interview. “We came to a point where we weren’t communicating as well as we needed to anymore and we didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship. I love TW.”

Of his time with the 14-time major champion who failed to win a grand slam event under Foley’s tutelage, the instructor called it the opportunity of a lifetime.

“When I first started with Tiger his life was in a difficult place. To be there and be supportive of him and build our relationship I’m grateful for that,” said Foley. “To hang out and pick his brain and watch and listen to him the past four years you’d pay a million to have that experience. To actually get paid to do it? That’s a dream.”

Foley, who called Woods’ critics clueless back in 2011, defended his own record with the injury-plagued golfer, pointing out that Tiger, who will be 39 in December, earned Player of the Year honors in 2013 after Achilles and multiple knee surgeries and won five times in eight weeks and contended in three majors that year.

“All the experts at that time had nothing but criticism for what we were working on yet he was still top two in [the strokes gained tee to green] category. That’s equivalent to his best years out there,” Foley said.

“Michael Jordan wasn’t the player he was at 36 that he was at 25 but he was still the best player in the NBA at 36,” Foley averred. “MJ adapted. He changed some things. Gretzky did the same. That’s what Tiger did.”