Tiger Woods’ new swing coach Notah Begay?

Tiger Woods said Thursday he may take the advice of ex-instructor Hank Haney and other notables and serve as his own swing coach for the foreseeable future, but it sure sounded as if the former world No. 1 had already filled the spot with a certain intimate member of Team Tiger.

“I have bounced some things off Notah Begay III, my close friend and former Stanford teammate,” Woods said on his website after averring he may coach himself. “We just kind of talked things through; he’s like an older brother. We’ve discussed my options and what direction he thinks I should go. He’s just trying to help out any way he can.”

Speculation has been rampant about who will assume the duties of Woods’ swing guru since he dismissed Sean Foley last month. Names like Keegan Bradley and Jason Dufner’s coach Chuck Cook, Henrik Stenson’s instructor Pete Cowen, Tiger’s unofficial putting advisor Steve Stricker and Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III, and even Butch Harmon in a return engagement after 11 years, have popped up as potential successors to Foley.

Woods still has not swung a club since following doctors’ suggestions and taking yet another injury-related break from competition after missing the cut at the PGA Championship. But just because he may not return to golfing activities for another month or two does not mean the process of replacing Foley, the third high-profile swing instructor in the career of the 14-time major champion, has not begun.

Tiger’s public boosting of Begay was an unusual step for a guy renowned for zealously keeping information on a need-to-know basis. NB3 would certainly seem to fit the criteria of someone suited to guide Woods to that elusive 15th major title -- at least the benchmarks suggested by leading tutor David Leadbetter.

Though Leadbetter joined Haney and several other observers in opining that Woods ought to go it alone, his litany of the potential duties of Woods’ future coach practically parroted what Tiger said about Begay.

“He’s always been a player that has had a coach,” Leadbetter, who said he was on Woods’ payroll for a short time before Harmon’s tenure began in 1997, told Golfmagic recently. “So yeah, I’m sure he needs someone who he can confide in and bounce things off, but I don’t think he needs someone to come in and say ‘well listen, here’s my new method for you and this is what I think you should try.’”

Begay practically offered his own job description while speaking with SB Nation late last month. Woods does not necessarily need a coach because he “has enough experience and understanding of technique and mechanics and the feel, the sensations related to certain shots that he can pretty much navigate himself through most challenges related to the golf swing,” Begay said.

Still, Begay concluded, Tiger could use “somebody to serve as a sounding board of information that originates from Tiger himself.”

With the obvious trust Woods places in Begay and the Golf Channel analyst’s knowledge of his friend’s swing through the years, Tiger could do worse than hiring the four-time PGA Tour winner as the next man-behind-the-golfer.