Tiger Woods has sabotaged his own career, says Brandel Chamblee

Tiger Woods, who carded a career-worst 85 on Saturday, and on Sunday finished in last place at the Memorial, “destroyed” his “great golf game” by fiddling with his swing too many times, according to Brandel Chamblee.

The outspoken Golf Channel analyst has taken the winner of five Memorial tourneys to task over a variety of issues over the years. So it was hardly surprising that he had a few opinions to share about Woods’ wayward shot-making last week at Muirfield Village.

“Time hasn’t robbed Tiger Woods of his game, he’s done this to himself,” Chamblee said of the oft-injured 39-year-old former world No. 1. “He’s traded his genius for the ideas of others. He’s changed his body in the gym for bulk. Everything that we see here is the result of what he’s done over the last four, five, six, seven, eight years.”

Chamblee has long been a proponent of the belief that the origin of Woods’ woes began when he ditched swing guru Butch Harmon in 2003. The 14-time major champion won eight of his grand slam titles with Harmon, six under the watchful eye of Hank Haney, and none as an acolyte of Sean Foley or current coach Chris Como.

The revolving door of swing coaches is what has wrecked Woods’ career, Chamblee averred.

“His complete and utter belief in the ideas of others, turning over that great game of his, that’s mysterious to me,” he said. “His desire to build a great game and destroy it, and build a great game and destroy it ... destroyed the method that led to his dominance.”

Tiger intimate, Chamblee’s Golf Channel colleague, and the person who persuaded his Stanford teammate to hire his new swing consultant, Notah Begay III, conceded there were “some shortcomings” in Woods’ game over the last few days. He was not, however, ready to pull the plug on the Como-Woods experiment, which has yielded only six starts (including the Hero World Challenge) but looks rather shaky with the U.S. Open looming in two weeks.

“We sort of need to defer to a person who’s done the things that he’s done in his career and see how this thing materializes over the next two to three months,” Begay said. “I don’t know how this thing’s going to turn out, but all I’m saying is, let’s give a little bit of time for this to materialize.”

Chamblee was having none of it.

No other athlete at the top of his or her game has ever “completely abandoned the method that got them to the top of their sport,” he said. “Tiger did that not once but twice, not twice but three times, and he’s back at it now. And you always felt along the way -- or at least I always felt along the way -- that sooner or later it would catch up with him. And it has clearly caught up with him.”

As for how long it will take to determine the success or failure of Woods’ efforts, Begay said the results should be in by the end of the summer.

“If he’s playing this poorly in this PGA Championship,” said Begay about the fourth major of the season and a tournament that has yet to appear on Woods’ schedule. “Then there’s some cause to say, ‘This hasn’t really worked out, maybe we need to make some adjustments.’”

Chamblee scoffed at the timeframe, noting that Matt Kuchar “knew in five swings” what he had to do when he made changes with his own teacher.

“(Tiger’s) been at this for about eight months with Chris Como. I think that’s plenty of time,” said Chamblee. “He’s had eight months to move off of the ball and stay taller and do all of these things that seem pretty simple, and he really hasn’t done it. ... Eight months is too long.

“I believe if he actually called Butch or Hank Haney, either one of them, that within a month or two they’d have him back playing some solid golf,” Chamblee stated. “I really do believe that.”

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