Was Tiger Woods always this ruthless? The GOAT has always been known to aim for perfection when it came to his gameplay. During his prime days, Woods was a clinical finisher on the course and he expected his associates to think the same way as him.

So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the 82x PGAT winner has experimented with a few coaches throughout his career. It seems that he was always in search of someone who could read the game as well as he could to help him improve his strokeplay consistently.

One such individual recently revealed a bit about what Tiger Woods expected from his coaches. The person in question is Hank Haney, Woods’s swing coach from 2004-2010. These were the prime years of the former world no. 1 as he occupied the top rank for most of the duration Hank was with him.

The situation arose after Hank commented on how he doesn’t remember talking about how Tiger Woods changed his swing often. To that, @TheGhostofhogan said, “Pretty sure Big Cat always cared where the ball was going,” suggesting that the Godfather of long ball, Evan “Big Cat” Williams paid close attention to how the ball acted after each stroke.

To this, @HankHaney replied, “From day one if the ball went 10’ right or left or 10’ too high or too low on any shot, Tiger would turn to me and ask what caused that, I had to have an answer and the next shot better have a different outcome based on the information I gave him. Golf is what the ball does.”, suggesting that Tiger Woods was always eager to understand why the ball acted differently than he anticipated.

Hank’s words also hinted that the 5x Masters champion expected his employees to have logical reasoning behind the situation. Woods expected his coach’s read and suggestions to always help him accurately sink the ball. That means everyone on Mr. T’s team should pay attention to his strokeplay and have the ability to read the game to benefit him.

The GOAT still had to do all the hard work to ensure he followed the directions precisely. But he would have known that every bit of input would only make him better, making his success the success of his team. This applied to his on-course and off-course exploits as well.

But then there were those who maybe didn’t fit into that ideology of Tiger Woods. One such of his associates may have not picked that up when their partnership ended abruptly. Let’s see what they had to say.

Tiger Woods shocks his former agent

Hughes Norton was an agent for Tiger Woods from 1989 to September 1998. During the 9 year spell, the IMG agent had seen the GOAT flourish from a junior golfer into one of the best professional players in the sport. Soon after Woods turned pro in 1996, Norton had also brought him an illustrious deal with Nike that guaranteed him money among other privileges. Explaining how golf was still not as popular of a sport back then, the agent emphasized how challenging it was to secure such a contract.

Despite his efforts, Woods shocked the famed agent by firing him over a phone call in September 1998. The ruthless golfer didn’t provide any explanation or didn’t allow Hughes to pitch himself as he had already made up his mind. That is why he didn’t have a different response when Hughes Norton came knocking on his door a few days later looking for an explanation. It is unclear why Tiger Woods did what he did back then. But something definitely was not working out with the IMG agent for him to make such a harsh decision. Considering how successful the Tiger Woods brand has been after so many years, there is no doubt that his ruthless nature has once again benefitted him in some unknown way.

Do you recollect any other incident where Tiger Woods’s ruthlessness helped him in some way? Share your views in the comments section.