Reading Tiger's Body Language

At some point during this weekend's PGA Championship, Tiger Woods might pop up on the telecast. Without even seeing the scores, you'll probably be able to guess how well he is playing. Perhaps more than any other golfer, Woods makes his emotions transparent on the course. You can immediately tell by his swagger when he's stroked a drive down the fairway. If he flubs one into the trees, you will likely see (or hear) his disgust before the ball hits a branch.

This inspired The Count to conduct an audit of the top-ranked golfer's body language. The goal was to provide fans with a Rosetta Stone of Tiger reactions—a handbook allowing those watching the PGA to know exactly what Woods thinks of his shots before anyone else does.

We watched more than 220 of Woods's shots from six different tournaments this year—the Masters, the Players, the Memorial, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, the U.S. Open and the British Open—and logged his reaction after each swing. Only tee shots and approach shots were evaluated (on putts and chips, the cameras tend to show the ball, not the player). The shots were then classified as "Good" (down the fairway/near the pin), "OK" (in the first cut/on the green but not close to the hole) and "Bad" (in the trees, the bunkers, the deep rough, etc.).

As expected, Woods hardly ever hit a bad shot (or a really good shot) without tipping off the home viewers. Here were our most notable findings.

THE VOCAL COMMANDS

Perhaps the most noticeable sign of a bad Tiger shot is his voice. If he starts screaming at his ball to perform some sort of mid-air task, he's probably in trouble. The commands always come in sets of two or three, like "Bite! Bite! Bite!," or "Stay in the air! Stay in the air!" or "One yard! One yard! One yard!" As it turns out, Woods doesn't have telekinetic powers: In the 31 cases when the microphones caught him yelling something, it was a bad shot 17 times. (Note: This tally also includes a couple of instances when he was screaming not instructions but expletives, which he sometimes does.)

THE LEAN

The full-body lean is another indicator of a poor shot. This is when Woods torques his shoulders and grimaces after his backswing, then leans his whole body forward and to the left. Basically, it looks like his caddie just punched him in the stomach. In our sample, there were 23 instances of the Lean, and only three of them were quality shots.

THE CLUB HELD HIGH

Another bad omen for Woods is when he holds his club straight up in the air at a 90-degree angle, as if he were trying to get himself struck by lightning. We counted this 25 times, and only five were good shots.

THE QUICK-TEE SNATCH

If Woods reaches for his tee before his drive has landed, well, that's because he already knows where it's going to land. There were 45 instances when Woods retrieved his tee immediately after hitting. Only one of those shots didn't find the fairway. The quick-tee snatch is usually accompanied by a little showmanship, either the Club Slide (when he releases his grip and lets the club head fall through his hands) or the Club Twirl (when he spins his driver or long iron after the backswing). He seems to reserve the twirl for his best drives (15 examples, all dead-center of the fairway).

THE STARE-DOWN

During approach shots, there are no tees to grab, so we were forced to enhance our already advanced body-language analysis. Generally, if he likes a shot, Woods will assume a statuesque pose with his club off to the side on a 45-degree angle, then stare down his ball, like he just caught it shoplifting. The stare-down comes in three variations: the lips-pursed, mouth-closed stare (67% of the time a good shot), the mouth-open, teeth-grit stare (60% good) and the all-intimidating lip-bite stare (85% good). But if Woods starts inaudibly muttering to himself like a crazy person on the crosstown bus, that's a bad sign. We caught him talking to himself six times, only one of those was after a good shot.

THE DISTRACTIONS

Woods hates to be distracted by forces outside his control, and for good reason. There were 14 incidents in our sample when he began his pre-shot routine and then was forced to stop, walk away from his ball and regroup, like that duffer on a muni course whose playing partner's phone started squealing with the Marimba ring. Sometimes he heard a roar from a nearby gallery, other times it was a camera clicking or a gust of wind. Whatever the reason, it was usually an ominous sign: He proceeded to hit a bad shot eight of 14 times (57.1%). The worst case was in the fourth round of the Players Championship, when he put his drive deep into the water hazard after he was distracted by a dragonfly. Thanks a lot, dragonfly.

THE TEMPER

No Tiger Woods round is complete without a club being slammed to the ground. There were 13 occasions in our sample when he dropped a club, slammed one or swung furiously at the air. In 11 of 13 cases, these were poor shots. But then there was his second shot on the par-5 15th during his fourth round at Augusta, when he swung his club down in disgust and still ended up on the green. He would go on to birdie the hole. So clearly Tiger is just like every other golfer on the planet.

Source: Wall Street Journal