Brandel Chamblee: This ‘crazy’ Tiger Woods mistake cost him 100 wins and 20 majors

Brandel Chamblee believes Tiger Woods' mistake cost him getting to 20 majors.

Tiger Woods should have smashed Sam Snead’s PGA Tour record and Jack Nicklaus’s major haul, according to Brandel Chamblee. And he knows who is to blame…

Brandel Chamblee has made a name for himself as one of the straightest-talking analysts in golf and he dropped more truth bombs when talking about one of the more questionable decisions Tiger Woods made in his career.

Woods took the amateur and professional game by storm in the 1990s. He won three successive US Amateur titles before joining the pro ranks and breaking countless records en route to claiming the 1997 Master by 12 shots.

But better was still to come.

After honing a more consistent swing with legendary coach Butch Harmon, Woods produced arguably the greatest golf that has ever been played in the early 2000s.

From the 1999 PGA Championship, Woods won seven of the next 11 majors, establishing himself as the sport’s dominant force and a global superstar.

This run included four majors in a row – the Tiger Slam – from the 2000 US Open through to the 2001 Masters, one of the greatest achievements in the game’s history.

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There was, seemingly, nothing that could stop from eclipsing Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors and Sam Snead’s 82 PGA Tour wins. Except himself, that is.

Woods made the decision to part ways with Harmon and employ the services of Hank Haney, who worked with his close friend Mark O’Meara.

He would go on to have further success, but more swing changes took precious time to embed, while most believe he failed to hit the heights he achieved with his previous action.

“He was in the middle of making 142 cuts in a row and he was winning by 12 and 15 and eight shots in these major championships, and he changed that golf swing,” Chamblee said with incredulity on  the Dan on Golf Show.

“So, I am now sitting down for the first time ever at a desk as an analyst [in 2004] and the first question I get is: ‘Why would he change that golf swing?’

“It’s the craziest thing in the history of sport what Tiger Woods did. Absolutely, without question, there is nothing that comes close in the history of sport.

“This would be like if Steph Curry decided to change the way he shoots three-pointers.”

Woods failed to add to his major haul in 2003 and 2004 as his pursuit of Nicklaus stalled. The chase resumed in 2005 and he would go on to win six majors with Haney before the pair parted ways in 2010.

One of the driving forces behind the decision to join forces with Haney was that Woods wanted to become more consistent and challenge for titles even when he wasn’t at his absolute best. 

But it’s safe to say Chamblee does not think Haney was the man for the job.

“Hank Haney was telling Tiger Woods how to play golf and Hank Haney had the driver yips. He can’t hit a range and this guy is telling Tiger Woods how to change his golf swing from the greatest golf swing in the history of the game.

“It was my job to shed a little light on that, and I still maintain that’s the craziest thing in the history of sports. 

“The thing that I think is the largest thing to learn from what Tiger Woods did was it cost him two years of his career, three different times, in the absolute sweet spot of his career.

“No question he would have broken Jack Nicklaus’ major championship record, no question he would have broken Sam Snead’s total [PGA Tour] wins. Tiger would have had 100-plus wins, he’d have 20-plus major championships.”