Tiger Woods unintentionally (?!) needled by legendary ex coach

Tiger Woods’ legendary ex coach Butch Harmon has revealed he learned more about himself coaching LIV Golf commissioner Greg Norman than the big cat.

Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods’ legendary ex coach Butch Harmon has revealed he learned more about himself from tutoring Greg Norman than the 15-time major champion. 

Harmon made the revelation and perhaps unintentional dig to Woods during an interview with Iona Stephen during an episode of “On the Road with Iona”.

She asked the 80-year-old instructor which of his students revealed the most about himself.

The question absolutely stumped Harmon.

For context, Harmon has taught the likes of Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Davis Love III, Justin Leonard, Nick Watney, Gary Woodland, Jimmy Walker, Darren Clarke, Adam Scott, Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose and Danielle Kang.

Most recently, world number three Rory McIlroy reached out for help after developing a left miss with his short irons.

Of course, Harmon worked a ‘prime’ Norman, who is now the commissioner of the LIV Golf.

“Probably Greg,” Harmon told Stephen in answer to her question.

He said The Great White Shark is one of the ‘greatest players’ the game has ever seen.

Greg Norman at the 2024 Masters

Harmon added: “He won’t get the credit for it, because he only won two majors and the disaster that he created or someone else created against him in majors.

“This guy won over 80 tournaments around the world. He was the best driver of a golf ball with a wooden driver I’d ever seen.

“But because he had so many other businesses — his wine business, his sod business, his this business — if we only had two, three hours to work, if I flew to Florida and stayed with him at his house and we were going out to Medalist to work, it was 100 percent business.

“And he made me so much better at how I do my job when I had four, five, six players. He taught me how to budget my time to make sure I’m 100 percent vested, and when the time comes that you only have so much time with each player.

“And so Greg really made me better at my job than I think I was before that, just because I learned from him on how he budgeted his time and everything he did.”

Tiger Woods at the 2024 PGA Championship

Harmon said nobody was better than Norman with a persimmon driver in hand and also had an unrivalled short game.

“It’s too bad he doesn’t get the credit he deserves because, God, he was good,” he said.

“Nobody could drive a ball with a persimmon driver like he could. He could put it at 300 yards on any side of the fairway he needed to. He had a phenomenal short game that people don’t realize.

“But I learned more about myself from being with him and he actually created that in me.

“I learned it from him and that helped me tremendously the rest of my career.”

Harmon’s comments came during the same week rumours surfaced the PGA Tour and Norman’s Saudi-backed breakaway were said to have ‘exchanged terms’ over a peace deal.

Should a deal come to pass where Saudi Arabia’s PIF invest into PGA Tour Enterprises, we could some of Norman’s LIV golfers back on the North American circuit very soon after nearly two years of unprecedented disruption in the men’s game.