Apart from his family, there are three people Tiger Woods keeps closer than anyone else. His agent, Mark Steinberg, who has represented Woods since he turned professional. His caddie, Joe LaCava, who has looped for Woods since 2011. And his longtime friend and practice partner, Rob McNamara.

In this roundtable discussion with our Henni Zuel, Team Tiger discuss all that went into Tiger’s remarkable victory at the 2019 Masters. McNamara gives insights into Woods’ scheduling and preparation, and when he knew his bud had a real chance to win a fifth green jacket. LaCava takes you inside the ropes with stories about not just that incredible Sunday, but the entire week, which began with a serene practice session and ended with LaCava taking pictures at Hooters. Steinberg relives being the most nervous he’s ever been.

The discussion touches on much more than just that week—all three men tell stories about their experiences working with the greatest golfer of his generation.

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By Matthew Rudy
Nobody has seen Tiger Woods hit more balls than Rob McNamara, the TGR Ventures vice president who has not only played more than 500 rounds with Woods in the last 15 years, but is also his designated practice partner at home in Jupiter, Fla., and a second set of eyes when Woods is on the road competing. So, like literally everyone else in golf, McNamara was an interested observer when Woods played the ZOZO Championship in Japan. He just had a much better vantage point.

By almost universal assessment, Woods’ swing in Japan looked better than it has in years—certainly the best since Woods’ back surgeries from 2014 to 2017. He was smooth, fast and confident in Japan, finishing in the top 10 in the field in driving accuracy and greens hit, and leading it in putting. His swing looked loose and pain-free—even with the stops and starts that came with significant rain delays.

The results speak for themselves, but McNamara also has a unique insight into the real reasons Woods seems to be rounding into vintage form.

The knee surgery in August was a really big deal

The procedure Woods had on his left knee wasn’t significant in medical terms—he had a minor cartilage cleanup that is practically standard for NFL players. But it had a cascading effect on his ability to practice without pain, says McNamara. “The pain in his knee had hurt his ability to rotate and push off the ground,” he says. “Even at Augusta last year, he would tend to slide instead of push, which would block his hips out. That would prevent him from really clearing—which puts more stress on his back, hips and obliques. Tiger’s a soldier, and he’d try to get through it, but we’d get out there and he’d have to shut it down because he was aggravating things with his swing.”

And compare that to his swing at the Masters, which you can see in this highlight video from Sunday at Augusta National:

Watch the final-round highlights from 2019 Masters champion @TigerWoods. #themasters pic.twitter.com/WIb5AnsPHQ

— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 14, 2019

After recovering from the knee procedure, Woods was able to practice as much as he wanted without those worries. “Once he could do that, I figured the results were going to follow,” said McNamara.

He found his “neutral swing”

McNamara’s main job (when he isn’t helping run TGR business day-to-day) is to help Woods confirm what he’s thinking and feeling about his swing—a hard-earned skill McNamara developed by honing his eye on the fine details of the various swing styles Woods has used for almost 20 years. “Tiger is his own coach, and he takes the lead on what he’s trying to do,” says McNamara. “Our back and forth comes when he shares where he wants to be and I see where he is and give my feedback. His overall goal is to clear and give himself room while not producing side bend. He wants his shoulders, knees and hips stacked—which is why that slide was such an issue. We’re always focusing on the clearing of the left hip. That’s critical to Tiger on a lot of levels. What I try to help him with, his goal is to be setup and be as neutral as possible. He’s a shot-maker, and he wants to play the proper shape and attack flags. He doesn’t just hit one shot shape. He wants a setup that is neutral—with no fade bias or draw bias—and then he says, let me try fade, try draw, try high, try low. That’s the checklist. He had all of that he wanted in Japan.”

He’s finding the right practice/play balance

Coming back from major back surgery while staying competitive into one’s 40s and beyond is literally uncharted territory, which means Woods and his team have been figuring out best practices as they go. The days of marathon 12-hour practice sessions like the ones that were routine in his mid-20s are long gone—replaced by a plan that relies more on planning and efficient focus. “Our standard practice day at Medalist is hitting balls for about an hour, and then playing nine holes,” says McNamara. “He’ll put a significant amount of time in chipping, putting and wedge work at his home practice area. In this latest version of his game, he knows he has to focus more on his short game. He can practice that more and it doesn’t affect him physically—while there’s a limit to how much wear and tear he can put on his body making a lot of full-speed full swings.” McNamara says one of the most exciting things about the victory in Japan is that it showed the potential for what can come when Woods has a stretch of good health. “The big difference we’re hoping to see is that the work on his game isn’t coming up with band-aids to prep around injuries,” says McNamara. “Physically, he’s in the best overall place right now. He’s 43 going on 44 and when you swing 120 miles per hour, you can cause yourself big problems. You have to continue to be careful, but the formula is there.”

Social media was awash with armchair analysis about Woods’ swing positions in Japan and assessments of his improved “flow.” For McNamara, two shots at the ZOZO proved Woods is in a very good place with his game. The first was in the second round, on Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club’s difficult ninth hole—a 486-yard par-4. “The way that hole sets up for the tour players, you have to hit over 250 yards worth of trees with a high fade and fit it in a very tight fairway. If you don’t hit it high enough or far enough, you’re in a forest of trees and looking at a double,” says McNamara. “For the first time in a day and a half, I saw him really step on one. I don’t know how fast he swung, but from the eye test, he bumped it up a few miles per hour and hit it right down the centre.”

Tiger Woods hits a second shot at the 18th hole during the final round of the 2019 Zozo Championship. (Toshifumi Kitamura)

The second instance was in the final round, on the par-3 5th—a 191-yard shot over water. “He had just made bogey on No. 4, and the pin on 5 was tucked right. It’s a scary pin position on a lot of levels—but not quite as scary if you can hit the right shot,” says McNamara. “He hit a high fade to that back right hole location and left it in the perfect spot under the hole about five or six feet. There was a lot of satisfaction in seeing that.”

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Reports from the course indicate that Tiger played alone and worked on all aspects of his game as he prepared for the year’s third major championship.

We ? you @TigerWoods! #USOpen pic.twitter.com/tP7a816o1B

— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 10, 2019

The time spent no doubt will help Woods reacclimate to a course that he has had success at—most notably his 15-stroke victory during the 2000 U.S. Open—but has not played in competition since the 2012 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

RELATED: How Pebble Beach became the USGA’s crown jewel

Woods also has won the PGA Tour stop at Pebble (also in 2000), and finished T-4 there in the 2010 U.S. Open won by Graeme McDowell. But subsequently, he had been critical of the course’s small greens and its bumpy Poa annua surfaces, explaining in part why he had not competed at the venue while healthy in recent years.

Since his impressive victory at the Masters in April, Woods has played in just two tournaments. He missed the cut at the PGA Championship four weeks ago, unable to practice much in the days leading into the event due to illness and mental fatigue from his Augusta National win.

More recently, Woods finished tied for ninth at the Memorial Tournament, closing with a 67 to give him some positive momentum heading into U.S. Open week.

Woods’ practice schedule the remainder of the week is unclear, but he is slated to playing in a pairing with Jordan Spieth and Justin Rose that tees off at 5:09 p.m. EDT on Thursday afternoon.

Here is more footage of Woods during his Sunday practice round:

.@TigerWoods getting ready… https://t.co/hlvyoAIohD

— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 9, 2019

Sunday prep with @TigerWoods. https://t.co/vLde7FVyn4

— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 10, 2019

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If Woods stays in private housing, he’ll likely bring his personal chef, who is paid to cook, not watch him play golf. Oh, and he’ll have man’s best friend in tow when he travels. That would be his bodyguard, the big dude walking nearby who you shouldn’t mess with.

But, yes, that also means taking one of his three dogs along on most trips. There’s Taz, Yogi and Bugs. Only a handful of trusted individuals occupy the Woods orbit regularly as he competes. By now, it’s largely a recognisable group.

Mark Steinberg: Woods retained Steinberg as his agent in 1998 after fring Hughes Norton, and in 2011 Woods followed Steinberg from IMG to Excel Sports Management, where Steinberg is a partner and heads the golf division. A native of Peoria, Ill., Steinberg, 51, attended the University of Illinois and made the basketball team as a walk-on. In a 2016 interview, he said of his relationship with Woods: “We are unwavering in our commitment to each other.” Steinberg’s client list includes the likes of Justin Thomas, Justin Rose and Matt Kuchar.

Glenn Greenspan: Greenspan has been Woods’ spokesman since 2008 after leaving another high-profile job, that of the first director of communications at Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Tournament. A graduate of Florida State University, where he covered golf for the sports information department, Greenspan, 60, came to Augusta National in 1996. Previously, the New York native worked for the PGA Tour and Gary Player Design.

Joe LaCava: LaCava has been on Woods’ bag since 2011, after working for Dustin Johnson for about four months. LaCava, 55, is a native of Newtown, Conn. His cousin, Ken Green, a former PGA Tour player, got him started in the field when he asked LaCava to replace his sister Shelley as his caddie starting in 1987. After three years with Green, LaCava began a 20-plus-year run with Fred Couples.

Rob McNamara: A contemporary who has known Woods since their junior-golf days in Southern California, McNamara is a vice president of Woods’ TGR Ventures. A graduate of Santa Clara University, McNamara, 43, is Woods’ most trusted confidant, and he usually can be seen walking in lockstep with Tiger at a tournament site. McNamara is a scratch golfer who worked at IMG from 2000-’05 before joining Tiger. He knows Woods’ swing and serves as a second set of eyes now that Woods has chosen to go without an instructor.

Erica Herman: Herman made her first public appearance with Woods at the 2017 Presidents Cup, where Woods was a captain’s assistant to Steve Stricker. Herman, 34, was a manager at Woods’ restaurant in Florida, The Woods Jupiter, and now lives with Tiger.

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By Alex Myers
When it comes to Team Tiger, longtime caddie Joe LaCava and even longer time agent Mark Steinberg are faces every golf fan recognizes. But there’s often a third guy flanking Tiger Woods at tournaments. And on Wednesday he gave a rare interview. With Woods by his side.

Meet Rob McNamara, officially a vice president for TGR Ventures, but unofficially, a second set of eyes for Woods’ golf swing. That second role has become especially important with Woods no longer employing a swing coach, although, he has been spotted working on his putting with Matt Killen at this week’s Players Championship. And in GOLFTV’s latest video instalment with Woods, McNamara and the 14-time major champ talked about their unique working relationship that dates back to their junior golf days in southern California.

“I mean he knows my game,” said Woods, who estimates the two have played 500 rounds of golf together. “One, he’s a good player. Two, he’s got a good eye and he has seen me go through changes and iterations in the game of golf, but at the end of the day I try and use Rob for what I’m trying to work on now, because right now it’s different, because I’m limited what I can do, and not only am I limited in what I can do, I’m limited in how much I can practice.”

Because of that limited practice schedule following Woods’ comeback from a back fusion operation in 2017, the two don’t spend much time talking the technical aspects of the swing.

“Because I’ve played with him so much and practised with him so much over the years I kind of know what it should look like or what typically he’s trying to do,” said McNamara, who played collegiately at Santa Clara and began working on Tiger’s IMG account at 25. “And a lot of it this last year is Tiger is typically telling me, ‘Hey, I’m feeling this. Will you just watch and make sure I’m not doing this or I am doing this?’ Then all I’m doing is kind of quickly confirming it for him, yes, and then kind of backing away.”

Watch the full interview with Woods, McNamara and GOLFTV’s Henni Zuel here:

.@TigerWoods hasn’t had an official coach since 2017, but his lifelong friend and Team Tiger member Rob McNamara knows his swing better than anyone and serves as a trusted second set of eyes. pic.twitter.com/uoNV0Q0cRb

— GOLFTV (@GOLFTV) March 13, 2019

Woods withdrew from last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational with a stiff neck but will attempt to win a third Players title this week.

“We’ll see how everything goes here,” Woods said when discussing his neck at his Tuesday press conference. “This is an important week. I’m going to focus on this week, and then I’ll let you guys know later in the week.”

Either way, you can count on Rob McNamara being one of the first to know.

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