Nearly everyone has an opinion on what Tiger Woods should be doing with his golf swing. However, only Canadian golf professional Sean Foley is currently being paid by Woods to help him recover his touch.
“It’s a little strange sometimes thinking about it, but I guess you teach golf for so long it kind of doesn’t matter who is in front of you,” Foley says. “That ball is going to fly based on the face position and the attack angle. It doesn’t matter who is doing it, the ball solves the equation when it’s in the air.”
As he winds his way home from the Orlando-area academy where he works — completing an interview that was interrupted by a session with Woods — Foley says his most famous client looks good. “Much more control of his golf ball,” he says.
So how did a kid from Scarborough, Ont., end up with the ear of the planet’s most famous athlete?
Some of the 36-year-old’s path is oft-told. As a junior instructor at Glen Abbey in Oakville, he defied orders during one Canadian Open and ended up on the range talking shop with the PGA pros. A teaching assignment during a junior event sponsored by Stephen Ames led to full-time work with the Calgary professional, which ultimately became the springboard to a client base that now includes Woods, Hunter Mahan, Justin Rose and Sean O’Hair.
“Starting to work with Steve and those guys on tour … it’s a bit of rush,” he says. “They say you fake it ’til you make it, so you never really know until you’re put in that position — one, mentally how strong you are; and two, how confident you are.”
Confidence is not a problem for Foley these days. How true that was when his journey began is less certain.
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