Tiger's swing is a testament of on-plane perfection

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There is nothing you can say that hasn't already been stated -- Tiger is awesome, unbeatable, the best ever. The most amazing thing is he has been great with three very different golf swings. I tell everyone that he probably could win a major if he learned to play left-handed.

Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but I wouldn't put anything past him.

I was fortunate to watch Tiger at an early age. I played competitive junior golf before going on to the University of Alabama. I was there when he won his first U.S. Junior Amateur title at Bay Hill. I was also there when he won his last U.S Amateur at Pumpkin Ridge. I was able to watch him a lot because he was always in the lead group and, well, I wasn't.

From those junior days to his world domination days, Tiger has won major tournaments with three different golf swings: the one he used when he was a junior golfer, the one he learned from Harmon when he was in college and first came out on tour and his latest installment from Hank Haney.

Obviously, these three swings had many very good components to each of them. Having watched this evolution first-hand, I'll break down Tiger's golf swing and explain why it works to produce more consistency day-in and day-out than its previous incarnations.

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Woods' backswing in 2008.

One of the big differences now versus his earlier moves is how well Tiger maintains his own swing plane throughout the entire motion. If you take a look at this picture on the left, you can see Tiger's club shaft is pointing left of the target. You will also see he hasn't taken the club shaft to parallel.

Once the shaft reaches parallel, now and only now should the shaft point to the target line. At every point short of parallel the shaft should point left of the target. Some might think this is a "laid off" position, but I can assure you, it isn't. If you draw a straight line from the club head down the shaft to the ground, this line would point very close if not exactly to the golf ball -- this is how you know the shaft is on plane.

Before Hank Haney began working with Tiger, the shaft at times would point inside the target line too early during his back swing. Even though he obviously had tons of success this way, it was technically not on plane.

The reason he was able to do well, other than the fact that he is Tiger and has extraordinary coordination, was because he made compensations during the downswing to offset this off plane "across the line" backswing. As long as we make our errors in the correct pairs, we can have success hitting the ball. I don't know about you, but I would prefer a swing which has a fewer number of errors. This will breed maximum consistency.

Hallaran/Getty Images

Woods' upright backswing in late 2003.

Tiger's clubface angle throughout his swing have dramatically improved as well. Pre-Haney, Tiger would get the clubface in a closed position at the top of his backswing. A closed face points up to the sky.

When the clubface is closed, its effective loft is reduced. Loft is important in order to get the ball up in the air. One of the main challenges Tiger faced when first on tour was controlling distance with his wedges. He would often times hit them too far. This was a direct result of the closed face position up top and ultimately down through impact.

This year he was hitting approximately 75 percent of his greens in regulation. Many of those approaches are within 15 feet of the hole. He is doing an amazing job now at controlling his distances, especially with his wedges.

This has a lot to do with his now square clubface at the top of his backswing. If you take a look, you can see the face angle matches the angle of the back of his left hand. This is an ideal place in which to square the clubface at impact. Tiger doesn't have work as hard now during the downswing to compensate for the shut face he use to have and this square position breeds more consistency.

There have been other changes over the past three years, but these two are the most notable. No doubt making swing changes is always a challenge, even for Tiger. I don't think anyone can argue that Tiger isn't a more consistent ball striker now than ever before. He has more shots to choose from under pressure because his swing is more mechanically sound than it has ever been. It makes you wonder -- when he returns from injury, will he be even better?

John Stahlschmidt is the Head Instructor for the TOUR Academy at the TPC Scottsdale. Email John with comments at johnst@touracademy.com.