Book Review: The Big Miss

The Big Miss: My Years Coaching Tiger Woods is a reflection of Hank Haney's time as Tiger Woods' swing coach. It is an interesting peek at the private Tiger, and a small glimpse at what could be the driving psychology of this elite athlete. It is very definitely about golf, and it is full of jargon that is quite frankly over my head. There are a few ideas that I'm not sure how they transfer to volleyball, but I would like to explore them.

The big miss is a recurring theme throughout the book. While it is never discretely defined, its meaning is fairly clear. The big miss is a particularly bad error. Recovery is difficult and usually means there will be subsequent errors. The big miss is especially bad in that it is something that is avoidable. The big miss often happens when trying to make a big play, usually a tee shot or over some hazard. The golfer tries to drive farther, or takes some unwise risk to shave off strokes. But technique breaks down, or the placement of trees and hazards is misjudged. Subsequent strokes are more difficult, or penalty strokes are applied. The end result is what should have saved a stroke ends up costing more. In terms of competitive golf that might mean 3 or 4 strokes more, and the golfer could drop from the lead, or within contention, to several positions back. An unwanted curve in Tiger's driving is mentioned several times. Haney had him work on a slightly shorter drive that would minimize the effects of that curve. While the distance off the tee would be about 10 yards shorter, he would avoid the big miss and would have a better score at the end of the round.

Another example of the big miss is in Tiger's tendency to 3 putt. Putting is a significant percentage of strokes in a round of golf. Par on a golf hole is generally set so the golfer should be able to 2 putt and still be par for that hole, or a wedge onto the green and 1 putt. I don't know the actual numbers, but based on that 1-2 putt average on a par hole, an 18 hole round is going to have 18-36 putts for a scratch golfer. That's anywhere from 25-50% of the strokes on a round. The coach would tell him not to 3 putt. He would tell him that if he didn't 3 putt, no one could beat him.

I'm not sure what the specific application is for volleyball, but thinking in terms of the big miss in high level strategy seems worthwhile. This may involve a different skill for each player. It may be tendencies in particular serve receive rotations. Perhaps this is something to keep in mind while evaluating where the team and individual players are in their development. Does the setter have some tendency that leads toward cascading errors? Does the libero get down after a serve receive error? Look for was the big miss can manifest itself in your players and teams.

The concept that intrigued me the most, and is the most likely to transfer to volleyball are the 9 shots. In golf the 9 shots are straight, curve left, and curve right each at a low, medium, and high trajectory. Tiger would go through each of the 9 shots with each of his clubs as part of his pre-competition warmup. There are two places this could translate to volleyball that I can think of, serving and hitting. There are perhaps 6 serves (one to each zone) and each could be practiced from each of the three basic serving locations. They could also be practiced as a float serve and a topspin serve. Alternately you could practice serving to the two gaps between passers and the two gaps between the passers and sidelines. Those 4 serves could be practiced short and long, float and topspin, and from each of the serving locations. For hitting there could be down the line outside the block, the seam between blockers, the angle inside the block, tooling the blocker, going high off the hands of the block, below the block between the blocker and the net, and tips. Those might be harder to effectively practice without actual blockers as is usually the case in pre-match warmup hitting lines. It could still be valuable to do as a sort of mental checklist before competition so our hitters are primed to do it during the match without having to think about it.

There were a few ideas that while they might not have a good volleyball equivalent, they still may have value. At least I think they are interesting.

First there was the idea that Tiger was too concerned with winning and not as much about getting better. Sometimes winning is out of our control and we just lose to a better team. If we do better than the last time it can still be a positive outcome.

Second there was the idea of playing to win vs playing not to lose. The end result in both cases is the same if successful, but the underlying psychology is the problem. I have heard (and will someday find the research in the literature) that the mind will kind of tune out the negative in a statement like “don't serve the ball out”. The brain will interpret that as “serve the ball out”. I have observed good coaches that are miked during timeouts instead making positive statements like “serve the ball in”. Playing not to lose seems like it will end up being subconsciously turned into playing to lose.

Third is the notion that changing things at competition is bad. Tiger was described as a constant tinkerer. He was always trying new swings, and new practice methods. Sometimes without informing his coach. Sometimes those changes started being implemented during a tournament. The results were rarely very positive. We shouldn't be experimenting with things our players have never practiced. That's just bad.

Something that was mentioned briefly, but not really elaborated on, was the idea of conscious peaking. Tiger would try to practice during the week, and during the greater golf season, so that he was playing his best when it mattered most in tournaments. When the competition should be heating up, Tiger was just getting started. I'm not sure how to apply this to volleyball, but it is an interesting idea that might bear further examination.

Something not expressed in the book, but something I thought of while reading, is the idea of keeping a notebook or file on players. This is something that I really should have been doing in a more organized fashion. It would be handy to maintain a file on each player and what their strengths and weaknesses are. This would be very useful in my goals for the player's development and for discussing with the player their own goals for development. It could show progress through the season, and season to season.

Overall The Big Miss was an interesting book. I got a few ideas for how to improve as a coach. I got an interesting peek into Tiger's psychology, but I don't think that will really help me in my coaching. Looking at Haney's coaching was interesting. Tiger would be a challenge to coach. It probably won't be directly helpful, but I will probably be a little more critical of my coaching in the future in a good way. I don't know how much it will help others, but it might be worth a shot, more so if you are also a golfer.