Chamblee slams Tiger, Woods fires back

   Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, never one to hold back his opinion, took a big swing at Tiger Woods Wednesday in a teleconference preceding The Players Championship and Woods swung back.
   On a call with Nick Faldo and Johnny Miller, Chamblee said Woods' extended struggles which included a missed cut at the Wells Fargo Championship last week in Charlotte, could be solved by a return to his former instructor Butch Harmon rather than his continuing to work with Sean Foley.
   "Simply, he needs to fire Sean, call Butch. I think that would get it done right there. Fire Sean, call Butch," Chamblee said.
  "And I know he'll never do that because he's letting his ego get in the way of common sense. He wants to prove to people he's right. He would rather prove to people he's right than be right.
   "He's going to ride this thing as long as he can and it's just sad to see."
  It's not the first time Chamblee has leveled criticism at Woods and his work with Foley but this time it earned a reaction from Tiger.
   "Well, I can understand that everyone has an opinion, and he's entitled to his. But he's no longer playing anymore, so, so be it," Woods said when asked specifically about Chamblee's comments at The Players Championship.
   Harmon now works with, among others, Phil Mickelson, long considered Woods' top rival. It's unlikely Harmon would consider working with Woods again given his allegiance to Mickelson, even if Woods were to approach him. Harmon pointed out to Mickelson some of the little things Woods had used to disrupt or distract Mickelson in their competitive rounds together and since then, Woods has not beaten Mickelson head to head.
   Woods said the process of changing his swing under Foley's tutelage is similar to what he went through when he hired Harmon in 1997 after his record-setting Masters victory and again when he hired Hank Haney nearly a decade ago. Woods said his progress has been slowed this time by injuries but he remains committed to Foley's direction.
  Chamblee believes Woods is making a great mistake.
   "The frustration that we've seen from Tiger Woods, I've never seen one
person try to incorporate the swing thoughts of the golf machine (theory), and that's essentially maybe a little
bit sort of an annexed version of the golf machine, is what he's trying to incorporate. I've never seen
one person try to incorporate those thoughts into their golf swing without getting frustrated, without
getting confused, without getting lost, because it's science.
   "He's literally lost the art of the game, and I think Butch could help him, one, have more fun; two, he would find the art in the game; three, he would find the rhythm in the game; and four, he would be back to playing the type of golf that we know he can play."
    If you saw Woods at Quail Hollow, you saw a very different player from the one who won here in 2007. Chamblee isn't the only one who wonders if we'll ever see that player again.