If you've ever been to a PGA Tour event and mingled with the throngs of fans who follow Tiger Woods as he makes his way through a round, chances are you've run into Hank Haney. The soft-spoken 52-year old, who holds the impressive position as swing coach to the world's greatest golfer, mixes in with the crowd and does his very best to watch every single shot Tiger takes during a round, even if his vantage point isn't always ideal. I had a chance to spend a few hours with Hank in San Diego on Friday, during the second round of the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, just prior to getting an exclusive hands-on peek at EA Sports' upcoming golf game, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09.

　　Now, you wouldn't think the world's greatest golfer would need a coach. But even after 13 Major wins, an additional 64 PGA tour wins, and countless accolades, even a guy like Tiger Woods needs someone to turn to. That's where Haney comes in. As he puts it, his job is to help Tiger figure out what he's doing right and what he's doing wrong, which sounds a lot like what you'd expect from a coach.

　　That said, there are moments when Haney sounds a bit Zen with his approach to mentoring Tiger. He told me that the first step in finding a remedy for a problem is to let Tiger try to figure it out for himself. After all, though Haney has probably seen more swings from Woods than anyone else, nobody knows how a swing feels better than the man himself. As a result, when a round is over and the two confer, the conversation tends to focus in on what Tiger's perception of his round was like, rather than Haney immediately offering his advice.

　　Walking with Haney, he narrates practically the entire time he's on the course, describing Tiger's situation, and what he needs to do to on the next shot, the next hole, and so on. He's a man of strong opinions. During my walk with him, he made a point to say that Tiger surgically repaired knee was not going to be a problem and that the media was making too big a deal of it (though it certainly looked to be a problem during Saturday's third round).

　　He also has extensive theories on how to predict winners in major golf tournaments, theories built around his knowledge of the course (Torrey Pines being one of the world's toughest, but also one of Tiger's favorites), and the score needed to stay in contention from one day to the next. Boil it down to its basics and the theory goes something like this: Players like Tiger, Phil Mickelson, and world #3 Adam Scott are the best because they're the best. At least, that's what it sounded like to me.

　　Still, the guy who plays hundreds of rounds of golf with Tiger per year isn't unaffected by the mystique of the world's greatest golfer. After Tiger's troubling double-bogey on the tenth hole on Friday, Haney commented, "He just hit a double-bogey to start off and now he's facing the two toughest holes on the golf course." Then, turning to me with a wry smile, he said, "Then again, he is Tiger Woods..."