Tiger's coach swings at critics

Florida - Tiger Woods is a "wonderful person" and criticism of the 14-time major champion is "out of hand," the golfer's swing coach Sean Foley told a radio interviewer.

"It has just gotten to the point where the tearing down of Tiger as a person and a golfer has become just too much," Foley said this week on XM Sirius Radio's "Fairways of Life" programme hosted by Matt Adams.

"I think it is just out of hand."

Foley, who has worked with Woods since the 2010 PGA Championship, said constant carping about Woods was damaging to golf as a whole.

"I realize it is 2012 and we have dotcoms, and you have to write five articles a day, and you run out of things to write about," said Foley, who brought up the subject unprompted at the end of a 20-minute interview.

"But we should be in a position where we are trying to help and lift up and support a player like Tiger Woods instead of tearing him down, because everyone in the golf industry is better off because of his existence."

Woods has come in for intense scrutiny ever since he turned pro. A global superstar and marketing juggernaut, Woods saw his image tarnished by a 2009 sex scandal that ruined his marriage.

Although he ended a tour-level victory drought of more than two years with his triumph at Bay Hill in March, Woods displayed some well publicised bursts of temper en route to a tie for 40th at the Masters.

Although Woods later apologized for kicking a golf club after a botched tee shot in the second round, former US Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger was among the many who sharply criticized Woods's actions.

"I thought he acted like the south end of a northbound mule," Azinger said.

Foley said the "daily referendums" on Woods, his game and his behavior, were unfair.

"That is basically one thing I want to get out," Foley said.

"Tiger is a wonderful person, and he is a good dude, and he lives a complex life. I think things have got to slow down, and it has got to stop, the daily referendums and the criticism."