This space has been occasionally used to call out the golf media, most notably for the overreactions spewed across the Internet about the life and struggles of Tiger Woods. I've posted opinions on both sides of the argument, desperately hoping for a return to golf-god-status and tearing him down for some poor decisions. The focus this time isn't so much on what the media did, but how legendary golf coach Hank Haney used Jim Rome's nationally syndicated talk show to talk about nothing.

You see, Haney has a book coming out later this month about his working and personal relationship with Tiger Woods. Woods has basically denounced the existence of this publication as money-seeking and filled with falsehoods. Problem is, we've only had one excerpt to judge and base decisions on. The topic in question is whether or not Woods actually wanted to quit golf to train to be a NAVY Seal. Haney says he did, Tiger says he didn't. It's one of those situations...

Haney went on the Jim Rome Show on Thursday, March 1st knowing full well Rome was going to ask him about the exceprt and try to get more information from Haney about the book. Haney wanted no part of it and deflected questions for the entire interview. I'm not judging the interviewing practices of Rome in this case because if you've got a book coming out, and you just released an excerpt of it, why would you go on a show and refuse to talk about it? It doesn't make sense and it's a waste of time for all parties involved.

Had Haney prefaced the interview by saying he would talk about anything but the book and the conversation steered to what's going on in the golf world, there is a reasonable chance the interview would have been another solid spot from Haney in The Jungle. But, that didn't happen and it's still puzzling to me.

Haney openly said that maybe he should come back at another time to talk about the book, but why take the interview in the first place if that's going to be your approach? Sounds to me like his agent got in his ear and told him it would be "bad for business" to make the book the topic of conversation. I'm just not sure what the conversation was going to be about if the book wasn't involved at this time, though.

I like Haney and think he does a great job interacting with fans on Twitter, but this was a really bad play. It certainly didn't sell any books and round up a bunch of pre-orders.

Perhaps the worst part of the interview, though, wasn't even the refusal to talk about "The Big Miss." Rome asked Haney about Tiger's focused goal to beat Jack Nicklaus' major record and Haney replied with - and I'm paraphrasing here - "When did Tiger ever say that was his ultimate goal... I've never read that or seen it quoted." Really? Come on. It's everywhere. Later in the show Rome brought up a bunch of articles with direct quotes from Tiger stating that it was a huge goal for him to overtake Nicklaus' record. Proof... in print. Something tells me Haney was rattled and tried desperately to steer the conversation away from his book in that case.

The Big Miss. Nothing can describe that interview better.