We all remember Tiger Woods’ world-beating, fully torqued golf swing under Butch Harmon.

He won 27 times from 1999 through 2002, including seven major championships. Doubtless, this was the best era of Woods’ career. However, in 2003, Woods left Harmon and began rebuilding his swing under Hank Haney.

At that time, and seemingly in every discussion of Woods’ swing since, a chorus of “why did he change” sings.

Woods has alluded to the fact that the stress the swing placed on his left knee, which he rapidly snapped straight during the downswing, was wrecking his knee.

The knee was always suspect. He had a tumor removed from it while at Stanford in 1994, and then a cyst removed eight years later. He also had fluid drained at that time, and likely more than just the one time that’s on the official record.

Thus, Woods felt his only choice was to transition to an action that put less stress on the joint. Accordingly, returning to his Harmon-era swing was never a possibility.

Woods told Geno Auriemma on his “Holding Court” podcast that there’s no possibility of a return to that swing.

“I can’t. My knee is trashed from all those years of playing that way. I’ve had four operations on my knee. Forget when my back was bad; pre-surgery and pre-back problems, people were saying the same thing: ‘Why don’t you go back to 2000?’ I can’t; my knee’s trashed from playing that way, I can’t do that anymore. I have to look for a different way.”

So, while many (hopefully most) people understood Woods knee issues made a return to his 2000 swing an impossibility, Woods’ remarks should put that suggestion to bed forever.

(h/t Luke Kerr-Dineen)