After announcing his retirement and winning four more Olympic gold medals at the London Games, swimming juggernaut Michael Phelps is going to have a little more free time on his hands. Instead of taking some downtime, however, Phelps has decided he wants to get good at a second sport. To achieve this, he plans to head over to The Golf Channel, where he will be mentored by legendary golf coach, Hank Haney.
Haney is probably best known for mentoring Tiger Woods in the golfer’s heyday, but for the past four seasons, he's also moonlighted on the golf channel as a celebrity golf coach. He’s helped Charles Barkley and Ray Romano to improve their respective games, and in Season 5, he will help Phelps, too. Phelps has spoken to The Associated Press about his desire to travel, and now it seems that desire includes playing on some of the world’s greatest courses.
"I want to play all the world's great golf courses, but I'd like to play them well. I'm excited about this project with Golf Channel and I'm looking forward to working with Hank and see(ing) what we can do together on the golf course."
The upcoming season of The Haney Project is likely to be an eight-part series, but despite its short run, Haney plans to spend plenty of time working with Phelps. Generally, the celebrities chosen for the show have other commitments and jobs, so they can’t spend a ton of extra time working on their golf game. Phelps, however, has all the time in the world, and Haney plans to utilize a lot of that time to get the swimmer to really push his golf game to the next level. We may not see Phelps playing golf on the PGA Tour any time soon, but I’m guessing viewers will see him improve on his swing.
