Tiger's Mind Games

Filed in archive Golf News on December 17, 2007

Courtesy: AP
Tiger Woods wins again. Is this a surprise? Of course not. It would be a surprise if he didn't win.

Here's a man who has been world number one for so long that most of us can't remember who the last number one player in the men's game was.

He takes, what, 10 weeks off? And after pocketing all that (deferred) dough from his first FexEx Cup win, simply comes out and blows away the field.

Jim Furyk, God bless him, mounted a challenge but when he drew within two shots, Tiger simply went birdie, eagle, birdie and cantered home for the win.

A fitting way to cap a fine year, as he said later.

What allows Tiger Woods to play to such a level for so long? He defies the notion that athletes go through peaks and valleys.

Tiger's valleys you can count on two fingers. Both times he was re-working his golf swing.

Is it, then, his golf swing that has provided him with his success? Or is it his fitness level? To an extent, it's both, of course.

But his greatest strength is his mind. There's an old adage in pro golf that you need to learn how to win. In other words, you have to spend a few Sundays coming down the stretch in the lead and then buckle under nerves or expectations before you become "battle hardened".

Tiger never really had to learn that. When he came on tour, he won straight out of the box. And he's been winning ever since.

A lot has been written about his swing, his diet and his workout routines. But very little has been documented about his mental exercises.

Make no mistake, Tiger Woods does mental exercises. You don't win like he does simply because you learned how to win down the stretch. If that were the case, then every pro who has ever won more than once would be winning every week.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if we learn at some point that Tiger meditates on a regular basis, goes through intense visualization exercises and generally prepares his mind for victory each week.

Give me another reasonable explanation for his blow-out on Sunday after an 8 week layoff and I'll be happy to listen.