The Mental Side Of Golf: Part 9 Jack’s And Tiger’s Mental Approach to Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Mental Side Of Golf: Part 9 Jack’s And Tiger’s Mental Approach to Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

If you ask anybody to look at the two best golfers in the world or two best golfers in the history of the game, most people would probably come up with Nicklaus and Woods. The thing is when you look at those two golfers, you’d appreciate that, although they’re very, very good players and undoubtedly massive number of wins between them, technically they didn’t have perfect technique. Tiger is still currently working on his technique, always trying to strive to improve and Nicklaus had quite a few unorthodox movements in his faltering and also in his putting.

So what makes these two guys the best? It probably comes down to the mental approach. They have a very similar mental approach that they have unfading confidence and unfading, sort of, focus in the shots that they’re trying to play. They also plan very well before tournaments. They pick a strategy for the golf course. Maybe even a strategy for every hole and then they’re not phased by what’s going on around them.

All the other golfers can be doing whatever they’re doing, but they stick nice and true to their goals, to their targets, and that certainly produces more consistent goals because they’re not so worried about looking over their shoulder, everybody else, or the case everyone else is looking at what they’re doing.

If Woods his name starts to climb on the lead board, you could almost feel the golfers, they had been kind of looking over their shoulders thinking, well, I’ve got to start trying to harder, change my game to try and keep ahead of them. Whereas Woods just keeps going around, methodically working on his technique, working on the processes, producing the best results.

Nicklaus was famous for his using his back-nine charges, but you could almost sort of guarantee it, plan that back-nine charge. That for the first three rounds, he’d play his way into the tournament, he’d get himself hoping to lead on the board because you can’t win a golf tournament in the first three rounds, but you can sure as hell lose a golf tournament in the first three rounds. So, he’d get himself nicely up onto lead the board then go into the final round, go into the back-nine, he’d start to put a bit of pressure up. Play a few more aggressive shots. Focus a little bit more intently on making some birdies and then the players in front of him would often come back to him because they’d be a bit more worried about what he’s going to do then start trying to push too hard. They’d be trying to change their course management strategy to suit his and that wouldn’t work for them.

So, when you look at Woods and Nicklaus, not the greatest swingers, not the greatest tacticians on the sorry, technical players on the golf tour, but certainly some of the best tacticians, course management wise, focus wise, and mental game wise. That’s why I think they’re the best two golfers in history.

[playerProfile url="https://golf-info-guide.com/pga-players/Tiger-Woods/"][/playerProfile]
2012-06-11

If you ask anybody to look at the two best golfers in the world or two best golfers in the history of the game, most people would probably come up with Nicklaus and Woods. The thing is when you look at those two golfers, you’d appreciate that, although they’re very, very good players and undoubtedly massive number of wins between them, technically they didn’t have perfect technique. Tiger is still currently working on his technique, always trying to strive to improve and Nicklaus had quite a few unorthodox movements in his faltering and also in his putting.

So what makes these two guys the best? It probably comes down to the mental approach. They have a very similar mental approach that they have unfading confidence and unfading, sort of, focus in the shots that they’re trying to play. They also plan very well before tournaments. They pick a strategy for the golf course. Maybe even a strategy for every hole and then they’re not phased by what’s going on around them.

All the other golfers can be doing whatever they’re doing, but they stick nice and true to their goals, to their targets, and that certainly produces more consistent goals because they’re not so worried about looking over their shoulder, everybody else, or the case everyone else is looking at what they’re doing.

If Woods his name starts to climb on the lead board, you could almost feel the golfers, they had been kind of looking over their shoulders thinking, well, I’ve got to start trying to harder, change my game to try and keep ahead of them. Whereas Woods just keeps going around, methodically working on his technique, working on the processes, producing the best results.

Nicklaus was famous for his using his back-nine charges, but you could almost sort of guarantee it, plan that back-nine charge. That for the first three rounds, he’d play his way into the tournament, he’d get himself hoping to lead on the board because you can’t win a golf tournament in the first three rounds, but you can sure as hell lose a golf tournament in the first three rounds. So, he’d get himself nicely up onto lead the board then go into the final round, go into the back-nine, he’d start to put a bit of pressure up. Play a few more aggressive shots. Focus a little bit more intently on making some birdies and then the players in front of him would often come back to him because they’d be a bit more worried about what he’s going to do then start trying to push too hard. They’d be trying to change their course management strategy to suit his and that wouldn’t work for them.

So, when you look at Woods and Nicklaus, not the greatest swingers, not the greatest tacticians on the sorry, technical players on the golf tour, but certainly some of the best tacticians, course management wise, focus wise, and mental game wise. That’s why I think they’re the best two golfers in history.