This coming November it will mark 19 years since I won a $100 bet with a friend of mine by the name of Jack Bebo. Earlier that summer, Tiger Woods had just won his sixth straight USGA title when he won his third consecutive U.S. Amateur Championship and subsequently turned pro. We were returning from a pro-am the day after Tiger had played his first professional event as a professional, making the cut but finishing in the bottom fourth of those who made the cut. Jack said, "now he knows what playing with the 'big boys' means. I can't believe he turned pro before playing The Masters as an amateur. He won't qualify for it (The 1997 Masters) now."
I had seen Tiger play in his last two Amateur championships and knew he was special. And I don't mean how far he could hit the ball, or how he could hit a shot no one could, or no many would even try. It was his will to win. It was his timing on making a putt that would change the course of a match, it was his confidence on the greens that made him different. This young man could putt and make some "bombs" from anywhere when you least expected. I never saw him three putt, and I saw plenty of 18-30 footers drop like if they were 8 footers. I made $100 bet that I ended up winning in a few weeks when Tiger won for the first time, and qualified for The Masters.
A few months later, after he'd won a couple of more times, he won The Masters by a record 12 shots and broke Jack's tournament record by one. At the time, all I could think is, "this kid will break Nicklaus' record by age 35!" This time, I was wrong. He is almost 40 and is stuck at 14 with no end to a bad game in sight.
Recently, Jack Nicklaus ever the gentleman, said that Tiger still can break his record -come on, what else could he say? Can you imagine if he openly said "no, I don't think he can now"? He would be eaten by the media, and who knows, he might even be called a racist!
The point is this: GOLF IS A MENTAL GAME. When Jack was winning, Lee Trevino once said, "Jack knows he is going to beat you, you know that Jack is going to beat you and Jack knows that you know that he is going to beat you". That is part of a champion's confidence. That is exactly what was going on with Tiger between 1999 and 2008. But no more. When Jack played bad, he did not play that bad, not as bad as Tiger is playing now anyway. I believe that Tiger has changed his swing too many times and now has "paralysis by analysis". In addition, Tiger cannot make the needed putt any more. He does not inspire fear in the other tour players any more. And he knows it. Tiger has lost his game because he lost his confidence... or, the other way around. The result is the same.
Jack was much simpler than that. He only had one teacher all his life, Jack Grout, and he saw him in the spring, before a season, to work on his fundamentals: posture, grip and alignment.... and to check that his head would not move (have you seen how much Tiger's head moves up and down during the swing???). That's it. He didn't care about the famous "flying elbow", or that his club "crossed the line" at the top of the swing, or that he did not have a particularly excellent short game, or anything else. He stood up to the ball, got a good posture, aligned well and swung as hard as he could. Of course he was smart on the course, just like Tiger at his best. But Jack did not clutter his mind with hundreds of things and details.
Recently, Jack was also asked if he was satisfied with his record, he said, "Yes, it is what it is. Of course I would have liked to win more majors". He was asked, "Do you think you could have done something different to do so?", "Sure" he answered, "but I don't know that by changing some things to win more would have made the rest of my life any better". Translation: Jack was as a happy human being -as golfer, father, husband, business- as he could have been... and his mind was always clear.
Tiger's return to the top will not only take getting rid of swing thoughts, but getting rid of the wrong thoughts, and simplifying as much as he can. The more doubt that creeps into his mind about his game and his talent versus other, the worse it can get. One thought that is probably often in his mind and which he should do his best to delete is, "can I really beat these younger kids?"
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