I’ve been watching professional golf since the mid-1970s.

The players with the strongest mindsets are the two greatest to ever play the game… Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

With that said, their mindsets were a bit different.

When Jack was on his game, he would not be beaten by making mistakes.  You had to go out and beat him with great golf.

There are two really good examples of this… Lee Trevino in the 1971 U.S. Open where he beat Jack in a playoff, and Tom Watson at Turnberry in 1975 where he simply outplayed Jack.

Tiger Woods, on the other hand, had more of a killer instinct mentality.

When he grabbed the lead in a tournament, his instinct was to step on the accelerator and widen his lead.

As a result, he has the greatest victory margins in both The Masters (12 shots) and U.S. Open (15 shots).

Since we know more about his training than Jack’s, we’ll focus on Tiger.

First we start with his father, Earl Woods.

Earl Woods served two tours in Vietnam.  One as an infantry officer and the second with the U.S. Army Special Forces.

He retired as a Lt. Colonel and became an instructor of Military Science before retiring from active duty in 1974.

Earl was Tiger’s first coach, and he employed tactics in his coaching to develop Tiger’s mindset.

One of the primary tactics he employed was distraction, to strengthen Tiger’s ability to focus.

He would jingle change in his pocket or make other noises while Tiger was getting ready to hit a shot.

He also embedded a significant work ethic into Tiger with the understanding that talent alone would not allow Tiger to become the greatest golfer to play the game.

Eventually, he turned over the golf technical training of Tiger to a couple local professionals, and eventually to Butch Harmon in 1993.

After Woods turned professional, he began to embrace fitness training as part of his overall approach to developing his game.

This involved both strength training and cardio training.

Tiger understood that there is a mind-body connection and his physical training served to enhance his mental training.

It allowed him to put in more time at honing his craft without losing focus.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Tiger Woods is the embodiment of The Samurai Golfer.

How to develop the Tiger Woods mindset

To learn how to develop the Tiger Woods mindset, it’s necessary to understand the term “shugyo.”

Shugyo is a Japanese word that essentially means “deep mind-body training.”

In Eastern thought, training the body is the basis for personal development.

The belief is that through rigorous training of the body, a connection with the mind develops.

Traditional martial arts training employs shugyo in a couple of ways.

The first involves constant, repetitive drilling of basic movements such as kicks, blocks and punches.

The idea is to make these movements become second nature.

The second way that shugyo is employed is through the occasional really difficult training session where the practitioner is pushed beyond their perceived limits.

The first time I witnessed this was when I was in high school conducting research for an independent study project.

I attended a blackbelt test at a traditional Isshinryu karate school and it was pretty brutal.

By putting trainees through this type of test, they learn that they can handle situations far tougher than they had originally thought.

When Tiger was instituting a swing change suggested by Hank Haney, he would spend hours in front of a mirror doing slow motion practice swings.

He was able to do that because he was very fit physically and therefore had the mental stamina to put himself through that training.

Also, at the end of any practice putting session, Tiger would force himself to make 100 three-footers in a row.

As a result, those short putts could automatically be executed under pressure.

Haney described Tiger’s typical workday like this…

  • Wake up and go for a run or do some other sort of cardio training
  • After the cardio, do some strength training
  • Breakfast
  • 2 to 3 hours of driving range practice
  • Lunch break
  • 9 or 18 holes of golf
  • Intense practice session, typically short game practice
  • Another physical training session in the gym, a run, or playing basketball
  • Dinner
  • Mirror practice if working on a swing change
  • Sleep

This was a man who clearly employed shugyo in his routine.

Tiger also had a fascination with the Navy SEALs and trained with them on occasion, thus employing the more difficult shugyo type of test which helped with his mental toughness.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, for us mere mortals who have a job away from golf and other obligations, this schedule is not realistic.

However, it is clear that employing the principle of shugyo can allow you to reach your potential as a golfer.

This is the approach I’ve presented in The Samurai Golfer training program.  You can learn more here.