This Tiger Woods Mental Toughness article is a Golf Tips A2Z article that expands on the Tiger Woods Golf Swing main page.

Everyone talks about how Tiger performs under pressure. Tigers mental game is exceptional. After all the times when we as fans have seen him come through in the clutch, he seems almost magical. Is he magical? Pause………………………………………………………………………………………..

Well of course not. You don’t believe in magic do you? Do you? Of course not! So what is Tiger Woods mental toughness secret? The secret to Tiger’s success is that for most of his career he has not been performing under any pressure at all. Conversely, ever other golfer has. I know it sounds crazy, but wait and let me explain.

Okay, yes I will give you that Tiger came up as a minority golfer and has been chasing Jack’s record. I submit to you though that these things are not pressure builders, they are motivations, and there is a huge difference. If you learn to understand this difference you will be well on the way to performing better as a golfer yourself.

Okay, let start with Tiger Woods being a minority golfer. The real universal disadvantage to begin a minority golfer is lack of access to the money, courses and coaches that are needed to develop a young potentially gifted golfer into a professional player. However, Tiger lacked none of these things growing up.

Otherwise, being a minority golfer serves as motivation, not a pressure, when you are out to prove to the world that you can do something that it has not seen before (“a dominate minority golfer”). People respond to outside forces with flight or fight. Expectation cause you fright which leads to flight. Underestimation is a slight that makes you fight. Tiger acts with a slighted attitude that makes him motivated to fight. Most young talented golfers have intense expectations placed on them that lead to fright of the pressure to live up to expectation.

As for him stating early in his career that he was chasing Jack’s record, this is also motivational. He has been chasing a goal so great that the pressures of winning one major have never upon him like with other young golfers. Just listen to the young golfers in their interviews. No one else has ever said they are chasing Jack’s record. Consequently, they feel immense pressure just to win one major. Tiger on the other hand won’t start feeling real pressure until he start getting close to his goal of breaking Jack’s record.

So the average golfer should find ways to gain Tiger Woods mental toughness. You don’t want to break 80. You want to break 80 twenty times this season. You don’t want to do well during your golf round to meet everyone’s expectations. You want to do well to stick it to all those non believers. It does not even matter if the later is true. It is a psychological game that can elevate your golf game. Make yourself a fighter.

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