My Tiger Woods experience - A story of Self Focus

In 2012 I was coaching for the PGA at the Open Championship at Royal St Georges. I was there all week and my main goal, away from my coaching duties, was to find Tiger and watch him play and practice. Tiger was my childhood hero, I used to watch a Tiger Woods DVD before I went to play golf because I wanted to be just like him on the golf course! I hadn’t seen him in the flesh before, so I was excited at that prospect.

I was aware of many peoples views of Tiger, that he was arrogant, he wouldn’t sign many autographs and would ignore spectators and other players. I decided to make my own mind up and see how he behaved with my own eyes.

That week I was fortunate enough to be inside the ropes. This meant I could almost stand next to the players as they practiced!

The day before the tournament started, I spent some time on the short game area. When I arrived there were a few of the household names practicing. The likes of Lee Westwood, Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia and so on. The crowds had gathered around the fence to watch these guys as they chipped and hit bunker shots. At this stage the crowd was light, not too many spectators and there was certainly no problem getting a great view.

A few minutes later 4 security guards arrived dressed all in black with black caps and a small Nike tick on them. Then in the distance there was a sound of commotion, to the point that the practicing players even stopped to see what was going on. Then the crowds arrived, people running to the practice area and before I knew it the crowds outside were 10 deep.

Two police officers entered the practice area followed by, you guessed it, Tiger Woods.

Tiger was stone faced, only looking straight ahead as he came in and set himself up a few feet away from where I was standing. He emptied his practice balls, had a brief chat to his coach and started chipping some balls onto the green - The stories that Tiger would ignore everyone was true, no eye contact, no talking, no autographs.

For me it was obvious right at that point why he behaved the way he did. No other player was subject to that attention, noise and distraction. His behaviour wasn’t ignorance, arrogance or rudeness, it was simply self-focus. He is here to win a major championship and he must focus on himself and no one else. Tiger Woods was the best at self-focus and he needed a much higher level of it simply because his distractions were greater than any other player out there.

Self-focus was perhaps Tiger Woods’ best skill and without it, he wouldn’t have achieved what he did in the game.