Who Thinks Better: Tiger, Nicklaus or the new kids?

[squirrel]

A player's swing is one thing but who do you think has the best mental approach? Is Tiger the best or are the new kids learning things that will allow them to surpass Tiger's mental skills?

[imAnewbie]

A player's swing is one thing but who do you think has the best mental approach? Is Tiger the best or are the new kids learning things that will allow them to surpass Tiger's mental skills?

Not unless they receive the mental training his dad taught him when he was a kid... well tiger is tiger but one thing is for sure someone will be coming up and erase tiger's records, just like what he is doing with Nicklaus' records now.

[GQuizzle]

I'd say Tiger is ahead of the game right now, and until someone can really step up to challenge his dominance, he will remain at the head of the class.

[Richard]

Well if you believe the story of Tiger's father being a green beret and teaching Tiger from the beginning what he knew about how to kill the competition, I would say Tiger's mental game for winning is the best and will be extremely hard to top.

I believe Tiger introduced the fist pump to golf, which I remember detesting when I first saw it. Not part of traditional golf.

I now understand it's part of his game to intimidate the other players and helps take the prize money.

[TourIQ]

A player's swing is one thing but who do you think has the best mental approach? Is Tiger the best or are the new kids learning things that will allow them to surpass Tiger's mental skills?Tiger based on his WIN percentage :D
and he is not happy unless he continues to improve, so his game has not peaked yet.

[Tyger]

Tiger wins because of his mental toughness...everyone has a great swing, can putt; but Tiger brings it when it counts and no one intimidates him.

[squirrel]

My argument for Nicklaus over Tiger is this. Nicklaus played before the era of sport psychologists and swing doctors so his accomplishments were a result of learning/improving as he went along. An argument could be made that Tiger was brought up to be tough and that his skill came from outside of himself. Maybe Nicklaus's ability to learn from his mistakes is easier for us as average golfers to imitate than Tiger's skills.

[Golden Bear]

It's an unanswerable question. You can't say either "thinks better" than the other. Watching the successes and failures of both, did/do you ever find yourself saying, "boy, that was a bad decision there".

Any answer that selects one over the other is a subjective answer -- people will name whichever of the two they will prefer.

Jack was an absolute master of the mental game. So is Tiger. None of us are in the heads of either golfer, so there's no way of measuring their mental approach.