Adam Scott Reveals the Depth of Tiger Woods’ Mind Games

Tiger Woods was hard enough to beat on the course due to his superior golf skills, but the greats seem to want to break a competitor mentally as well.

Much like the legendary stories from contemporaries of Michael Jordan, golfers are a bit more forthcoming over the mind games that Tiger Woods put them through now that he’s not playing routinely.

Adam Scott joined @ColtKnost and on @thesleezyman on @golf_subpar to discuss his Masters victory, playing golf with Tiger Woods, the Presidents Cup and more.https://t.co/HXIPuzgAYr

— GOLF.com (@GOLF_com) September 23, 2022

In an interview on the Subpar Podcast through golf.com, Adam Scott—who is making an International Team record 10^th Presidents Cup appearance this week—talked about one way that Woods would force playing partners into errors on the course.

“He would pull way too much club on a par-3 and let you see it as it was playing out. He’d make kind of a full swing with a 7 and flight it in there nicely and let you see it was a 7, and you were tossing out whether if it was an 8 or a 9,” Scott recalled. “And you were like, ‘Well, it’s definitely an 8 if he hit 7,’ and then you go ahead and hit an 8 and airmail the green.”

After one such instance in 2000 at St. Andrews, Woods gave Scott some friendly advice: “You should never look at my bag.”

Scott said that he took that to heart.

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“It got to the point where I started having some success playing with Tiger by not watching him play. That was the best way to go. I literally turned my back and didn’t watch him make a move or hit a shot or feel like I could get sucked into the drama that was playing with Tiger Woods because there was so much going on.”

Scott and playing partner Hideki Matsuyama didn’t start well on the opening day of the Presidents Cup, falling 6 & 5 to Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, and the U.S. leads the competition 4-1 after one day.

Cover Image Via Twitter