Ok ive never claimed to be a great golfer but i do have some background in mental training. i have a semi high level football background along with a straight commission sales and self employment background.

it is my theory that the top 10% of players are not as tough mentally as the players of past eras.

my first reason is players dont have to win anymore to make a decent living. now you might say yes but they want to win. that might be true but as with any living creature there is a difference between wanting to and having to. thus for a percentage of the modern player there might be that safety net in their subconscious that hey 2nd wouldnt be that bad thats still 800k.

i could even see myself succumbing to this in the wsop. thats life changing money for me.

some others might have a deep down fear of success. there are some people in life that are afraid to win not just in golf. they are afraid of the attention,celebrity,and external expectation. yes this could be a small percentage of players. get themselves in position but again subconsciously sabotage themselves.

then the big one is belief level. this separates the average player from the elite esp in majors.
truly believing one can accomplish something is key in many aspects of life.
there are many levels ill use sales for my example.

new sales people come in and the first thing id do is try to get them to believe.
they start out thinking i can sell this. then they graduate to i believe i can sell this. then they eventually expect to sell every time they walk into somebodys house.

from thinking i can to expecting i will produces a huge difference in results.

have you heard the saying success breeds success? how about whatever a man truly believes in his heart he can achieve?

well thats how you get there the more results in the positive the more you
will believe in your abilities. thats why the first major is the hardest to win.

the old top 10% won more majors therefore they went into majors expecting to win. they knew jack was there but again they were comfortable it wasnt new thus making them much tougher opponents to beat.

current players are easier to beat cause they will usually self destruct at some level in the final round. rory, hansen, monty, phil (for many years) vandevelde, on and on.

one thing i give tiger credit for he expects to win every time he tees it up. huge advantage!

This was definitely not what I was expecting. This post is terrible and is 100% your opinion.

well elaborate please. cause i know if you go into a sales call and you arent expecting to sell unless you have a lay down you are wasting your time.

same thing in a collegiate football game if i dont believe im the equal of my opponent he is going to kill me all day.

Great post, based on this I have concluded that mini-tour golfers who are grinding it out just to live are the equivalent of those top 10% stone cold killers from eras past.

I would also propose that the PGA Tour reduce their purses by 97% because there is too much money up for grabs and we are being deprived the true legends of the game that are born from their need to sink a putt to feed themselves and their family.

Poor breakyaneck, you were seriously expecting something really intuitive from this?

no you are misunderstanding me. there are more safety nets now. and i said for a small percentage of players not all.

the biggest thing is belief level between the elite. again i can only base this off football but there is not that much difference in physical talent. at that level its way more mental than physical cause everybody is good. i would expect that to be the same at the top levels of golf.

nxt do you not think there is such thing as belief level?

Also the best part of this post is the "formula for success" that Leo preaches to his fellow salesman is the exact same pitch sports psychologists have been teaching to basically every serious golfer for the past decade.

So let me get this straight. You seem to believe that people can be mentally trained. Athletes today utilize this training, people of past eras did not. However players of past eras are mentally tougher. Standard Leo logic.

There isnt anything to comment on really. You said some very very obvious things which everyone in the world knows. You then pretty much claimed that tons of PGA pros dont this way LOL. Because you know and have talked to them right? They wouldnt be out there on tour if they didnt think they could win

This is a contradiction. You're saying tour players don't care about winning because there's so much money for 2nd place. But if there's so much money for 2nd place, all the top players will have so much money that 2nd place money hardly matters to them. 800k is hardly going to improve their quality of life, so why would they think "hey 2nd place would be great cuz it's so much money!" Any rational human in this spot would think "so it's 800k for 2nd? Gee I already have 10mil in the bank, might as well go for the win, duh!"

You're right, there is a difference between wanting something and having to do something. Having to win to feed your family would put tremendous pressure on the player and would almost certainly make them get more nervous and play worse, not better.

this has been around since the old testament it is nothing new.

but for most people they need results to increase their level. now as i used my example with women where i didnt think i should even try to having tons of women the only thing that changed was belief. it was the only thing that changed.

so the older players thru greater results were able to achieve higher levels of belief over guys now who dont get there as often.

ok do you see what you said? they think. they dont expect.

and im talking about majors only really. again big diff between expecting to win a tour event and a major.

More guys have higher beliefs now on tour because the top 10 in the world win less. No idea what you are even trying to accomplish because you contradict yourself in every post

now that I know leo is a salesman, most of his past posts make a lot more sense.