Legendary coach Peter Cowen is one golf’s best-known and more successful coaches but he believes an aging Tiger Woods will never regain the invincibility that earned the American 14 Major Championship victories.

Cowen coaches the likes of former European and PGA Tour Number One Henrik Stenson, past U.S.Open winner Graeme McDowell along with England’s prolific-winning Lee Westwood and more recently had begun working with former European No. 1 Robert Karlsson.

Cowen is in attendance at around 30 tournament a season including this week’s Scottish Open at Gullane.

And with the 2015 Open Championship at St. Andrews now less than a week away Cowen was asked his opinion of Woods, now aged 39, who returns to the Home of Golf where he captured the 2000 Open Championship by eight shots and five years later reigned supreme at St. Andrews by five shots.

Peter Cowen believes an aging Tiger Woods will never regain his invincibility. (Photo – Stuart Adams www.golftourimages.com)

“If there is one important thing that makes any sportsperson look ordinary and that is age,” said Cowen.

“You can’t do anything about a person’s age.  That invincibility diminishes with age and it has to but then once you lose that invincibility how do you get it back?

“In all my years of coaching, I have not seen one player get back that invincibility.

“You look back at the Mike Dyson and Buster Douglas fight and while Tyson looked invincibility Douglas knocked him out.   Then someone else knocks out Tyson and it was then the snowball effect.

“That’s what these young kids playing golf nowadays are about as they don’t fear Tiger Woods anymore unfortunately as Tiger didn’t have that aura of invincibility in their era.

“It’s a totally different era now and it seems to be happening quicker as it used to be almost every 20 years there would be a changing of the guard but not nowadays.

“Everyone ages differently and I am not talking physically but mentally.

“People don’t realise that you are in the mix in every single tournament that Tiger was, and years back he was in the mix in every tournament he contested, that mentally is draining.

“It strips that aura every time, and I can see when Henrik (Stenson) is in the mix because at the end of the tournament he is absolutely, totally mentally drained and exhausted, and he has not won near as many tournaments as Tiger.

“If Tiger had finished top-three he would want to know why he didn’t win and you can’t have a go at Tiger because he was just that good.

“So don’t have a go at Tiger!  Do not question Tiger.  Admit he’s been great for golf and say how good Tiger Woods played and how great Tiger Woods performed in winning a particular event.  So don’t have a go at the guy as he’s been great for golf.

“We also should not be saying Tiger has made millions from the game but instead everyone should be grateful they played in the Tiger Woods era.

“The great legacy Tiger has given golf is that he’s brought more kids into the game and golf, going forward, needs to recognize this and continue introducing the game to younger people.”

One of those working this week in Scotland with Cowen is McDowell, who for a first time since May 2010 has dropped outside the World’s top-50.

But thanks to burglars not robbing Cowen of an old lap top, Cowen managed to track down video footage of McDowell taken on the practice range at St. Andrews ahead of the 2010 U.S. Open, and just weeks after he had captured the U.S. Open.

“My academy at Rotherham just outside Sheffield has been burgled 25 times, including seven times this year, and I’ve had all my lap tops and cameras stolen along with golf  attire and clubs in the break-ins,” said Cowen.

“They knicked everything but I looked in the archives and on ‘You Tube’ and all that but I really wanted my own stuff and I found an old computer that I didn’t realise I had downloaded some old videos on.

“So, I managed to find this old video of Graeme and taken on the practice range ahead of the 2010 Open at St. Andrews and just weeks after he had won at Pebble Beach.

“So he and I looked at the tapes of his swing five years ago, and after agreeing to what was different he’s come out today and shot a 66 on the first day of the Scottish, and naturally Graeme is very pleased considering he has missed the cut in his last three events.”