While the golf world slowly digests the implications of the US Open just passed, it is interesting perhaps to reflect on what the implications will be for the manner in which golfers prepare for major championships.

The trend of the Woods era has been essentially imitative. What Tiger does is what the rest of the field does. The big guys, the Darren Clarkes and the Montys have begun epic battles with their waistlines, the younger wolves have begun work-out routines. Everybody comes to the tee these days with bulgy biceps and washboard abs. Golfers are beginning to look like real athletes.

Yet what may be harder to replicate in the long run is the specific work ethic which Woods has brought to his game and the impact on competitors which his success itself has wrought. To watch Woods spend a couple of hours in the company of his coach Butch Harmon is instructive. First Woods has the innate intelligence to know and accept that he needs instruction. In full public view on Wednesday afternoon Woods and Harmon went through the paces on the little putting green outside the shops at Pebble Beach.

Harmon put his foot in the way of Woods' backswing on his putting to get him used to a shorter draw back for the fast greens of Pebble Beach. He spent much time holding Woods' head down before and after putts. The pair organised a little putting competition between themselves. Woods won that and from Thursday onwards he putted like a god.

For company on the putting green on Wednesday he had amongst others Jesper Parnevik who (along with Jim Furyk) would play with him for the next two days. Parnevik, who along with Vijay Singh has the reputation as being the hardest worker (besides Woods), looked fretful and worried. He had four different putters with him and couldn't decide which to use. Evidently he finally made a selection but the next two days in the company of Woods were among the most miserable of the Swede's golfing life.

The preparation, the re-stressing of basics and Woods' constant re-emphasising of the importance he puts on mental strength makes for a formidable package. Woods has the mental strength to move serenely through all the hysteria which surrounds him. His very presence, however, is an inhibiting factor to many other players on the Tour.

"Actually, although it's nice to come in second, I'm kind of embarrassed to be so far behind," said Ernie Els, the cream of the also-rans, on Sunday.

"I was lying in bed," said Hal Sutton at the Players' Championship in April "and I thought, `well you know what - I am not praying to him. I am not praying to him so he is not a God'."

Sutton may be right but not many on the Tour now will risk such blasphemy. Tiger Woods is deferred to in so many ways that the relationship between himself and the rest of the field is much more skewed than merely "first among equals". From the business of a tournament lacking credibility unless it has Tiger in the field to the small things like the manner in which other players move away from the hole in the centre of the putting green when Woods arrives so that the king may practice as far away from the adoring public as possible.

When finally you get paired with Woods the crowd, the marshals, the great horde of "inside the ropes" press people, the clicking of camera shutters, the TV cameraman with his camera pointed at Woods' face all the time, the fact that you virtually don't exist, all these things loom as significant distractions as you fight with your own game. It takes a tough cookie like Ernie Els to deal with it all.

And that in a way was what was so impressive about Padraig Harrington's week, his mental toughness and the ability to learn quickly. He came off the 18th green on Sunday and refused to be pleased with his achievement in finishing fifth.

Instead he had a catalogue of things which he had to learn if he was to move his game up to a higher level. Must do this. Must do that.

Watching the British and Irish players in action last week Harrington cut a quite solitary figure, deliberately removed from all the clubbishness, focused in an intense way on where he's going. You imagined that if you could fast forward 10 years and come back to the 2010 US Open, Harrington would be among the major attractions while most of the others from our part of the world would be fodder for "where are they?" pieces.