Scottie Scheffler deserves every accolade coming his way right now. The winner of the Open Championship on Sunday, July 20, has been so dominant in the last couple of years that many are wondering if he compares to perhaps the greatest of all time, Tiger Woods.
Is Scottie vs. Tiger a worthy debate?
The numbers say that debate is premature. Scheffler is clearly at a different level than his peers at the moment. He is on a fantastic run with 11 wins and three major championships in two years. He has four major titles overall. No. 2 in the world, Rory McIlroy acknowledged that Sunday, saying, “He’s the bar we’re all trying to get to right now.”
Scheffler won the Open Championship with an easy final round 68, strolling around Royal Portrush Golf Club to beat Harris English by four shots. He became the only golfer in history to win his first four major championships by three strokes or more.
His fellow golfers have taken up the debate. Xander Schauffele, winner of two majors himself in 2024, could only shake his head.
“I don’t think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon,” Schauffele said. “And here’s Scottie taking that throne of dominance. He’s just been killing it for over two years now.”
Jordan Spieth, a three-time major winner, sees it differently. Scheffler is winning despite not having the same mindset Woods had in his heyday.
“He’s not transcending the game like Tiger did,” Spieth said. “He’s not bringing the game to a non-golf audience necessarily. He doesn’t want to go do the stuff that a lot of us go do, corporately or anything like that. He just wants to get away from the game and separate the two.”
What statistics separate the two champions?
That mindset clearly hasn’t slowed Scheffler down, but he’s just got a long way to go to reach the level Woods achieved between 1999 and 2010 when he was named Associated Press Athlete of the Decade.
One statistic is certainly comparable. With his victory Sunday, Scheffler and Woods each took exactly 1,197 days to win their first four major titles.
The numbers are decidedly different from there. Woods has 15 total majors to Scheffler’s four.
Tiger had 40 PGA Tour wins at age 29, and is at 82 and counting for his career. Scheffler turned 29 in June and earned his 17th career win Sunday.
Scheffler now has 10 consecutive wins when leading after 54 holes. Woods did it 36 times –– it was virtually impossible to catch him once he took the lead.
Scheffler has been ranked No. 1 in the world for 149 weeks now. That’s the longest streak since the record holder, Woods, who was on top for 281 consecutive weeks between 2005 and 2010.
When asked about it Sunday, Scheffler himself shrugged off the comparison.
“I still think they are a bit silly. I mean, Tiger won, what, 15 majors?” Scheffler said. “This is my fourth. So I just got one-fourth of the way there. I think Tiger stands alone in the game of golf. He was inspirational for me growing up.”
What about Scheffler’s attitude toward winning?
Scheffler made headlines earlier this week after he questioned the meaning of it all, asking repeatedly, “What’s the point?” of winning tournaments. He reiterated that golf doesn’t define him after his win Sunday, though he is just one major away from the career grand slam.
“I don’t focus too much on that stuff,” Scheffler said. “When this season ends for me after the Ryder Cup, I’ll go home and assess where my game’s at, things I can improve on and then go from there. I don’t think about winning tournaments, I just look at the body of work I have and think about ways to improve.”
That process is certainly very Tiger-like. However, as we all learned this week, Scheffler is motivated in a much different way than Woods was during his peak, chasing Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major titles.
Only time will tell if Scheffler’s approach is enough to achieve G.O.A.T. status.
