Not a Hyperbole: Scottie Scheffler is the Best Golfer Since Tiger Woods
McIlroy, Koepka, Rahm and others appeared poised to take the mantle, but Scheffler is better than all of them.
Scottie Scheffler heard the groan emanating from the 18th green. It was over.
The 27-year-old had posted 20-under at the Players Championship with a sizzling Sunday 64, but still had three bullets to dodge to claim the title in regulation. Three players — Brian Harman in the penultimate group, as well as Xander Schauffele and Wyndham Clark in the final pairing — came to the home hole at TPC Sawgrass needing a birdie to join Scheffler at 20-under and force a three-hole playoff.
Each missed, giving Scheffler a win in consecutive weeks — he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week by five shots, his Sunday 66 tying the low round of the tournament.
A second Masters title (his first came in 2022) in less than a month, and Scheffler will only further prove what already may be the case: we are looking at the best player of the post-Tiger Woods era.
**
There have been others. Rory McIlroy, the initial heir, racked up four majors from 2011-14, winning the 2011 U.S. Open and 2012 PGA Championship by eight shots each — the second of which he closed out while donning a red shirt, bringing the Woods comparisons fully into the limelight.
In 2015, Jordan Spieth perhaps came the closest of any golfer in the modern era (since 1960) to win the calendar Grand Slam, prevailing at the Masters and U.S. Open before finishing a shot out of a playoff at the Open and solo second to Jason Day at the PGA. He added a third leg of the career Grand Slam in 2017, via a three-shot Open win at Royal Birkdale.
Brooks Koepka has the most majors of any player of this generation, with five. The 33-year-old, whose killer instinct and ability to persevere through various injuries make him perhaps the most fitting stylistic successor to Woods, has three PGAs — the first of which came in a thrilling duel with the resurgent legend in 2018 at Bellerive — and two U.S. Opens.
Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm have two majors apiece and double-digit PGA Tour wins. Collin Morikawa, who came out on top at the 2020 PGA and 2021 Open, made a name for himself as, statistically, the best iron player since peak Woods.
“I think you've had a lot of guys that go through stretches where they are [the best player],” Scheffler told reporters last Tuesday. “You had Jordan go through his stretch; you had a year where JT won five times [in 2017]; you had those years where Rory was winning majors by a bunch of shots.
“Nobody's really been able to have the longevity that Tiger had. But yeah, there's always certain guys that kind of pop up on the radar and win a bunch of tournaments at once. Jason Day is another guy who did it [during the 2015 and 2016 seasons].”
Each of those players (three of whom, Koepka, Johnson and Rahm, now play on LIV Golf) is special, and will likely add to their respective major tallies in the coming years.
They’ll just have to go through Scheffler to do so. Since the 2020 PGA, here are Scheffler’s major finishes: T4, T19, T18, T8, T7, T8, 1, missed cut, T2, T21, T10, T2, 3, T23. Only one weekend off, and a remarkable eight top-10s in 14 tries.
Plus, he does it in different ways. He contends in birdie fests. He contends in harsh conditions when even par is a good score. He wins with his blend of length and accuracy off the tee. He wins with his iron play, which is (statistically) even better than Morikawa’s was at his peak. He wins with his scrambling ability, and — with his new mallet putter freeing him up from putting woes that lasted through the second half of last season and the first stage of this year — his penchant for clutch putting.
He just wins. Don’t expect him to stop. In fact, don’t expect him to stop anytime soon.
“You want to watch greatness when you're out there. So I think it would be good for the game of golf, and we'll see what happens with the sport in the next few years,” Scheffler said Wednesday, regarding whether a dominant player emerging would benefit the men’s game.
“It's a pretty challenging game and we've got a lot of talent out here, so being that dominant figure I think is a very tall task to ask of anybody, but we've got some guys out here that I think can definitely pull it off.”
The guy most likely to pull it off is Scottie Scheffler. Don’t believe it? Well, let the numbers tell the story.
Over his last six months, Scheffler has gaining a whopping 3.35 shots per round on the average PGA Tour player, per analytics site Data Golf — which includes data from LIV events. That is 1.16 shots ahead of Schauffele, who, at +2.19, is second during that span. The gap between Scheffler and Schauffele is equal to the one between Schauffele and those tied for 43rd (Corey Conners and Kurt Kitayama, at +1.03).
Oh, and Scheffler is currently in the midst of the fourth-best peak of the last three decades. According to Data Golf, he is gaining 2.82 strokes per round over his last 150 rounds. Tiger Woods, who gained an outrageous 3.96 strokes per round during a stretch that included his nine-win, three-major 2000 campaign, occupies the top spot. Vijay Singh, whose peak (+2.96 shots per round) during a brilliant 2004 season saw him end Woods’ five-year-plus stay atop the Official World Golf Ranking, and David Duval, whose 1999 peak of +2.88 strokes per round saw him emerge as one of Woods’ chief competitors, are Nos. 2 and 3 on that list, respectively.
Since Woods’ struggles, both personal and injury-related, began in the late 2000s and early 2010s, men’s golf has been looking for a successor. Woods eventually regained popularity and, for a brief period, his elite form; his triumphant win at the 2019 Masters (his first major in nearly 11 years) capped off an awe-inspiring return to the top.
Yet the post-Tiger era has been underway for over a decade, even as he continues to tee it up in majors and at the Genesis Invitational. In winning the Players, Scheffler showed why it might not simply be the post-Tiger era; it may be the Scottie era.
**
Scheffler entered the final round in a tie for sixth at 12-under, five shots behind Schauffele. Dealing with an ailing neck since his front nine on Friday, an ailment so severe that Scott had doubts about Scheffler finishing the tournament, the world No. 1 used KT tape over the weekend to ease the pain.
“I told my wife Friday night, I don’t see him playing this weekend,” his caddie, Ted Scott, told reporters on Sunday.
The defending champion needed to gut out a low final-round number just to give himself a chance. He did just that.
With a hole-out eagle at the fourth and birdies at the fifth, eighth and ninth, Scheffler made up the five-shot deficit by the time he made the turn. From there, it became evident why he is the best player in the game — and perhaps even greater than that. On Sawgrass’ demanding (but rewarding, if you commit to a plan and execute it) back nine, Scheffler hit every fairway and all but one green in regulation. It was a masterclass in closing out a tournament.
But it wasn’t over yet, as three players had a chance to force a playoff.
Harman, last year’s Open champion, gave himself a credible birdie look with a terrific wedge shot out of the pine straw. His putt missed on the low side.
Schauffele, who possesses 11 top-10s in major championships without a victory, finished the week 18th out of the 73 players to make the cut in strokes gained: off the tee. Yet, when he needed to find the fairway, the 30-year-old couldn’t, sending his tee shot into the pine straw. It was impressive that he found the green in regulation and two-putted for par from 61 feet, but unfortunately for Schauffele, he needed a birdie.
Then, there was Clark, the reigning U.S. Open winner. After a gutsy birdie on the island 17th, he split the fairway with an iron on 18 and left himself an eerily similar birdie putt to the one Harman just missed minutes earlier.
This was it; Clark was going to bury the putt, and there would be a playoff between the clear best player in the world and the man arguably playing the second-best golf so far in 2024 — Clark won the rain-shortened Pebble Beach Pro-Am in early February, and finished solo second to Scheffler at the Arnold Palmer Invitational last week.
Instead, we got one of the most brutal lip-outs possible.
NBC’s Dan Hicks was right in wondering “How did that not drop?” aloud on the broadcast. Clark could only put his hand (and after, his hat) over his face and close his eyes in shock, while Scheffler — preparing for a possible playoff on the range — embraced Scott once the groan confirmed their suspicions. For the first time in 50 editions of the PGA Tour’s marquee event, a player won in back-to-back years.
“I don't know how that putt doesn't go in,” Clark told reporters afterward. “It was kind of right center with like a foot to go, and I knew it was going to keep breaking, but it had speed and I thought it was going to go inside left, and even when it kind of lipped, I thought it would lip in. I'm pretty gutted it didn't go in.”
Clark is right to be gutted; nine times out of 10, his putt drops. But to beat the best, you have to leave nothing to chance. Ultimately, Clark’s efforts weren’t enough, and Scheffler survived to win his eighth PGA Tour event in the last 25 months.
“That's why we put in all the work, is to be able to finish off tournaments and to play well at the right time,” Scheffler told reporters. “Going into days like today it's nice coming out on top, for sure. It's a great feeling.”
It sure must be. Overcoming an injured neck, facing a five-shot deficit — with five of the world’s best (Schauffele, Clark, Harman, Matthew Fitzpatrick and Maverick McNealy) ahead of him on the leaderboard — going into Sunday, Scheffler did what he does best: win.
With the Masters, set for Apr. 11-14, looming, who’s willing to argue he won’t do it again?
“Being at the top of the leaderboard last week and this week, it's a real test mentally and physically,” Scheffler said. “This week was a physical test, as well, just with how my neck was Friday and Saturday. So I put a lot into trying to win this golf tournament, it's very satisfying to be walking out of here with the trophy.”
 | A guest post by
|