New Delhi: Tiger Woods is the gold standard and much more in modern golf, considering his numbers, combativeness and sheer longevity despite the spate of injuries wrought by his punishing approach off the tee and the distraction of personal turmoil.
Woods won his first Major in 1997, and his 15th and last in 2019, which came 11 years after notching up Major No.14. He took the game truly global by the sheer weight of his performances and personality. Golf was never the same once he began reeling off victories, making contemporaries shrink. But for his body breaking down, he surely would have gone past the PGA Tour win record of 82 he shares with Sam Snead.
Considering his final Major, and fifth Masters title in 2019 game achieved despite a body repaired on various occasions, and being forced out only because of a serious car accident, he is the golfing superman every current great must bear comparison to.
PGA Tour has seen off the existential threat from LIV Golf, but world No.1 Scottie Scheffler’s rise has helped feature a player whom the world would love to watch every time he tees off.
Unlike the in-your-face, glaring phenomenon Woods was, intimidating rivals when he was on the charge, Scheffler has shown he can pick off the opposition with his sheer consistency and mastery.
{{/usCountry}}Unlike the in-your-face, glaring phenomenon Woods was, intimidating rivals when he was on the charge, Scheffler has shown he can pick off the opposition with his sheer consistency and mastery.
{{/usCountry}}Since joining the PGA Tour in 2020, the 30-year-old Texan has reeled off 22 wins. That includes three of his four Majors, including two Masters titles. That he has made the cut in 150 of his 170 starts in a sport that makes consistency and sustaining form so difficult makes him a massive exception.
Among current players, only Northern Ireland’s world No.2 Rory McIlroy has better numbers. He has seven Majors, and completed the career Slam by winning the Masters in 2025, then defending it this year. At 37, McIlroy has 30 PGA Tour titles, which places him 16th in the all-time list.
Still, somehow Scheffler is not really seen in a race to catch up with McIlroy. Perhaps it is because of his 11-year Major drought before answering the ‘will we win another’ question finally last year by completing the career Slam with the Masters victory. The comparison for Scheffler, though he has a long way to go, is definitely with the man who helped revolutionise golf by shaking off its elitist image.
It has been a low-key year for Scheffler compared to the previous three. There was no Major win, for one, and he had no title until a fortnight ago after he won the American Express title at the start of the season.
There were just murmurs whether Scheffler’s phenomenal level was just dropping off a tad. The putter went cold at times within a tournament. With slow starts, those close misses made the difference despite invariably strong finishes.
But Scheffler never went off the rear view of the player ahead. Five runner-up finishes – two in playoffs – and fourth three times showed the glass was almost always to the brim. Justin Thomas was among those who thought aloud about the contenders for the PGA Tour Player of the Year this time.
However, Scheffler, who has won the Jack Nicklaus Award the last four years is now almost certain to make it five-in-a-row after two wins in a fortnight. The St Jude Championship, the first of the three playoffs, followed by his second Tour Championship victory — a 3-shot win after being 3 shots behind on the final day — was a masterclass of control and precision on an unforgiving East Lake Club course in Atlanta.
He has become the FedExCup Champion for the second time. Only Woods (2007, 2009) and McIlroy (2016, 2019, 2022) have won it multiple times. Scheffler, with career PGA Tour earnings of $130,390,661 has surpassed Woods.
Even for a PGA Tour in robust health, Scheffler is the man it sees to deliver golf far and wide by his sheer performances. In a video posted by the tour on X, Woods puts his own game next to Scheffler’s. The most distinct feature, though, has been his unique tee shot, where the right foot drags and the body appears to be all over the place.
“Forget all the footwork stuff,” Woods says in the video. “If you just sat behind him and you only look at the golf ball, and how tight it is (the line it takes). He doesn’t move the ball very much either way.”
So, Woods versus Scheffler? “I see it differently. My game was very violent at times…He slid on it (iron play), I snapped on it.”
The Chair of the PGA Tour’s Future Competition Committee, whose aura has in no small measure helped ward off the LIV Golf threat, sees the similarities in how they visualize the game. “The way we see shots into the greens are very similar. How we miss golf balls in the correct spots. It’s not always pretty, but it’s not always about the here and now. It’s playing the long game. It’s over 72 holes.
“It’s not a sprint. It’s over a marathon. I think that’s the similarity between how we play the game.”
The golf world will hope the world No.1 for 207 weeks, and 171 weeks consecutively currently, aces his career marathon too.