Ever since Tiger Woods said “Hello, world” in 1996, any historical context has become increasingly difficult. Not only are comparisons to Woods blatantly unfair but they almost always fall flat.
There have been outliers. Jordan Spieth in 2015 when he won five times including the Masters and U.S. Open, along with top-5 finishes at the year’s other two Grand Slam stops, was special. Rory McIlroy in 2012 with four Tour tilts, a major (PGA Championship) and two of that season’s four post-season stops was also impressive.
But as spectacular as those campaigns were, neither player was able to sustain that Tiger-like performance. McIlroy went winless on Tour in ’13 and Spieth won a total of five times over his next five years following that ’15 season.
If comparisons to Woods are zero-sum games it is, to be fair, the only benchmark for what Scottie Scheffler accomplished this season.
Scheffler’s season swansong at the Tour Championship, a four-stroke romp that’s slightly misleading given the “silly” (his word) starting-strokes format and how close the race for the circuit’s $25 million payday was midway through Sunday’s final round, was his seventh victory of the season. The last player to win seven times on Tour in a single season was Woods in 2007.
In fact, only Woods (’07, ’06, ’00 and 1999) and Vijay Singh (2004) have won seven or more events on Tour since 1983. And only Woods spent more time in his career at No. 1 in the FedExCup standings (85) than Scheffler (50).
Then there’s the historical marks that Woods didn’t achieve, including Scheffler becoming the first player to win a major, The Players and the FedExCup in the same season. Scheffler also set a new mark for earnings with an impressive $62 million in total compensation, including his (unofficial) $25 million FedExCup and $8 million Comcast Business Tour Top 10 bonuses. It’s worth noting amid professional golf’s arm race that Scheffler’s total on-course income, including those two well-earned bonuses, is more than any NFL quarterback will make this season in average base salary.
But it’s Scheffler’s sustained brilliance and his unrivaled consistency that puts him alongside Woods. Over the last three seasons he’s won 13 times starting with his breakthrough Tour victory at the 2022 WM Phoenix Open.
His consistency, his attitude, I feel like he just sort of brings the same demeanor to the course every single day, no matter what position on the leaderboard he’s in,” McIlroy said of Scheffler. “He’s just amazing to watch, the way he manages himself around the golf course. Yeah, we’ll look back on 2024 and it’s obviously one of the best individual years that a player has had for a long time.”
