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There was one statistic that cut to the heart of a long-brewing sentiment after Scottie Scheffler’s dominant victory at the Open Championship.
The number was remarkable, for it transpired that the 1,197 days between Scheffler’s first major win and fourth was identical to the respective span of a near-mythical figure in his sport – Tiger Woods.
When the comparisons were spelled out to Scheffler on Sunday night, the 29-year-old was resistant to the thought. His words: ‘I still think they're a bit silly.’ But the rest of the golfing world doesn’t believe it is. Not at all.
‘I don't think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon and here's Scottie taking that throne,’ said world No 3 and two-time major champion Xander Schauffele. ‘I think people are afraid to say it but he’s doing some Tiger-like stuff. When you see his name up on the leaderboard, it sucks for us.’
Rory McIlroy was no less effusive: ‘Scottie is the bar that we're all trying to get to. In a historical context, you could argue that there's only maybe two or three players in the history of the game that have had a run like the one that Scottie's been on here for the last 36 months. Incredibly impressive.’
Indeed. The best since Woods? Scheffler’s career is trending rapidly in that direction. But how does he rank against arguably the greatest golfer in history?
Scottie Scheffler collected the fourth major of his career on Sunday at Portrush
Tiger Woods dominated golf for a decade, and has racked up 15 majors - leaving Scheffler with a huge mountain to climb. But insiders claim they can still be compared
THE SILVERWARE
Since his first PGA Tour-level win in 2022, having turned pro four years earlier, Scheffler has been imperious. He has claimed an astonishing 13 tour-level victories, two Masters titles, the 2025 US PGA Championship, the Open and an Olympic gold medal last year.
Aged 29, he is a US Open away from completing the career slam and has been world No 1 for a combined total of 149 weeks since March 2022.
Woods? It’s a harsh yardstick – if we keep to his first 146 professional starts, as a means of like-for-like comparison to Scheffler, he won a mind-boggling 37 times including eight majors.
The Olympics aside, which wasn’t part of the golf calendar around the turn of the millennium, Woods won roughly double Scheffler’s haul. On top-10s, they are well matched, with Woods on 82 and Scheffler 72.
Woods won a staggering eight majors in his first 146 starts, including the 1997 victory at Augusta pictured here
THE TEMPERAMENT AND BEHAVIOUR
Two characters united by a similar competitive ferocity but wildly different in nature. Woods was announced to the world by Nike and a vociferous father stating he would have the biggest impact on mankind since Jesus.
Woods was intimidatingly cold to his playing partners, a golfing assassin ordained for greatness and he never shied away from it.
Scheffler is amiable, deeply religious and more of an aw-shucks kind of guy – he told us last week he had no desire to be a transcending figure or an inspiration.
His other comments during Open week about finding a lack of fulfilment in golf came from placing it a distant third in his priorities behind family and faith.
That level of perspective has perhaps contributed to his calm, almost robotic, demeanour on the course. It’s a marked difference to how he was as a young player - he was fiery, and his college coach in Texas John Fields once told me about Scheffler kicking holes in the gymnasium wall after a table tennis defeat.
Now calmer, and far more balanced in his private life than Woods, his mind is his greatest weapon. Where scandals derailed Woods’s career, and conspired with a multitude of injuries to limit him to 15 majors, Scheffler could have an edge in this department in the coming years.
Aside from that surreal arrest for a motoring offence at the PGA Championship in 2024, Scheffler has never come close to a salacious headline.
Scheffler is amiable, deeply religious and more of an aw-shucks kind of guy – he told us last week he had no desire to be a transcending figure or an inspiration
THE GAME
Comparisons are tricky because Woods’s career was far longer and the grandest of his peaks – the 2000 season, when he won three majors and six other tour-level titles – pre-dates the time of detailed on-course statistics, particularly strokes-gained metrics.
But we know what we saw – long off the tee and almost never missed a putt that mattered. A recent Golf Digest investigation into Woods's 2000 season showed he was 3.84 strokes better than the average score of the field in each round.
Scheffler’s corresponding figure of 2.56 strokes demonstrates that he dominates, but not by as much. Let's break it down:
Woods celebrates winning the 2000 Open Championship at St Andrews
Scheffler slips on the Green Jacket after winning the Masters in 2024
Tee to green: Both men are masters of this area. Using Woods’s 2006 stats (when he won the US PGA and Open, same as Scheffler this year), he was 2.98 strokes better than the average of the field per round in the combination of driving and approaches. In 20 years, no one has come close to matching it other than Scheffler, who gained 2.40 strokes on the field average with his tee to green play in his eight-win season in 2024 and 2.27 strokes in 2025. Scheffler’s average driving distance of 304 yards is fractionally longer than Woods of 2000 (298 yards), which is down to modern ball and club technology, and his accuracy (62 per cent) is less than peak Woods (71 per cent).
Around the green: This is where Scheffler has an edge, ranking 17th and 25th on the PGA Tour in the last two years. In 2005, a year when Woods won two majors, he ranked 128th.
Putting: No one made clutch putts like Woods. For Scheffler, this area was a disaster a couple of seasons ago, but after joining up with British putting coach Phil Kenyon in 2023, he has been transformed into a top-20 player on the greens. His putting was his greatest strength at the Open, where he made 90 per cent of attempts inside 10 feet, but Woods was king in this domain at his best.
Technique: Like Ben Hogan, you would show Woods’s 2000 swing to your kids. Scheffler’s equivalent, incredibly effective as it is, would be less advisable for that distinctive foot shuffle that appears in no manuals. Shane Lowry said: ‘If Scottie's feet stayed stable and his swing looked like Adam Scott's, we'd be talking about him in the same words as Tiger.’
THE THRILL FACTOR
Woods's famous chip in at 16 at Augusta in 2005 was a wow moment - but it may not be a bad thing that Scheffler does not have as many of these
Woods every day of the week, and five times on Sunday. But a thought on this: the Woods highlight reel is dominated by amazing acts of recovery and fist-pumping eruptions, like the chip-in on the 16th at Augusta in 2005.
Scheffler’s is less exciting, but is that because he gets himself out of position less often?
THE VERDICT
Scheffler is dominating his era in a manner unseen since Woods. His personality also means it might even be sustained for years to come.
A comparison is not remotely ‘silly’, but all evidence tells us that he is not there yet.
