So Scottie Scheffler's run recently has really been eye-opening. He has 4 wins in 10 events this year, coming off of 2022 and 2023 PGA Tour Player of the Year awards. This consistent stretch of excellence is really impressive and puts his name amongst the best in recent memory. But I saw so many people recently say "this is the best stretch since Tiger" that it made me go back to Tiger's stats to see how close the comparison was.
Scheffler 2024 --- 10 events (4 wins) --- 40.0 Win%
Woods '05-'09 ---- 75 events (31 wins) -- 41.3 Win%
Woods '99-'09 --- 190 events (64 wins) -- 33.7 Win%
Just ridiculous how great at his sport Tiger was. We have a guy going for his 3rd consecutive PGA Tour POY who is peaking this year, and Tiger was basically matching what he's done for 4 months for 5 years and not far off from his play for over a decade.
This isn't anything against Scheffler who is dominating right now, but it really puts into perspective how great Tiger was.
I remember at the turn of the millennium there were all these pop culture Top 10/50/100 lists. Before they became the joke they are today, ESPN's Sportscentury list and documentaries were something I loved watching.
Like most Top 100 of the 1900's lists, the top 3 athletes were pretty set in stone on ESPN's list. MJ, Ruth, Ali was how ESPN had it and other sports publications pretty much all had those 3 in some order. I think that's pretty fair.
If we were to do a Sports "Quarter"Century ranking so far through 2024, I think Tiger Woods is my easy #1 choice. Messi/Bolt/Phelps/Brady/LeBron/Djokovic/Serena and a bunch of others are in the convo. But besides maybe Messi, I don't think anyone really can compare to Tiger in terms of greatness.
He's a shell of his former self who has embarrassed himself off the course multiple times and there's a new sheriff in town running the PGA in Scheffler, but I was just taken aback by the extent of how dominant his stats were when I looked. Truly a generational athlete.
How good was tiger? If literally all the best players in the world went somewhere else, he would have won at least...... exactly what he did win...... and they didn't go anywhere.
Scottie is unreal right now. I was/am a huge Tiger fan. Scottie ain't nowhere near Tiger, yet. Talk to me in 5 years if he keeps this up.
What I will say is that I have never seen a player this accurate this often from all distances, ever. I saw Jack(Arnie, Gary, Tom et al). I saw Tiger. I have never seen a player this accurate at all distances as Scheffler. If he wasn't such a "poor putter" the previous year or longer, he'd have 5-8 more wins, easily. Seems he has sorted that out now.
Tiger was not as accurate as Scottie except inside about 120 yds. Tiger was a better putter. Scottie is starting to get there putting.
FYI, Scottie just destroyed the LIV guys at the Masters. I love Rahm, Koepke, DJ. But their LIV format does not promote good golf with good competition. LIV is a clown show. (FWIW, Rahm looks miserable.) If Rahm had not left, he and Scottie would be in brawls each week. (FYI I do not blame those guys taking $100s of millions for showing up to pretend to play golf)
It is too bad Thomas, Spieth, McIlroy are not playing better. There are plenty of really great golfers out there. Max Homa, Wyndham Clark, Tommy Fleetwood, Ludvig Aberg are really good - just not consistent.
Schefflers competition is different and the state of golf is a part of it. He’s the unquestioned best golfer on the planet right now though, no debate on that. It’s exciting to see how long this goes for. He needs to keep this streak going for another 3 years to match tigers 264 consecutive week streak, just think about how nuts that is.
Schefflers competition is different and the state of golf is a part of it. He’s the unquestioned best golfer on the planet right now though, no debate on that. It’s exciting to see how long this goes for. He needs to keep this streak going for another 3 years to match tigers 264 consecutive week streak, just think about how nuts that is.
Absolutely. Scary how good Tiger was for so long. Scottie has a long, long way to go. (Tiger as 15 majores not 18)
But, everyone said Tiger did not have the level of competition weekly that Jack had(I laughed). IMHO, it is the same argument today. I think even without the LIV guys Scottie has a better total level of competition because there are more international players and more younger guys making the grade sooner.
It doesn't matter, like I said, talk to me in 5 to 8 years if Scottie can keep it up. We are talking an all time great player vs a recently excellent player...
no idea why JT and cantlay blew up. or why hovland changed his swing. they've played less than sheffler but not a lot less.
what are we 2 years in on the new rules that made things cushier for the top 50? that's how it looks other than sheffler.
in terms of him vs tiger, very long way to go. we had this conversation with spieth during his run and koepka during his. it's justified bc scottie has been that good but he would have to keep it up for a decade.
tiger never had an arch rival other than phil but he had some good runs vs els, vijay, sergio, etc at his peak.
rory and spieth didnt get him at his peak but he's competed with them at theirs. 2018 tiger had a 6th place finish at the open, 2nd place at pga, and then won masters 2019 and that was during spieth/koepka peaks.
Granted 4 majors in two years was tremendous. With 2 kids having gone to FSU it was pretty neat. But as dominant as that was, I do not remember him being at the very top of the board EVERY week. That may sound dismissive, but I am not doing that. Merely saying that continuous weekly dominance too me is more impressive - and yes it is for a very short period of time - like Spieth, like Thomas or Rory before them.
I do believe the grind is what eventually gets to these guys. Now Scheffler will have an infant - staying home will mean a whole lot more. At what point do you rest on your laurels, collect fees from sponsors and make the minimum required tournaments? Has to tasty to make $20 mill per for wearing patches and making a couple commercials and only being on the road for 12/15 weeks.
As for Koepka, you are right, it wasn’t a weekly thing but I’m taking the majors over Scottie’s run, no question.