With another win under Scottie Scheffler’s belt, it’s fair to start a conversation about his 2024 season and whether it ranks up against Tiger Woods’s best.
Determining Woods’s best season is a heavy lift, considering he won eight times in 1999 and 2006, seven times in ’07, six times in ’05 and ’09, five times in ’01, ’02, ’03 and in ’13.
However the best Woods year must be 2000.
That year, Woods won three major titles and was three-quarters of the way to the “Tiger Slam,” which he completed after his Masters win in 2001.
Woods started the year winning the season opener at Kapalua, followed by the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am, Bay Hill, Memorial, U.S. Open, Open Championship,
PGA Championship, WGC-NEC Invitational and the Canadian Open.
He had 17 top fives in 20 starts and shot over par in just four rounds all season with an overall stroke average of 68.17.
Impressive would be an understatement when discussing Woods’s best year in professional golf.
For Scheffler, the run has been notable: four wins in five starts, with the lone outlier a T2 at the Texas Children’s Houston Open.
In the 10 tournaments he has played in 2024, Scheffler has a stroke average of 68.74 and not one single round over par.
When Woods was roaming the fairways of the PGA Tour in 2000, no one thought he had much of a chance when Woods’s name appeared on the board.
For Scheffler, he doesn’t think his name has the same panache.
“I think it would be enjoyable if I’m up there on the leaderboard on Sundays because I think guys want to beat players when they’re at their best,” Scheffler said before the RBC Heritage. “I’m sure if you had Stephen Jaeger sitting here, he’d be saying, ‘Yeah, I want to compete against Scottie, I want to play with him.’ Then you get results like wins and stuff like that. I wouldn’t say that they would be worried. I think they would be more excited.”
Seeing Woods name on the leaderboard was never exciting for the opposition.
Scheffler is clearly on a run, but because of the small sample size of just 10 events in 2024 and five that are considered part of his current run, it’s clear more data is necessary to evaluate the two-time green jacket winner versus the 15-time major champion.
Using a looking glass to see what Scheffler would need to do for his 2024 season to be discussed alongside Woods’s best, he needs to pick off at least one if not two more majors and continue to win PGA Tour events at a good clip.
Scheffler has played in 18 career majors, with his best scores besides his two Masters wins being a T2 in the 2023 PGA Championship and 2022 U.S. Open. He also has a third-place finish at last year’s U.S. Open and a T4 at the 2020 PGA Championship.
With this year’s remaining majors at Valhalla, Pinehurst and Troon, Scheffler will be competing on courses he has never played at competitively.
That may make his ability to win one or more less likely.
Since his first major win at the 2022 Masters, the seven next majors were won by Justin Thomas, Matt Fitzpatrick, Cameron Smith, Jon Rahm, Brooks Koepka, Wyndham Clark and Brian Harman, showing the diversity of fields with seven different winners.
At this point, Scheffler’s run is nowhere near Tiger-esque, but it has potential. Next month’s PGA Championship in Louisville will offer a clearer picture.
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Source: Los Angeles Times
