Yes, Scottie Scheffler’s 2024 season is actually beginning to rival Tiger Woods’ all-time 2000 campaign
Tiger Woods’ 2000 PGA Tour season will never be topped … right? That year, Woods won nine times, captured three major championships, collected almost double the prize money of the second-place finisher on that list (Phil Mickelson) and set the all-time scoring average record of 67.79 (which he later tied).
Woods won the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots. He took the Open Championship at St. Andrews by eight. He won a wild PGA Championship at Valhalla in a playoff.
That one-year run is never getting touched by any golfer, ever … right?
Though there have been other immense seasons in golf years — Vijay Singh won nine times in 2004, Tiger won eight events in 1999 and 2006 — Tiger’s 2000 is certainly the gold standard against which all other modern PGA Tour seasons will be measured.
Scottie Scheffler, who on Sunday became the first PGA Tour golfer since Woods in 2009 to win six times in a year, is — believe it or not — actually tracking comparably with Woods’ 2000 campaign.
It’s a stunning comparison. While Scottie does have a Tiger-shaped hole which we’ll get to in a minute, he’s also staying with him step for step.
It’s reasonable to point out that Woods had to face all the best players in the world, while Scheffler does not have to deal with Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Smith because they no longer play on the PGA Tour. There is also the matter of field strength. A handful of Scheffler’s wins have come in smaller-field signature events like the RBC Heritage and Travelers Championship. Surely a couple of those extra 60 or 70 players would have challenged Scheffler for some of his victories.
On the flip side, golfers in 2024 are simply longer and better than they were in 2000 when Tiger was destroying worlds. And there were no signature events when Woods played that required or incentivized participation from all of the best players. If one didn’t want to play the Arnold Palmer Invitational or the Nissan Open, he just didn’t play them.
The comparison could be argued about for weeks or months, but the variables largely cancel one another out. The difficulty level of what Scheffler is accomplishing is basically equivalent to what Woods faced in 2000.
Now, the clear red mark on Scottie’s ledger is obviously that he will not win three majors this year to match Tiger’s triple nearly a quarter century ago. Scheffler can grab a second if he takes the Open at Royal Troon, but three is off the board. Then again, Woods didn’t win the Players in 2000, which Scottie did a few months ago for the second consecutive year.
Woods also destroys Scheffler in the strokes gained category. This makes sense given the margins Woods was winning (even in majors) by at that time. While you could perhaps bump Scottie’s up a bit if you believe fields are better and/or smaller (harder to separate), you’re not bumping it up an entire shot. (Even if you did, it’s still shy of Tiger’s mark.)
There is also the matter of the Olympics. Golf was not an Olympic sport during Woods’ 2000 season, but Scheffler will have the opportunity to add a gold medal in Paris. That would certainly be another feather in Scheffler’s cap en route to what is becoming one of the most historic seasons in modern PGA Tour history (since 1983).
Not that he’s thinking about any of that right now.
“I don’t set long-term goals; I never have,” Scheffler said Sunday. “I’ve always been best just when I stay in the present. I have what I would call dreams and aspirations and those will probably never change, but as far as goals for the year, nothing really changes for me. I show up, and it’s most important for me to have the right attitude and try and compete.
“I feel like the team around me this year has done a great job of getting on me a little bit when my attitude is not where it needs to be. I feel like on the golf course Teddy, and I have been as tough this year as we’ve been in a long time and it’s been a lot of fun.”
Let’s presume for a moment that Scheffler wins out. He said Sunday he’s planning on playing the Open, the Olympics and the three FedEx Cup playoff events. That would be 11 victories — two more than Woods had in 2000 — along with a likely edge in scoring average, proportion of money earned and top-five finishes. Scheffler would fall one major short (with a PGA asterisk given the complications surrounding his arrest) but have the Players and a gold medal to his name.
Woods’ 2000 would probably still get the edge just because it was so iconic, electric and unlike anything that had ever been seen before it. Winning the U.S. Open at Pebble by 15?! Come on. But on paper, Scheffler’s 2024 would at least rival it. And that’s something that no one believed was in the cards for any golfer to achieve, even as recently as a few months ago.
