For so long, Tiger Woods was power.
For two decades or so, the two words ‘Tiger’ and ‘dominant’ were so synonymous with one another that ‘dominant’ seemed to defeat the point. Tiger wasn’t just dominant; he was historically dominant, planet-shatteringly dominant, leave-your-clubs-at-home-and-don’t-bother-coming-on-Sunday dominating. He was powerful in a casual way. Dominant in a steady, boring, watch-setting way. Dominant in a way that the absence of his dominance was treated as news (as on the rare times in which another player managed to usurp Woods).
We have not seen many golfers — before or since —fly with the levels of control that made Tiger so revered. But right now, we are seeing the emergence of a player whose dominance gives us with echoes of the the past. And while Scottie Scheffler is to Tiger Woods what pond ripples are to a tidal wive, the mere idea of a player approaching Woodsian levels of ability is enough to send the golf world into a tizzy.
A tizzy is where we find ourselves today, three weeks after Scheffler’s second Masters victory and two weeks after his fourth victory in his last five starts (the only non-win finish being a T2 at the Houston Open.) It seems that for the first time since Rory McIlroy in 2014, the golf world has been greeted with a figure who can spark a sense of inevitability. And for the first time in a long while, even Tiger Woods has taken notice.
On Wednesday morning, the 15-time major champion appeared on the Today Show as part of a press junket for his new clothing brand, Sun Day Red (a brand made in homage to Woods’ dominance). And as part of his chat with longtime pal and Today Show host Carson Daly, Woods offered his own striking take on Scheffler, golf’s dominant new world no. 1.
ICYMI: @TigerWoods on the @TODAYShow 📺 pic.twitter.com/qbKPYQS9il
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) May 1, 2024
“Scottie, I think obviously his iconic foot movement belies what the club is actually doing through the golf ball—how good it is, right?” Woods said. “How stable it is, how solid he hits it. It’s just so constant, and he works it both ways.”
Ball-striking skill is clearly the strength of Scheffler’s game, as it was once for Woods. Over the last 16 months, Scheffler’s game from tee to green has compared to some of the very best stretches of the Woods era in terms of strokes won. Obviously, Woods had the benefit of the “Elder Wand”—his famous Scottie Cameron Newport putter—around the greens. Scheffler could use an Elder Wand of his own, as his putting has been the lone element coming between him and historic greatness.
But there’s something about the confidence surrounding Scheffler’s game, Woods says, that reminds him of, well, him.
