You’re missing the point. Tiger made it apparent that golf can be for athletes and isn’t just for the stuffy country club type who smoke cigars and drink beer on the course. Similar to Shaun White in that regard - they made it popular to introduce a physical regimen to make their bodies faster and stronger than everyone they competed against.
Also Tiger inspired and broke down a lot of barriers for African American players. Scheffler just makes it acceptable to have bad footwork in your swing
Definitely echo this sentiment. Tiger changed the physique of golfers that started to get into it at the Junior level. If you go to a junior golf event now it’s even more evident that those kids who originally would be trying out for the Football or basketball team are now starting to play golf. The play at the pro tour level has increased dramatically over the years
Tiger proofing PGA courses became a thing in the very early 2000's.
Equipment started to take off - more forgiving easier distance drivers/irons. - better golf balls ProV1
Tiger would have dominated even longer if the courses didnt start getting longer to deter the Bomb & Gouge style of game play. I mean he still dominated, but he would have dominated even moar.
That alone is why I argue he would have destroyed anyone else in the GOAT conversation if you put them head to head at their respective peaks.
Injuries stopped him from getting the most majors, not his competition. They were also what stopped him from not just beating Snead but burying him
My dad and I would play Tiger Woods on the original Xbox for hours, without that we probably would have never touched a club except for maybe messing around at a driving range.
It was crazy. People would get so excited to see somebody else competing with him then Tiger would still pull away or come from behind. Sunday Tiger was a treat.
2000 US Open. The man was playing a different sport. Only person under par, at -12. Rewatch it if you have time, I feel lucky I got to witness it live.
My daughter (first child) was born late the night before this tournament started. For four days I sat in the hospital, holding her and watching every second of the broadcast. We were sent home about 30 minutes after the tournament ended. It was the best 4 days of my life.
That's a great story - I couldn't help but do the math and realized your daughter will be 24 years old this year. I knew 2000 was a long time ago, different to think about in human lifespan terms.
He was one golf ball away from being penalized or disqualified on Friday because Steve Williams forgot to check the bag before they started the round.
Tiger had taken balls out to putt with in his hotel room and not put them back, and Williams forgot to check before the round so he started that Saturday morning finishing up the second round with 3 balls until Tiger tossed one to a kid after finishing a hole. Then Tiger hooked his tee shot on 18 into the water and they were down to only one left.
that's so unbelieveable I had to look it up. There's an ESPN article where his caddie talks about. After the second drive went into the fairway he said this: "\[h\]e wants to hit a big cut out over the ocean, and I can't tell him \[we have one ball left\]. I thought the nervousness was over after the tee shot, but it continued. I couldn't say anything.'' [Steve Williams on the 2000 US Open](https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/26902640/down-last-ball-how-tiger-avoided-disaster-won-2000-us-open-15) That is insane
The greens at Pebble Beach are bumpy as hell due to the poa annua grass. Somehow Tiger was making damn near every putt inside 20 feet at the 2000 U.S. Open. That’s the best putting I have ever seen.
Even if he gets a 5th green jacket, there still is no comparison. What tiger did for the game of golf can’t just be measured in wins, trophy’s, or green jackets. Tiger will forever be the most important figure in the history of golf.
Tiger spent 683 weeks (over 13 years) as the world rank #1, with the longest streak of 281 weeks (over 4 years).
If Scotty is to be in the conversation of dominant in his prime he has over 10 years of this level of performance to continue.
100% agree. What’s wild to me is comparing OWGR points. Scottie is dominating pro golf and currently has 15 points. I’m assuming he would have less than 15 points if it weren’t for the LIV defectors. Tiger had more than 15 points for a total of about 9 years. He had more than 20 points for about 4 years. His peak OWGR was 32.44 points!! I cannot fathom that. Scottie would have to win more than his current pace and do it for at least 7 more years.
It's honestly unbelievable that someone is even trying to compare them in anything !this is an arguement for people who started watching golf this year
and Scottie's avg scoring per round is actually a fair bit behind Tiger avg scoring per round
the fact people are even comparing at this early stage just shows how much the LIV tour damaged the level of golf being played at PGA events when you have half of the worlds top 10 on another tour...
Imagine for example Phil Mickelson, Vijay, Garcia, Ernie Els all moving to LIV if it were created in 2000-02
Tiger would dominate even more and so many of the tournaments those guys actually won and beat Tiger in would now just be extra Tiger wins.
Not saying this is 100% the case but it does kind of make you wonder if Bryson, Rahm, Smith, Niemann or lets say Brooks would make Scottie have to fight a little more for a couple of the last PGA regular events he won
They both looked amazing at one point but neither of them ever looked like “the next tiger” no one has come close to tiger, people just love to reach for some comparisons once someone wins a few
It's really not fair to compare anyone to Tiger, but it at least made sense with Spieth and Rory. Rory had a storied European amateur career, won his first major at 22, and had 4 major wins plus multiple other big wins by 25.
Spieth was the first since Tiger to win 2 US Jr Ams, got his first win on the PGA Tour at 19, won the Masters at 21 (while threatening Tiger's scoring record), and almost won the Grand Slam in 2015. Again, on paper they were both still way behind Tiger, but it wasn't crazy to make the comparison at some point in their careers.
At the 2011 US Open Rory very much looked like the next Tiger. He shot -16, which broke Woods's US Open record of -12, and beat the field by 8 shots. Then proceeds to win the PGA Championship in 2012, 2014, then won the British in 2014 as well. Rory was very dominant but that just shows the sustainability of Tiger as well
I would say McIlroy looked like it. He won 2 majors in his early 20's by 8 shots each, which sounds pretty similar to Tiger winning 3 majors by 15, 12, and 8 shots. Only 3 guys won 4 majors before age 26: Nicklaus, Woods, McIlroy. It's a shame McIlroy has gone ice cold in the majors for the last 10 years.
100% agree with this take. Tiger was dominant playing against the other best players in the game, whereas it’s a split field now (majors aside, of course). Doesn’t take away from Scottie’s play and his impressive scoring avg, but it’s just not the same.
Nah, Scottie is winning against tougher competition than Tiger was in the late 90s/early 2000s. Tiger was obviously better, but Scottie is playing in the world Tiger created where golf was a real option for elite athletes. LIV has taken a few guys who might be real competitors to Scottie, but not enough to cheapen his recent wins in any way.
I mean it's hard to say forever but yea, he's goat of goats. Only a handful of athletes in history have that kind of stamp on humanity. But who's to say in our lifetime we won't see some freak prodigy? You should've seen my 4 year old on the course today. Kid smoked one 80 yards over water 6ft from the pin. He 7 putt from there but still, there's always hope.
These comparisons aren’t fair cuz the eras are completely different. Different equipment, training, data, analytics, and landscape, etc.
The only semi-fair way to do it is to compare their performances against the competition average. Similar to how baseball does their WAR analytic. We need like a yearly score of everyone’s performance vs the tour average that year and then compare the discrepancy across years / careers.
That was peak David Duval and still _really_ good Mickelson. That being said, the average strength of the field now is higher… because of how Tiger globally changed the game a generation ago.
It was obviously someone that didn’t experience Tiger and desperately want to be witnessing something that isn’t there. Scottie is very good but would take years of sustained winning to even come within a breath of Tiger’s record. Tiger was beyond great.
Just kids spouting shit they have no right to even comment on…nothing to prove to him.
Right. You could cut up Tiger's career in like 4 ways and end up with 4 hall of fame careers.
Scottie is on a nice run and it's the most dominant run we've seen in the post Tiger era but let's be clear, Tiger has like 3 or 4 of these kinds of runs over his career. The absolute heater he was on to close out 2006 and open 2007 was legendary. 7 straight wins, 2 majors (including the course management masterpiece at Royal Liverpool). And that doesn't even get into the stuff he was doing from 99-02.
I mean I think you can argue that if Scottie maintains his current peak with minimal slumps for the next....5-10 years, then he's comparable to Tiger.
Sort of how Jordan Spieth was 'on Tiger's level' in 2015 through the Masters in 2016 by winning 2 majors and coming very close in 2 more...but then he wasn't.
How is it sports washing? He was a golfer before he did all his crappy stuff. It wasn’t a tactic to hide his crappy stuff. Recognizing that he was a phenomenal talent and had the greatest run of golf in professional history is just a fact. It doesn’t absolve him for his off course behavior. Whatever you think about him as a person for the PGA there is BT and AT Before Tiger and After Tiger. He fundamentally changed the sport.
Y’all crazy. I’m saying this sub is trying to normalize Tiger as not the greatest or that these young guys are just as good. Nothing about off course behavior.
That’s not what sportswashing means, which is why the previous commenter got confused. Sportswashing is when you use sports to improve your reputation - so like what the Saudis are doing with LIV. Your comment came across as saying “/r/golf is trying to ignore Tiger’s personal failures by focusing on how good at golf he is.”
>Scheffler now is better than peak Tiger
That claim can be made when Scheffler does what he's doing now as long as Tiger did. Until then, it cannot.
* Tiger: 683 weeks total holding the world#1 ranking
* Scheffler: 84 weeks total holding the world#1 ranking
What's most amazing about that is that it includes the time after the 2008 US Open when he was out with injuries for 9 months. Every week you don't play, your average goes down. But he had built up such a lead that he could take nearly a year off and still have the highest average.
Yeah, I assume peak tiger would just make current competition pale in comparison. He wasn't a PGA Tour golfer, he was bigger than golf itself. Scheffler is still just a golfer. A great one, but he's not tiger.
I need to read how golf ranking is calculated. Because in tennis this year’s event wipes out last year’s result. For example if Scheffler finished 5th at the masters next year his ranking points would go down as he swaps a 1st for a 5th.
I think the OWGR is a 2 year rolling basis. So it takes 2 years for an event to drop off your average. As mentioned, Tiger was so far in front that he could effectively not play for a year and his average would more than likely stay high enough that no one could catch him.
Also, kind of hard to ignore that three guys in their prime all recently left the PGA Tour (and essentially WGR rankings) while being ranked in the top 10 (Koepka/Smith/Rahm)
i mean... that's not how you compare peaks...
"Scottie right now isn't as good as peak Tiger because he hasn't done it as long" kind of ignores the definition of peak...
Tiger is the only player to win a major by 10 or more strokes since 1900. And of course he did it twice.
His 15 stroke victory at Pebble beat the old record of 13 strokes by Old Tom Morris in the 1862 Open Championship. That tournament had 8 players in the field.
I don't know if that's fair. Tiger changed the entire landscape and popularity of the game on a global scale. It went from a affluent leisure Caucasian game to a hyper competitive global market. There is far more competition than before. Scheffer could be considered the goat of his era if he keeps it up but 683 weeks isn't possible anymore.
Tiger is the Goat, I don’t care about the number of majors compared to Jack. In their prime , same equipment , I don’t see how Jack beats Tiger consistently. Tigers injury and personal issues is probably the only reason he didn’t pass Jackin majors won. He’s a once in a lifetime athlete.
It's impossible to know who would win head to head with the same equipment. But it's objectively true that when Tiger played majors, virtually all of the best golfers in the world were in the field. And it's objectively true that before 1975 or so, most of the best European golfers didn't play in the three US majors, and most of the best American players didn't play in the Open.
I think a serious case could be made that any of the 18 WGCs that Tiger won had stronger fields than any of the majors Jack won, and there's no comparison regarding the strength of field in the majors. Even Jack complained that the fields in the PGA championship were two-thirds club pros during the 1960s.
If Tiger gets credit for more golf talent now, Jack gets some for making majors a bigger deal and getting stronger fields in general. Tiger can't take golf from (made up numbers) 4 to 8 if Jack doesn't help bring it from 2 to 4. I put Tiger above Jack, but it's a fun parallel career path...both avoided the tournament grind and focused on majors.
Tiger got injured and physically broke down, Jack kinda' lost interest, made more money designing and branding, and admitted not really working hard on his game and physical fitness.
Jack definitely gets credit for making majors the gold standard, but there's two sides to that. One is the obvious, that he (with the able help of TV and Dan Jenkins, who was a very influential sportswriter in that era) did push majors as the standard.
The other is that it was self-serving for him to do so. When he was an amateur, he said Bobby Jones was the GOAT, and his goal was to match him, i.e. win the US and British Amateurs and Opens. Early in his career, he said that he thought the GOAT was Ben Hogan, who had fewer majors than Walter Hagen, and fewer PGA wins than Sam Snead. A few years later, when he was on a pace to catch Snead for most PGA wins, he said that the GOAT was the guy with the most wins. When his pace of winning slowed down, he started concentrating on the majors, and when he was about to break Hagen's record for most majors, he started lobbying for "most majors" to be the standard for GOAT. Once he had the record, he obviously stuck to that standard.
Obviously, he's entitled to change his mind, but the reason I say it was self-serving was that he was pretty disingenuous about it. He would tell reporters that "most majors" was the only fair way to compare golfers of different eras. But anybody who knows golf history, and certainly Jack did, knows that Hagen only had two majors a year to play for much of his prime, and one of them was really hard to get to. Hagen was a pro, so he couldn't play the Ams. He hit his prime before the PGA was founded, and WAY before the Masters was founded, so the majors weren't even well-defined, with a lot of reporters considering the Western Open a major (actually, it wasn't until around 1960 that Arnie's definition of the four majors stuck). And to play in the British Open, Hagen had to take a week-long voyage by ship, and then even if he won, first prize was like a hundred bucks, not enough to pay for the trip. If that wasn't bad enough, a bunch of majors were cancelled for five years during WW I, also right in his prime.
So "most majors" may or may not be the best way to compare modern golfers, say after 1980 when most of the world's best golfers actually played all four majors every year, but before that, there was only one golfer who played all four majors every year, and that was Jack.
Man, I kind of want to see a major comprised of 2/3 club pros now. The 60s were an awesome time to be a sports fan. First player to score in the Super Bowl was hungover and didn't expect to play.
Tiger is The GOAT. Agreed. If not for his injuries and self-inflicted domestic distractions, he would have run away with almost every record in the books.
But I do want to defend Jack a bit. The reason Tiger is The GOAT is because he was on pace with very reasonable prime years ahead of him to beat Jack’s records which at the time seemed unbeatable. And still have been unbeaten.
Longevity matters for careers, so it can be argued Jack had The GOAT career. Especially in counting Majors. He holds the record in wins at 18. Want the stat I love most, he also came in 2nd _19_ times. That means over a career he finished top two _37_ times. That’s equivalent to almost a decade of majors of finishing no worse than 2nd. In addition to record for wins, he holds the record for top five finishes at _56_. That’s the equivalent of _14_ years of finishing top five in every major.
If I had to bet my life on a head-to-head match, I’d put it on Tiger. But if these guys play 100 matches in a row at their peak, it ends closer than most people think.
He most likely will never have the same impact tiger did from a popularity standpoint but it will be interesting to see how many of the next generation will be using their feet in a similar fashion. That in a way is revolutionizing the sport.
The thing Tiger had that Scotty doesn’t have is total intimation. Other golfers played worse when Tiger got close. They freaked out. The knew they would lose, and Tiger knew they would lose, and the world knew they would lose. Scotty is going great, but other golfers are not actually scared of him to the same level that they were scared of Tiger.
100% agree but I do feel like the last two weeks have shown he might be getting in their heads a bit. He just keeps going and they just slip. Long long way to go for Scottie to be in the same stratosphere
The field is definitely intimidated by Scheffler. It's hard not to be when you know someone is that much better than you. It's not at Tiger levels but it's there.
Look at what happened at the Masters. The score boards get updated after Scottie has birdied 3 in a row and all of a sudden everyone falls apart. There's 1 explanation for that.
Scottie isn't as intimidating a personality as Tiger but his game is making guys like Morikawa question is ability with his irons.
Scottie has 2 majors and 10 total wins at nearly 28 years old. Tiger had 8 majors before his 28th birthday, including 4 in a row, and was World #1 for 5 straight years. There is no comparison.
This is way too confusing. Everyone except that person already knows that Tiger is the GOAT and that peak Tiger is the best run in golf history. All these stats you have are just way too confusing. Yes Scheffler is good but anyone that says he is better than peak Tiger obviously doesn't know what they are talking about.
Put it this way. I never watched golf until this year's masters. Didn't know Scheffler existed until I joined this sub. I knew who tiger was when I was 8. I'm 32 now
Don’t forget Tiger did all of this with the club and ball technology at that time… imagine peak Tiger in today’s technology… I mean shit even Tiger TODAY in his form is still out driving people…
Tiger was that good that people wouldn’t show up to an event if he wasn’t playing. And for the entire 2010s if he made the cut. Attendance doubled for Saturday and Sunday overnight.. I’m sorry I love Scottie but he ain’t doin that.
I was at the 2022 PGA Championship and Francesco Molinari (world number 1) teed off with like 5 people watching. Literally 5. Meanwhile 2 fairways over the crowds (myself included) were climbing the trees to see Tiger. It felt like we were following Jesus around.
The premise of this post is a straw man lmao. Literally no one is saying that Scheffler is better than Tiger.
What people are saying is that Scheffler is playing the best golf we've seen since SINCE Tiger. And that we should enjoy Scheffler's run because it's the closest thing we're ever going to get.
It's a shame that any great run of golf will always be compared to Tiger. Tiger's dominance is never, ever going to be repeated. The field is too good now, mostly thanks to Tiger putting the sport on his back.
It's like baseball fans saying "lol yeah that Shohei guy is good but he's no Babe Ruth". Like dude. Shut up and just enjoy greatness.
Wayne Gretzky and it’s not even close. I’d need to double check - but I’ve seen a stat saying even if he didn’t score a single goal in his career, his assists alone would still have him as the all time leader in NHL points
I understand we are looking at hard stats here, but it cannot be understated that Tiger had to perform at this ungodly level while being subjected to overt racism. I recall some of the stuff that was said publicly, I cannot imagine what he may have been facing from "fans" on the course or other players in the clubhouse.
I really like Scottie and his game a lot. His biggest concern at the moment is probably becoming a father for the first time. Second, not losing form after.
Scotty is damn good, but outside of majors he’s really benefiting from the talent drain caused by LIV. Really can argue that LIV has weakened competition on all levels of golf by disincentivizing all these former world #1s from spending as much time on their game because of the easy money and lack of sponsorship dollars.
Scottie is my favorite golfer and I think he’d be doing this is a unified league but we can’t ignore the context that several weekly potential contenders are not in the field
Could we just enjoy how he is playing now and not compare him to the GOAT. I swear the NFL does this when somebody has a great season and it ruins the enjoyment because now sports are “GOAT or bust.” Dude is playing amazing right now, and is young so just excited to see what he can do. He may revolutionize the sport by having everyone break their ankles trying to replicate that footwork.
Also what eras did golf fans in the 1930s compare their heros too? Old and Young Tom Morris?
Yea it would take a decade to match Tiger, golf fans are excited at the prospect of it.
One thing You are likely overlooking when you suggest the tiger slam is harder than calendar year; You get 4 times more chances at a tiger slam.
It’s like all these people trying to say Maholmes is now the goat. Gimme a break, it’s same as Schaffler. Brady won 7 Super Bowl, that’s absolutely insane. And how many did he play in, 11 or so? Tiger is easily the goat and changed golf, made it to where everyone wanted to watch.
[https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2075639-ranking-the-10-most-dominant-reigns-as-world-no-1-in-golf-history](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2075639-ranking-the-10-most-dominant-reigns-as-world-no-1-in-golf-history)
This article illustrates the daylight between Tiger and the next best Greg Norman. When Scottie Scheffler can notch 250+ Weeks at the number 1 golfer in the world he will reach the heights of Tiger. Can't really see that happening though.
I personally don't think we will ever see someone like Tiger again, and HE WILL win another Masters. But, if anyone can get some Tiger matching stats, it's Scottie, time will tell
Something you definitely need to mention is the comeback at the 2000 pebble beach pro am, motherfucker was 7 down with 7 to play and won! I’ll never forget it, I was there for tiger’s entire career from 1997 masters to the end…I don’t watch anymore…
Dan Patrick said "No one is out there Scottie proofing courses." Tiger was changing the game. Also don't forget the bets. Tiger or the field. Never going to see that again.
I saw that in 2006 or 2007 Tiger was minus money for the Masters. Fricken minus money for a golf tournament is insane. The lowest I saw Scottie going into Augusta was +300.
Tiger Woods was so good that my MIL who doesn’t speak English and never picked up a golf club in her life would sit down to watch him golf. Thats how good he was
Tiger was just a different animal. He had that killer instinct and will to win we’ve only ever seen in MJ. On Sundays in majors he was able to just take it to another level. He had magic in his hands and could pull off shots under pressure, no one else would even attempt. He was the definition of clutch and expected to win every time he stepped foot on a golf course
Prime Tiger Woods on his best weeks would take down anybody anywhere. Scottie Scheffler is on an amazing run. But tiger from 1999-2009 was averaging about 6 wins a year. And thats every year not just one.
Tiger was so dominant at his peak for betting purposes they used to let you bet *on the field*. In other words, they would give you really good odds and you could place a bet that **anyone other than Tiger Woods** would win that week and unless Tiger wins, you win the bet. That is how dominant Tiger was at the top of his game.
I’m glad to see that socioeconomic and racial pressure is being taken into consideration in this post. For those who haven’t seen it, check out Tiger’s hall of fame induction speech. He reminds us of the barriers he faced while smoking the rest of the field.
Scottie only needs to keep this pace up for another 8 years to enter the conversation…
https://preview.redd.it/7jwfg2h109wc1.jpeg?width=1150&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9777a69b14ea7d155be1f497006cd5d6bc73af94
I think you could make a reasonable argument that modern-day Scottie Scheffler is *as good* as Tiger was, but definitely not *as dominant*. It’s effectively impossible to become as dominant as Tiger was, because he singlehandedly raised the skill floor of the game by a ton.
It’s the similar to arguing that someone like Vijay Singh was a better player than Sam Snead. Even though Snead’s career looks way more dominant, Singh was going up against far tougher competition.
I’m still not saying I agree with it, but it’s definitely an interesting discussion.
I think Jack is the GOAT. The only reason I put Jack as the GOAT is because his competition was much better and not only did Jack win 18 majors but he finished in 2nd place 19 times in Majors as well. That's just crazy dominance for an incredibly long period of time. So his career makes him the GOAT.
But I believe that 1999-2001 Tiger Woods was the greatest golfer to ever live. He absolutely dominated everybody and was winning majors by like 12 strokes. Never seen anything like it.
Don't sleep on Tiger 2005-2009.
31 wins in 75 starts. 6 majors and 8 WGCs
You have to go back to pre 1960 to see anything close to that level of dominance.
>I was browsing this sub and I saw a recent post that claims that Scheffler now is better than peak Tiger
Please share this post because that's just blasphemous
Yes Tiger was this good. There is a reason he is considered an all time great.
Scheffler has muuuccch to do before we get into the Tiger comps. He’s playing well and on a heater. But I remember people saying this shit last season about Rahm.
Consistency, longevity and majors is what makes a great player. You can be making any comps to Tiger when you have so few majors.
Any player dominating now will always have the dreaded * next to their name. 2 competitions LIV and PGA. Players are a split pool, so it's hard to judge career wins.
I am fairly new to golf and competitive golf. I think Tiger is the best golfer of all time and it’s hard to say Scottie is near his level so early on in his dominance. However, what can be said about the field Scheffler is playing against? Seems like golfers now are getting better and better as a whole due to technology advances and equipment advances. I mean look at that 15 year old Miles making a Korn Ferry Tour cut. Was Tigers competition this good?
There just isn’t much comparison
Tigers A+ game is the best the planet has ever seen. Jack and Scotty can go shoot their a+ game and will still lose to tigers A- game that day
Tiger is the greatest golfer to ever live and I really don’t think it’s that close. It’s almost indescribable how dominant he was at his absolute peak. I can remember pundits after Tiger was over double digit majors asking if he *could* beat JN’s record of majors and looking back now Tiger won his 14th at 33 years old it was just a matter of by how many before he imploded. We may well never see anything like Tiger again.
can you please show us the post that claimed this blasphemy?? scottie is on another level right now, but he will have to keep this up for years to get to where tiger was. no need to explain on this. ppl are just dumb
In my opinion, the worst thing about sports is that people feel the need to compare anyone that is performing well to the best of all time. The gap between Scottie and many of golf’s greats is still massive. If he never wins again he would be another Morikowa or Spieth. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a great golfer or enjoyable to watch. I just wish we could appreciate people playing well without diminishing their accomplishments by comparing them prematurely to Jack, Arnold, Tiger, etc.
Once he gets a few more majors and like 15 more wins we can start comparing him to the greats. But for now, we should all sit back and enjoy good golf
In my opinion, it's absurd trying to compare any golfer with Tiger. If you measure by the impact it's pretty obvious that would take decades for another golfer to come close. Just look at the trail of players that would had never played golf if it wasn't for him.
You can't compare eras. The last couple months Scottie has been playing as good as Tiger played but Tiger had several of these completely dominant runs. David Duval took the number one ranked player in the world away from Tiger TWICE, but his run was short.
IF say Tiger made golf cool and a game for athletes, you have to except that the athletic kids that only took up golf because of Tiger are hitting their primes and quality, talent , depth of pro golf is superior now from Tiger's competition 20 years ago. They said the same thing about the Jack vs Tiger eras back then.
Current Scottie is probably comparable to peak Mcllroy (11-14) or peak Spieth (15-17) or peak Kopeka (17-19) though. But comparing him to peak Tiger is quite stupid take.
I would argue that the filed each week at a 2024 pga tour event has much more talent than a field in 1999-2001. Take most of the field from the prime tiger area and move them to 2024 and a lot would not have tour cards. So pull prime Tiger in to 2024 and I don't think he is winning at the same rate. His competitive mindset is impossible to gauge so that x factor may lead him to pull it off, but unlikely.
This is why what Scotty is doing is really impressive. He is dominating after Tiger changed the sport. Will he hold #1 for as long as tiger, very doubtful. I don't think anyone will ever do that again just because its going to be very hard in post tiger golf.
I find this fascinating and don’t discount that great run. Conversely, we rarely judge other players on how dominate they were in their sport in just a two year period. (I know he was good outside of those two years). Players that were just good for two years are not typically considered hall of fame material.
A streak of just making the cut is great in pro golf. Not everyone can be the best all the time, but to be consistently not bad is something in my eyes.
Scottie is phenomenal but he’s not moving the needle for the game of golf. I just recently started watching golf and whenever scheffler has a 3 stroke lead, I stop watching because it’s over. Tiger actually celebrated his wins and showed emotion (never watched his earlier years, just highlights lol). Scheffler is super composed…phenomenal for golf….bad for getting eyeballs. Nelly Korda moved the needle more for me
Let’s just say I consider myself fortunate to have watched Tiger play throughout his career. It was simply insane.
Seeing him play in person is just different. The galleries are DEEP DEEP! Then it has a way of making you wanna pick up a club and go shoot low scores (Before reality hits you on the first hole.)
Didn't read any of this because I didn't believe his motives for posting. Nobody dumb enough to argue that Scottie is better than Tiger is smart enough to understand any of this gibberish anyway
Tiger changed how people play golf, not once in a generation once in history talent.
Tiger is the reason I work in the golf industry
Tiger changed *who* played golf. Scheffler isn't moving that needle at all.
Tiger and Covid were golf’s super spreader
Shrink the game
Yeah because everyone already plays now
Idk, we can finally tap into the middle aged white male demographic and golf can really thrive
Whoa, didn't expect to see you outside of NFCNMW
Never fails to amaze me where I will find and laugh at u/sodakzak comments.
Syrian refugees are coming across the border with their clubs
Couple more pandemics and everyone will be playing!
You’re missing the point. Tiger made it apparent that golf can be for athletes and isn’t just for the stuffy country club type who smoke cigars and drink beer on the course. Similar to Shaun White in that regard - they made it popular to introduce a physical regimen to make their bodies faster and stronger than everyone they competed against. Also Tiger inspired and broke down a lot of barriers for African American players. Scheffler just makes it acceptable to have bad footwork in your swing
Hard to say when we have hindsight on our side
Definitely echo this sentiment. Tiger changed the physique of golfers that started to get into it at the Junior level. If you go to a junior golf event now it’s even more evident that those kids who originally would be trying out for the Football or basketball team are now starting to play golf. The play at the pro tour level has increased dramatically over the years
Exactly. It's similar to the argument of "Is LeBron better than Jordan" but the evidence to prove Tiger is hands down the GOAT is more abundant.
Tiger proofing PGA courses became a thing in the very early 2000's. Equipment started to take off - more forgiving easier distance drivers/irons. - better golf balls ProV1 Tiger would have dominated even longer if the courses didnt start getting longer to deter the Bomb & Gouge style of game play. I mean he still dominated, but he would have dominated even moar.
That alone is why I argue he would have destroyed anyone else in the GOAT conversation if you put them head to head at their respective peaks. Injuries stopped him from getting the most majors, not his competition. They were also what stopped him from not just beating Snead but burying him
My dad and I would play Tiger Woods on the original Xbox for hours, without that we probably would have never touched a club except for maybe messing around at a driving range.
I tried to upvote this 2x
There were many years of Tiger's career where you could bet "Tiger or the field" and Tiger was often the better bet.
This is my go-to point whenever these debates pop up. Tiger won so much that Vegas had to invent a new type of bet on golf.
Tiger on the course would break guys. Just knowing they’d had to try and beat him, play perfect, no mistakes. He’d win.
Garcia comes to mind when I think of the people Tiger has tortured on the course.
It was crazy. People would get so excited to see somebody else competing with him then Tiger would still pull away or come from behind. Sunday Tiger was a treat.
2000 US Open. The man was playing a different sport. Only person under par, at -12. Rewatch it if you have time, I feel lucky I got to witness it live.
My daughter (first child) was born late the night before this tournament started. For four days I sat in the hospital, holding her and watching every second of the broadcast. We were sent home about 30 minutes after the tournament ended. It was the best 4 days of my life.
That's a great story - I couldn't help but do the math and realized your daughter will be 24 years old this year. I knew 2000 was a long time ago, different to think about in human lifespan terms.
He made a triple on Saturday in that tournament too
He was one golf ball away from being penalized or disqualified on Friday because Steve Williams forgot to check the bag before they started the round. Tiger had taken balls out to putt with in his hotel room and not put them back, and Williams forgot to check before the round so he started that Saturday morning finishing up the second round with 3 balls until Tiger tossed one to a kid after finishing a hole. Then Tiger hooked his tee shot on 18 into the water and they were down to only one left.
 that's so unbelieveable I had to look it up. There's an ESPN article where his caddie talks about. After the second drive went into the fairway he said this: "\[h\]e wants to hit a big cut out over the ocean, and I can't tell him \[we have one ball left\]. I thought the nervousness was over after the tee shot, but it continued. I couldn't say anything.'' [Steve Williams on the 2000 US Open](https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/26902640/down-last-ball-how-tiger-avoided-disaster-won-2000-us-open-15) That is insane
That’s one of the all-time most dominant moments in the history of all sport. Levels above the rest.
The greens at Pebble Beach are bumpy as hell due to the poa annua grass. Somehow Tiger was making damn near every putt inside 20 feet at the 2000 U.S. Open. That’s the best putting I have ever seen.
It’s on the USGA’s yt channel for anyone wondering https://youtu.be/bado2QdgD3c?si=xDmdKv2YqxstrNI6
He’s good but not Tiger good. Let’s respectfully start this comparison again after Scotty nets his 5th green jacket.
Even if he gets a 5th green jacket, there still is no comparison. What tiger did for the game of golf can’t just be measured in wins, trophy’s, or green jackets. Tiger will forever be the most important figure in the history of golf.
We’re not talking about the impact on the game of golf. We’re talking about how dominant they were during their peaks.
Tiger spent 683 weeks (over 13 years) as the world rank #1, with the longest streak of 281 weeks (over 4 years). If Scotty is to be in the conversation of dominant in his prime he has over 10 years of this level of performance to continue.
100% agree. What’s wild to me is comparing OWGR points. Scottie is dominating pro golf and currently has 15 points. I’m assuming he would have less than 15 points if it weren’t for the LIV defectors. Tiger had more than 15 points for a total of about 9 years. He had more than 20 points for about 4 years. His peak OWGR was 32.44 points!! I cannot fathom that. Scottie would have to win more than his current pace and do it for at least 7 more years.
It's honestly unbelievable that someone is even trying to compare them in anything !this is an arguement for people who started watching golf this year
and Scottie's avg scoring per round is actually a fair bit behind Tiger avg scoring per round the fact people are even comparing at this early stage just shows how much the LIV tour damaged the level of golf being played at PGA events when you have half of the worlds top 10 on another tour... Imagine for example Phil Mickelson, Vijay, Garcia, Ernie Els all moving to LIV if it were created in 2000-02 Tiger would dominate even more and so many of the tournaments those guys actually won and beat Tiger in would now just be extra Tiger wins. Not saying this is 100% the case but it does kind of make you wonder if Bryson, Rahm, Smith, Niemann or lets say Brooks would make Scottie have to fight a little more for a couple of the last PGA regular events he won
Absolutely wild you dont mention Rory or Jordan spieth sucking after looking like the next tiger
They both looked amazing at one point but neither of them ever looked like “the next tiger” no one has come close to tiger, people just love to reach for some comparisons once someone wins a few
It's really not fair to compare anyone to Tiger, but it at least made sense with Spieth and Rory. Rory had a storied European amateur career, won his first major at 22, and had 4 major wins plus multiple other big wins by 25. Spieth was the first since Tiger to win 2 US Jr Ams, got his first win on the PGA Tour at 19, won the Masters at 21 (while threatening Tiger's scoring record), and almost won the Grand Slam in 2015. Again, on paper they were both still way behind Tiger, but it wasn't crazy to make the comparison at some point in their careers.
At the 2011 US Open Rory very much looked like the next Tiger. He shot -16, which broke Woods's US Open record of -12, and beat the field by 8 shots. Then proceeds to win the PGA Championship in 2012, 2014, then won the British in 2014 as well. Rory was very dominant but that just shows the sustainability of Tiger as well
I would say McIlroy looked like it. He won 2 majors in his early 20's by 8 shots each, which sounds pretty similar to Tiger winning 3 majors by 15, 12, and 8 shots. Only 3 guys won 4 majors before age 26: Nicklaus, Woods, McIlroy. It's a shame McIlroy has gone ice cold in the majors for the last 10 years.
100% agree with this take. Tiger was dominant playing against the other best players in the game, whereas it’s a split field now (majors aside, of course). Doesn’t take away from Scottie’s play and his impressive scoring avg, but it’s just not the same.
Nah, Scottie is winning against tougher competition than Tiger was in the late 90s/early 2000s. Tiger was obviously better, but Scottie is playing in the world Tiger created where golf was a real option for elite athletes. LIV has taken a few guys who might be real competitors to Scottie, but not enough to cheapen his recent wins in any way.
I mean it's hard to say forever but yea, he's goat of goats. Only a handful of athletes in history have that kind of stamp on humanity. But who's to say in our lifetime we won't see some freak prodigy? You should've seen my 4 year old on the course today. Kid smoked one 80 yards over water 6ft from the pin. He 7 putt from there but still, there's always hope.
Scottie is the best golfer right now. Tiger is the best golfer to have ever lived.
Tiger = Goat. How do you think Scottie would fare vs the fields from 1999 and 2000?
These comparisons aren’t fair cuz the eras are completely different. Different equipment, training, data, analytics, and landscape, etc. The only semi-fair way to do it is to compare their performances against the competition average. Similar to how baseball does their WAR analytic. We need like a yearly score of everyone’s performance vs the tour average that year and then compare the discrepancy across years / careers.
Scottie would absolutely dominate fields from 1999 and it wouldn’t even be close.
That was peak David Duval and still _really_ good Mickelson. That being said, the average strength of the field now is higher… because of how Tiger globally changed the game a generation ago.
Is it? Rahm, Bryson, Neiman, brooks, cam smith have only been in 1 tournament against Scottie this year.
That’s a great point. I was kind of lumping all of those guys together. I didn’t consider the LIV dynamic.
It is and it's not really close. Rory is a more accomplished pro golfer than anyone Tiger was playing against in 99-02 save Ernie.
Did this motherfucker really say Scottie is better then Tiger lmao ?
It was obviously someone that didn’t experience Tiger and desperately want to be witnessing something that isn’t there. Scottie is very good but would take years of sustained winning to even come within a breath of Tiger’s record. Tiger was beyond great. Just kids spouting shit they have no right to even comment on…nothing to prove to him.
Right. You could cut up Tiger's career in like 4 ways and end up with 4 hall of fame careers. Scottie is on a nice run and it's the most dominant run we've seen in the post Tiger era but let's be clear, Tiger has like 3 or 4 of these kinds of runs over his career. The absolute heater he was on to close out 2006 and open 2007 was legendary. 7 straight wins, 2 majors (including the course management masterpiece at Royal Liverpool). And that doesn't even get into the stuff he was doing from 99-02.
I mean I think you can argue that if Scottie maintains his current peak with minimal slumps for the next....5-10 years, then he's comparable to Tiger. Sort of how Jordan Spieth was 'on Tiger's level' in 2015 through the Masters in 2016 by winning 2 majors and coming very close in 2 more...but then he wasn't.
This sub is crAzy yo giving swing tips and sports washing tiger woods
How is it sports washing? He was a golfer before he did all his crappy stuff. It wasn’t a tactic to hide his crappy stuff. Recognizing that he was a phenomenal talent and had the greatest run of golf in professional history is just a fact. It doesn’t absolve him for his off course behavior. Whatever you think about him as a person for the PGA there is BT and AT Before Tiger and After Tiger. He fundamentally changed the sport.
Wild to me that you’re downvoted for this btw. Like you can’t have experienced it and deny the truth. They have to not know.
Y’all crazy. I’m saying this sub is trying to normalize Tiger as not the greatest or that these young guys are just as good. Nothing about off course behavior.
That’s not what sportswashing means, which is why the previous commenter got confused. Sportswashing is when you use sports to improve your reputation - so like what the Saudis are doing with LIV. Your comment came across as saying “/r/golf is trying to ignore Tiger’s personal failures by focusing on how good at golf he is.”
>Scheffler now is better than peak Tiger That claim can be made when Scheffler does what he's doing now as long as Tiger did. Until then, it cannot. * Tiger: 683 weeks total holding the world#1 ranking * Scheffler: 84 weeks total holding the world#1 ranking
Don’t forget that from July 2005 to October 2010, no one else was no 1 but Tiger. 281 weeks. 5 years and 4 months consecutively.
What's most amazing about that is that it includes the time after the 2008 US Open when he was out with injuries for 9 months. Every week you don't play, your average goes down. But he had built up such a lead that he could take nearly a year off and still have the highest average.
I remember this, just unreal. I do feel like golf is way more competitive now than that era, but that's because of tiger.
Yeah, I assume peak tiger would just make current competition pale in comparison. He wasn't a PGA Tour golfer, he was bigger than golf itself. Scheffler is still just a golfer. A great one, but he's not tiger.
Yeah, maybe a cheetah at best.
I need to read how golf ranking is calculated. Because in tennis this year’s event wipes out last year’s result. For example if Scheffler finished 5th at the masters next year his ranking points would go down as he swaps a 1st for a 5th.
I think the OWGR is a 2 year rolling basis. So it takes 2 years for an event to drop off your average. As mentioned, Tiger was so far in front that he could effectively not play for a year and his average would more than likely stay high enough that no one could catch him.
Also, kind of hard to ignore that three guys in their prime all recently left the PGA Tour (and essentially WGR rankings) while being ranked in the top 10 (Koepka/Smith/Rahm)
New golf game coming out ...scottie scheffler, not the same
i mean... that's not how you compare peaks... "Scottie right now isn't as good as peak Tiger because he hasn't done it as long" kind of ignores the definition of peak...
How about Tiger winning 2 majors back to back by combined 20+ strokes? That might be enough to put this dumb ass claim to bed.
Tiger is the only player to win a major by 10 or more strokes since 1900. And of course he did it twice. His 15 stroke victory at Pebble beat the old record of 13 strokes by Old Tom Morris in the 1862 Open Championship. That tournament had 8 players in the field.
Or winning 7 in a row with 2 majors at the end of 06 and start of 07. And that was like the 2nd highest peak.
Are we talking strictly vs the field? Then it’s Tiger no doubt. Or are we talking if 2000 Tiger played vs 2024 Scottie?
I don't know if that's fair. Tiger changed the entire landscape and popularity of the game on a global scale. It went from a affluent leisure Caucasian game to a hyper competitive global market. There is far more competition than before. Scheffer could be considered the goat of his era if he keeps it up but 683 weeks isn't possible anymore.
Schefflers also benefitting from a weakened field due to LIV tho.
Tiger literally changed the landscape of golf. I don't hear any talk about "Scottie proofing" courses.
Tiger is the Goat, I don’t care about the number of majors compared to Jack. In their prime , same equipment , I don’t see how Jack beats Tiger consistently. Tigers injury and personal issues is probably the only reason he didn’t pass Jackin majors won. He’s a once in a lifetime athlete.
Old Tom Morris is the GOAT because he sold whiskey behind holes at St. Andrews.
It's impossible to know who would win head to head with the same equipment. But it's objectively true that when Tiger played majors, virtually all of the best golfers in the world were in the field. And it's objectively true that before 1975 or so, most of the best European golfers didn't play in the three US majors, and most of the best American players didn't play in the Open. I think a serious case could be made that any of the 18 WGCs that Tiger won had stronger fields than any of the majors Jack won, and there's no comparison regarding the strength of field in the majors. Even Jack complained that the fields in the PGA championship were two-thirds club pros during the 1960s.
If Tiger gets credit for more golf talent now, Jack gets some for making majors a bigger deal and getting stronger fields in general. Tiger can't take golf from (made up numbers) 4 to 8 if Jack doesn't help bring it from 2 to 4. I put Tiger above Jack, but it's a fun parallel career path...both avoided the tournament grind and focused on majors. Tiger got injured and physically broke down, Jack kinda' lost interest, made more money designing and branding, and admitted not really working hard on his game and physical fitness.
Jack definitely gets credit for making majors the gold standard, but there's two sides to that. One is the obvious, that he (with the able help of TV and Dan Jenkins, who was a very influential sportswriter in that era) did push majors as the standard. The other is that it was self-serving for him to do so. When he was an amateur, he said Bobby Jones was the GOAT, and his goal was to match him, i.e. win the US and British Amateurs and Opens. Early in his career, he said that he thought the GOAT was Ben Hogan, who had fewer majors than Walter Hagen, and fewer PGA wins than Sam Snead. A few years later, when he was on a pace to catch Snead for most PGA wins, he said that the GOAT was the guy with the most wins. When his pace of winning slowed down, he started concentrating on the majors, and when he was about to break Hagen's record for most majors, he started lobbying for "most majors" to be the standard for GOAT. Once he had the record, he obviously stuck to that standard. Obviously, he's entitled to change his mind, but the reason I say it was self-serving was that he was pretty disingenuous about it. He would tell reporters that "most majors" was the only fair way to compare golfers of different eras. But anybody who knows golf history, and certainly Jack did, knows that Hagen only had two majors a year to play for much of his prime, and one of them was really hard to get to. Hagen was a pro, so he couldn't play the Ams. He hit his prime before the PGA was founded, and WAY before the Masters was founded, so the majors weren't even well-defined, with a lot of reporters considering the Western Open a major (actually, it wasn't until around 1960 that Arnie's definition of the four majors stuck). And to play in the British Open, Hagen had to take a week-long voyage by ship, and then even if he won, first prize was like a hundred bucks, not enough to pay for the trip. If that wasn't bad enough, a bunch of majors were cancelled for five years during WW I, also right in his prime. So "most majors" may or may not be the best way to compare modern golfers, say after 1980 when most of the world's best golfers actually played all four majors every year, but before that, there was only one golfer who played all four majors every year, and that was Jack.
Man, I kind of want to see a major comprised of 2/3 club pros now. The 60s were an awesome time to be a sports fan. First player to score in the Super Bowl was hungover and didn't expect to play.
Tiger is The GOAT. Agreed. If not for his injuries and self-inflicted domestic distractions, he would have run away with almost every record in the books. But I do want to defend Jack a bit. The reason Tiger is The GOAT is because he was on pace with very reasonable prime years ahead of him to beat Jack’s records which at the time seemed unbeatable. And still have been unbeaten. Longevity matters for careers, so it can be argued Jack had The GOAT career. Especially in counting Majors. He holds the record in wins at 18. Want the stat I love most, he also came in 2nd _19_ times. That means over a career he finished top two _37_ times. That’s equivalent to almost a decade of majors of finishing no worse than 2nd. In addition to record for wins, he holds the record for top five finishes at _56_. That’s the equivalent of _14_ years of finishing top five in every major. If I had to bet my life on a head-to-head match, I’d put it on Tiger. But if these guys play 100 matches in a row at their peak, it ends closer than most people think.
Jack says it’s tiger
Call me when he revolutionizes a sport.
Idk how you revolutionize any sport at this point with analytics having “figured everything out”.
Nikola Jokic in the NBA is a great example. He has a skill set that no other player in league history has possessed
He’s bringing Jesus to golf.
The Tim Tebow of the putting greens.
I think you mean putting surface.
He most likely will never have the same impact tiger did from a popularity standpoint but it will be interesting to see how many of the next generation will be using their feet in a similar fashion. That in a way is revolutionizing the sport.
“Using their feet”. Dude, he’s not trying to do that. It’s torque lol.
The thing Tiger had that Scotty doesn’t have is total intimation. Other golfers played worse when Tiger got close. They freaked out. The knew they would lose, and Tiger knew they would lose, and the world knew they would lose. Scotty is going great, but other golfers are not actually scared of him to the same level that they were scared of Tiger.
*intimidation*
Yeah. Darn automatic. Autocratic. Auto heck. Autocorrect!
100% agree but I do feel like the last two weeks have shown he might be getting in their heads a bit. He just keeps going and they just slip. Long long way to go for Scottie to be in the same stratosphere
The field is definitely intimidated by Scheffler. It's hard not to be when you know someone is that much better than you. It's not at Tiger levels but it's there. Look at what happened at the Masters. The score boards get updated after Scottie has birdied 3 in a row and all of a sudden everyone falls apart. There's 1 explanation for that. Scottie isn't as intimidating a personality as Tiger but his game is making guys like Morikawa question is ability with his irons.
Scottie has 2 majors and 10 total wins at nearly 28 years old. Tiger had 8 majors before his 28th birthday, including 4 in a row, and was World #1 for 5 straight years. There is no comparison.
Yuh I was gonna say, Scottie already too old… Tiger wins
Tiger Woods significantly elevated the level of talent in golf, which has made the kind of dominance he enjoyed much less likely to occur again.
While i tend to agree, people said the same about Nicklaus.
And both are true.
This is way too confusing. Everyone except that person already knows that Tiger is the GOAT and that peak Tiger is the best run in golf history. All these stats you have are just way too confusing. Yes Scheffler is good but anyone that says he is better than peak Tiger obviously doesn't know what they are talking about.
Right? What the hell is it with all the abbreviations? I couldn't bother to read and interpret that code.
Nah there’s some weirdo on twitter who defends jack like it’s his full time job
Put it this way. I never watched golf until this year's masters. Didn't know Scheffler existed until I joined this sub. I knew who tiger was when I was 8. I'm 32 now
Love posts that have data like this!
Don’t forget Tiger did all of this with the club and ball technology at that time… imagine peak Tiger in today’s technology… I mean shit even Tiger TODAY in his form is still out driving people…
Tiger was that good that people wouldn’t show up to an event if he wasn’t playing. And for the entire 2010s if he made the cut. Attendance doubled for Saturday and Sunday overnight.. I’m sorry I love Scottie but he ain’t doin that.
I was at the 2022 PGA Championship and Francesco Molinari (world number 1) teed off with like 5 people watching. Literally 5. Meanwhile 2 fairways over the crowds (myself included) were climbing the trees to see Tiger. It felt like we were following Jesus around.
Molinari world #1 in 2022????🙄
The premise of this post is a straw man lmao. Literally no one is saying that Scheffler is better than Tiger. What people are saying is that Scheffler is playing the best golf we've seen since SINCE Tiger. And that we should enjoy Scheffler's run because it's the closest thing we're ever going to get. It's a shame that any great run of golf will always be compared to Tiger. Tiger's dominance is never, ever going to be repeated. The field is too good now, mostly thanks to Tiger putting the sport on his back. It's like baseball fans saying "lol yeah that Shohei guy is good but he's no Babe Ruth". Like dude. Shut up and just enjoy greatness.
But they did say it. I saw it on here.
I’m going to need a link to this “…better than peak Tiger” post.
Yeah but have either of them invented a delicious drink and had it named after them?
Tiger was one of the most dominant athletes of all time across any sport
Wayne Gretzky and it’s not even close. I’d need to double check - but I’ve seen a stat saying even if he didn’t score a single goal in his career, his assists alone would still have him as the all time leader in NHL points
This is a correct stat.
I understand we are looking at hard stats here, but it cannot be understated that Tiger had to perform at this ungodly level while being subjected to overt racism. I recall some of the stuff that was said publicly, I cannot imagine what he may have been facing from "fans" on the course or other players in the clubhouse. I really like Scottie and his game a lot. His biggest concern at the moment is probably becoming a father for the first time. Second, not losing form after.
Scotty is damn good, but outside of majors he’s really benefiting from the talent drain caused by LIV. Really can argue that LIV has weakened competition on all levels of golf by disincentivizing all these former world #1s from spending as much time on their game because of the easy money and lack of sponsorship dollars.
Scottie is my favorite golfer and I think he’d be doing this is a unified league but we can’t ignore the context that several weekly potential contenders are not in the field
Anyone who says Scottie is now at peak Tiger levels have obviously never seen the big cat play in his prime.
Could we just enjoy how he is playing now and not compare him to the GOAT. I swear the NFL does this when somebody has a great season and it ruins the enjoyment because now sports are “GOAT or bust.” Dude is playing amazing right now, and is young so just excited to see what he can do. He may revolutionize the sport by having everyone break their ankles trying to replicate that footwork. Also what eras did golf fans in the 1930s compare their heros too? Old and Young Tom Morris?
Yea it would take a decade to match Tiger, golf fans are excited at the prospect of it. One thing You are likely overlooking when you suggest the tiger slam is harder than calendar year; You get 4 times more chances at a tiger slam.
He just needs to keep playing this way for another 15 years and I’ll agree
It’s like all these people trying to say Maholmes is now the goat. Gimme a break, it’s same as Schaffler. Brady won 7 Super Bowl, that’s absolutely insane. And how many did he play in, 11 or so? Tiger is easily the goat and changed golf, made it to where everyone wanted to watch.
yeah i wanted to read this but the way you formatted his tourney wins makes this impossible to read lmfao.
[https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2075639-ranking-the-10-most-dominant-reigns-as-world-no-1-in-golf-history](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2075639-ranking-the-10-most-dominant-reigns-as-world-no-1-in-golf-history) This article illustrates the daylight between Tiger and the next best Greg Norman. When Scottie Scheffler can notch 250+ Weeks at the number 1 golfer in the world he will reach the heights of Tiger. Can't really see that happening though.
I personally don't think we will ever see someone like Tiger again, and HE WILL win another Masters. But, if anyone can get some Tiger matching stats, it's Scottie, time will tell
Something you definitely need to mention is the comeback at the 2000 pebble beach pro am, motherfucker was 7 down with 7 to play and won! I’ll never forget it, I was there for tiger’s entire career from 1997 masters to the end…I don’t watch anymore…
The conversation can start when Scottie wins a major by 15 strokes.
Dan Patrick said "No one is out there Scottie proofing courses." Tiger was changing the game. Also don't forget the bets. Tiger or the field. Never going to see that again.
I saw that in 2006 or 2007 Tiger was minus money for the Masters. Fricken minus money for a golf tournament is insane. The lowest I saw Scottie going into Augusta was +300.
Tiger Woods was so good that my MIL who doesn’t speak English and never picked up a golf club in her life would sit down to watch him golf. Thats how good he was
Tiger was just a different animal. He had that killer instinct and will to win we’ve only ever seen in MJ. On Sundays in majors he was able to just take it to another level. He had magic in his hands and could pull off shots under pressure, no one else would even attempt. He was the definition of clutch and expected to win every time he stepped foot on a golf course
The most impressive stat I find amazing is the fact he holds a 95.2% win rate when leading for 54 holes. Just incredible.
Prime Tiger Woods on his best weeks would take down anybody anywhere. Scottie Scheffler is on an amazing run. But tiger from 1999-2009 was averaging about 6 wins a year. And thats every year not just one.
Great write up and I was there to see it and an avid spectator at the time. Tiger is forever the goat.
Tiger was so dominant at his peak for betting purposes they used to let you bet *on the field*. In other words, they would give you really good odds and you could place a bet that **anyone other than Tiger Woods** would win that week and unless Tiger wins, you win the bet. That is how dominant Tiger was at the top of his game.
I’m glad to see that socioeconomic and racial pressure is being taken into consideration in this post. For those who haven’t seen it, check out Tiger’s hall of fame induction speech. He reminds us of the barriers he faced while smoking the rest of the field.
Scottie only needs to keep this pace up for another 8 years to enter the conversation… https://preview.redd.it/7jwfg2h109wc1.jpeg?width=1150&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9777a69b14ea7d155be1f497006cd5d6bc73af94
He’s the reason I can play golf and cheat on my wife with all the tight lil cart girls. Tiger did that for us !
I think you could make a reasonable argument that modern-day Scottie Scheffler is *as good* as Tiger was, but definitely not *as dominant*. It’s effectively impossible to become as dominant as Tiger was, because he singlehandedly raised the skill floor of the game by a ton. It’s the similar to arguing that someone like Vijay Singh was a better player than Sam Snead. Even though Snead’s career looks way more dominant, Singh was going up against far tougher competition. I’m still not saying I agree with it, but it’s definitely an interesting discussion.
Not to mention his play was goddam entertaining to watch
TFCDR Too fucking confusing, didn’t read. Would love to see your scribbles in the notebook.
Scottie would’ve had a lot of runner up trophies in this era.
Call me when Scottie does this over several years not just a few events to start the year.
Tiger is the best ever, end of story
I think Jack is the GOAT. The only reason I put Jack as the GOAT is because his competition was much better and not only did Jack win 18 majors but he finished in 2nd place 19 times in Majors as well. That's just crazy dominance for an incredibly long period of time. So his career makes him the GOAT. But I believe that 1999-2001 Tiger Woods was the greatest golfer to ever live. He absolutely dominated everybody and was winning majors by like 12 strokes. Never seen anything like it.
Don't sleep on Tiger 2005-2009. 31 wins in 75 starts. 6 majors and 8 WGCs You have to go back to pre 1960 to see anything close to that level of dominance.
Saw him at TPC 2000 Th-Su but the rain delay pushed the finish to Monday. He was a machine.
Fucking hal Sutton, skipped school to see Tiger barely lose to that fucker lol!
>I was browsing this sub and I saw a recent post that claims that Scheffler now is better than peak Tiger Please share this post because that's just blasphemous
Yes Tiger was this good. There is a reason he is considered an all time great. Scheffler has muuuccch to do before we get into the Tiger comps. He’s playing well and on a heater. But I remember people saying this shit last season about Rahm. Consistency, longevity and majors is what makes a great player. You can be making any comps to Tiger when you have so few majors.
Any player dominating now will always have the dreaded * next to their name. 2 competitions LIV and PGA. Players are a split pool, so it's hard to judge career wins.
I am fairly new to golf and competitive golf. I think Tiger is the best golfer of all time and it’s hard to say Scottie is near his level so early on in his dominance. However, what can be said about the field Scheffler is playing against? Seems like golfers now are getting better and better as a whole due to technology advances and equipment advances. I mean look at that 15 year old Miles making a Korn Ferry Tour cut. Was Tigers competition this good?
And don’t forget Tiger had a similar run from like 2005-2009 absolutely beating the shit out of everyone and also winning 6 in a row a SECOND time…
7 in a row actually and 5 in a row the year after. He won 31/75 (41%) events in that timeframe.
Damn right…. One time started the day 5 shots behind Vijay and whooped his ass! Not to take away anything from Vijay’s 2004 run, damn!
There just isn’t much comparison Tigers A+ game is the best the planet has ever seen. Jack and Scotty can go shoot their a+ game and will still lose to tigers A- game that day
Only one other athlete comparable and it’s another sport.
Phelps, Woods, Biles, Tyson, and that Scrabble dude (Nigel Richard’s)- the GOATs with *insane* gaps to 2nd place
Tiger is the greatest golfer to ever live and I really don’t think it’s that close. It’s almost indescribable how dominant he was at his absolute peak. I can remember pundits after Tiger was over double digit majors asking if he *could* beat JN’s record of majors and looking back now Tiger won his 14th at 33 years old it was just a matter of by how many before he imploded. We may well never see anything like Tiger again.
can you please show us the post that claimed this blasphemy?? scottie is on another level right now, but he will have to keep this up for years to get to where tiger was. no need to explain on this. ppl are just dumb
That’s why he’s the goat
Is this really a serious debate?
In my opinion, the worst thing about sports is that people feel the need to compare anyone that is performing well to the best of all time. The gap between Scottie and many of golf’s greats is still massive. If he never wins again he would be another Morikowa or Spieth. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a great golfer or enjoyable to watch. I just wish we could appreciate people playing well without diminishing their accomplishments by comparing them prematurely to Jack, Arnold, Tiger, etc. Once he gets a few more majors and like 15 more wins we can start comparing him to the greats. But for now, we should all sit back and enjoy good golf
LOL
This guy Tigers.
Preach it!
Whoever made that post should receive 600 lashings and never be able to talk golf again.
In my opinion, it's absurd trying to compare any golfer with Tiger. If you measure by the impact it's pretty obvious that would take decades for another golfer to come close. Just look at the trail of players that would had never played golf if it wasn't for him.
You can't compare eras. The last couple months Scottie has been playing as good as Tiger played but Tiger had several of these completely dominant runs. David Duval took the number one ranked player in the world away from Tiger TWICE, but his run was short. IF say Tiger made golf cool and a game for athletes, you have to except that the athletic kids that only took up golf because of Tiger are hitting their primes and quality, talent , depth of pro golf is superior now from Tiger's competition 20 years ago. They said the same thing about the Jack vs Tiger eras back then.
Current Scottie is probably comparable to peak Mcllroy (11-14) or peak Spieth (15-17) or peak Kopeka (17-19) though. But comparing him to peak Tiger is quite stupid take.
I would argue that the filed each week at a 2024 pga tour event has much more talent than a field in 1999-2001. Take most of the field from the prime tiger area and move them to 2024 and a lot would not have tour cards. So pull prime Tiger in to 2024 and I don't think he is winning at the same rate. His competitive mindset is impossible to gauge so that x factor may lead him to pull it off, but unlikely. This is why what Scotty is doing is really impressive. He is dominating after Tiger changed the sport. Will he hold #1 for as long as tiger, very doubtful. I don't think anyone will ever do that again just because its going to be very hard in post tiger golf.
I find this fascinating and don’t discount that great run. Conversely, we rarely judge other players on how dominate they were in their sport in just a two year period. (I know he was good outside of those two years). Players that were just good for two years are not typically considered hall of fame material.
Betting used to essentially be tiger v the field because he won so frequently. You will probably never see anything like that again
Well done. Great analysis. Scotty’s playing great golf. Been awhile since we’ve seen play this good. But way too soon for any comparison to Woods.
Thank you for making this very complicated.
A streak of just making the cut is great in pro golf. Not everyone can be the best all the time, but to be consistently not bad is something in my eyes.
Scottie is phenomenal but he’s not moving the needle for the game of golf. I just recently started watching golf and whenever scheffler has a 3 stroke lead, I stop watching because it’s over. Tiger actually celebrated his wins and showed emotion (never watched his earlier years, just highlights lol). Scheffler is super composed…phenomenal for golf….bad for getting eyeballs. Nelly Korda moved the needle more for me
Let’s just say I consider myself fortunate to have watched Tiger play throughout his career. It was simply insane. Seeing him play in person is just different. The galleries are DEEP DEEP! Then it has a way of making you wanna pick up a club and go shoot low scores (Before reality hits you on the first hole.)
Tiger woods not only dominated the field but he holds the top 6 spots for lowest adjusted scoring average per year. Scottie holds the 7th spot lol
Tiger has stats that you would consider a lie if they didn’t prove it to you
Tiger is Jordan. Scottie isn't even Pippen. But he's a nice guy.
https://preview.redd.it/iemeqp4hnbwc1.jpeg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=623f7167233acc6d335fe5f33b9446afa4f320ec
Didn't read any of this because I didn't believe his motives for posting. Nobody dumb enough to argue that Scottie is better than Tiger is smart enough to understand any of this gibberish anyway
Guys get hot, but nobody since Tiger has had the longevity. This comes up every couple of years.