Scottie Scheffler can follow Tiger Woods, story after Memorial Victory

We left ways to describe the predominance of Scottie Scheffler long ago.

Rory Mcilroy can talk about managing his course. Jordan Spieth can talk with his club-to-face control. Xander Schauffle can explain in the elite mentality of Scheffler. But there is one truth: Scottie Scheffler has no equal in men’s professional golf and has no time. The only thing that has even slowed down its great train greatness was a strange ravioli incident.

While Scheffler was blocking the field to defend his title at the Muirfield Village Memorial Tournament on Sunday, his only true counterpart was 431 miles away in Erin Hills while Nellly Korda came out only a little in 2025 US Women Open. The cord went to a bubble stretch last season that almost perfectly reflected Scheffler, but its LPGA reign has not reached the heights Scheffler has in PGA Tour. While Korda was failing to trace Maja Stark to reassess her dominance, Scheffler was easily busy descending Jack Nicklaus’s harsh test, keeping Ben Griffin in arm length while the rest of the best golf failed to make her sweat.

Jack Nicklaus spent the weekend in the CBS broadcasting cabin seeing Scheffler to choose his way around his championship test. The 18-year-old champion praised Scheffler to play the game as he did in his prime minister-with methodical accuracy, unbreakable belief and a murderer instinct.

“I think the great players are those who get up in this case and those who know how to play down to important events,” Nicklaus told Scheffler on Sunday. “Looking at the manager’s chart today, he didn’t – I mean, a beautiful player of Ben Griffin, Sepp Straka is a beautiful player, Nick Taylor is a beautiful player. They were all the boys who were there descending. But he knows those boys, you know, are not in his league.

“I always felt like, hey, you know. I have 144 boys or whatever might be there to play,” Nicklaus later said. “I have to play well to defeat. After I got into a position, you know, to win, then you have to be smart for the way you finish it. And that’s the way he is playing. He reminds me so much the way I want to play. I don’t think I have played as much as he has played. He is playing better than I have played.”

With rust from his absence Ravioli crashed, Scheffler has three wins and one T4 in his last four beginnings, including a The highlighted victory in the PGA Championship. The feeling of inevitability it possessed last season has returned, and now the only name that reaches the language when it comes to describing Scheffler’s predominance is, of course, Tiger Woods.

While Scheffler still has a long way to reach the extended levels of predominance that Woods exhibited during his prime minister, he continues to put himself in that rarized air.

For Golf Statistics Guru Justin Ray, Scheffler’s victories this season have come with eight, five and four shots. The only players with three or more wins from four or more shots in the same season PGA Tour in the last 30 years are Woods and Scheffler, who have both arrived twice. In defending his memorial title, Scheffler now has three successful title protection in his career (players, WM Phoenix Open, Memorial). Only Woods (23) and Phil Mickelson (five) have more.

Woods was also the last player to successfully defend a title on Jack Nicklaus tournament. Woods won the memorial three times in a row from 1999 to 2001. Scheffler will have a chance to match that feat next year.

As for what comes next, we can probably use history as our guide.

After Woods successfully defended his title at the Memorial in 2000, his next start came to the US Open 2000 at Pebble Beach, which he won with 15 blows.

Scheffler’s next start? 2025 US Open in Oakmont.