The ‘underrated’ trait shared by Scottie Scheffler, Tiger Woods

HOW perfect AND it leaves you breathless, Like a tiger is an adjective that should be used sparingly.

But when evaluating Scottie Scheffler 2024, it’s hard not to draw Tiger Woods comparisons, and not just because Woods was watching approvingly in the Hero World Challenge on Sunday when Scheffler joined Woods and Vijay Singh as the only players in the modern era to have won nine times – nine times, Mrs. Bueller! – in one season.

It’s the completeness of Scheffler’s game that most evokes peak Woods, coupled with Scheffler’s superhuman ability to find ways to win even when he’s not at his sharpest. On Sunday evening, after his six-stroke victory in the Bahamas, Scheffler was asked if he was satisfied with his final round of nine-under 63. His answer suggested he wasn’t, or at least not completely.

“Yes,” he began. “I mean, you know, I’m very grateful to be sitting here with the trophy. My goal or whatever happens today was to hopefully win the tournament and I felt I played good enough golf to win and I was able to do it.”

Pretty goodLOL. This on a day when no other player managed better than the 67.

Scheffler needed to beat “only” 19 other players in Albany, but his stat line indicated that, if asked, he likely would have beaten 119. Or, for that matter, 1,119.

Scheffler led the field in no fewer than 11 statistical categories, including SG: Tee-to-Green (+3.23), SG: Approach (+1.69), 3 Putt Avoidance (0) and Scoring Average (67.8). Little of that dominance should have come as a surprise since it was simply a continuation of what Scheffler has been doing all season. In 2024, he leads the tour in SG: Tee to Green (+2.401), SG: Approach the Green (1.277), Scoring Average (68.645) and Birdie Average (4.88).

“A pretty fun year,” is how Scheffler, in his typically modest style, summed up his $63 million season on Sunday. Makes you wonder what would qualify as a LOT fun year. To recap, Scheffler won his second green jacket, defended his Players title, won five more signature events, including the Tour Championship, which earned him FedEx Cup honors. He also won one the gold medal in Paris and, oh yes, he became a father.

Scheffler is making playing — and winning — look easy. He will tell you that none of this is true. In fact, he said as much on Sunday. “I would say golf very rarely feels easy,” he said. “I see a lot of players here when they have great rounds, it looks so easy and then you finish and talk to them about it and it’s never that easy.”

That’s especially true when expectations are high, as they have been for Scheffler all year. Winning may beget winning, but it also begets the assumption by others that more wins are to come. Indeed, it’s one thing to prevail when you’re cruising under the radar and shoot a cool 64 Sunday to sneak into the pack and capture, say, your third career title. It’s quite another when you’re the prohibitive betting favorite, facing the media after every round and EXPECTED to be on the hunt. This is a different kind of pressure that few players have had to deal with.

Ask Justin Thomas, who earlier last week said of Scheffler: “I think it’s just underrated how well he’s playing for (people) who expect (him) to play that well. I don’t think people understand how hard it is to win when you’re expected to win or when everyone expects you to play well, and you expect you to play well and then you play well. I think expectations are something, it’s very, very difficult to manage. It’s really just as much a talent as being able to control distance with your wedges, fly a driver or hit it far – whatever it is, it’s being able to stay present, stay in the moment. “

Thomas said that among his Tour brethren, no one is better at executing these mental gymnastics than Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, who won two majors this year.

“It’s very hard to explain, but it’s so hard to do sometimes,” continued Thomas, who himself knows a little about winning in bunches (in 2017 he won five times, including a major). . “Sometimes it’s even harder when you’re playing that well because it’s easy to think like, well, if I keep playing like this, I’m going to win this tournament, I’m going to win the next tournament, and the next tournament. versus the truth – I mean, Tiger always talked about it, every shot is the most important shot you’ve ever hit in your life, and after you hit it, you go do it again and the next thing you know you’re like Oh, I won again. This is a difficult thing to do. To me, that’s been the most impressive thing from Scottie.”

No argument here.