For so long, Tiger Woods was dominance.
For two decades or so, the two words ‘Tiger’ and ‘dominant’ were so synonymous with one another that ‘dominant’ seemed to undermine 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 dominant. He was dominant in a casual way. Dominant in a reliable, boring, watch-setting way. Dominant in a way that the absence of his dominance was treated as news (as on the rare occasions in which another player managed to usurp Woods).
We have not seen many golfers — before or since — flirt with the levels of dominance that made Tiger so revered. But right now we are seeing the emergence of a player whose dominance provides 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 suggestion 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 inspire 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 created in homage to Woods’ dominance). And as part of his interview with longtime pal and Today Show host Carson Daly, Woods offered his own striking take on Scheffler, golf’s dominant new world no. 1.
“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 consistent and he works it both ways.”
Ball-striking skill is unquestionably 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 gained. Obviously Woods had the benefit of the “Elder Wand” — his famed Scottie Cameron Newport putter — around the greens. Scheffler could use an Elder Wand of his own, as his putting has been the lone element standing between him and historic greatness.
But there’s something about the certainty surrounding Scheffler’s game, Woods says, that reminds him of, well, him.
“It’s just a matter of… if he putts decent, he’s going to win; if he putts great, he blows way fields; if he putts bad, he contends,” Tiger said. “He’s just that good as a ball-striker.”
It’s hard for anyone to describe dominance, least of all those experiencing it. Woods treated dominance like it was something that could be conquered and used at will; Scheffler makes losing sound like going to the dentist.
“I hate shooting over par,” he said on Masters Sunday, the day he continued a stretch of nearly eight straight months without a round north of par. “I can’t tell you how much I hate shooting over par.”
But the truth is that there is no explaining dominance — there is only witnessing it. Woods grinned as he tried to explain it himself on Wednesday morning, the type of smile only a player who knows how “it” feels could give. And then he gave me the best explanation of all — one that ran only five words long.
“If you just watch ball flight…” Woods said. “There’s something … different about his.”