Scottie Scheffler Reveals He Changed How He Plays Golf After Tiger Woods

Scottie Scheffler has spent the last several months deflecting comparisons between his play as of late to that of Tiger Woods. 

But this week, ahead of the PGA Tour Championship, the 29-year-old American golf star admitted to reporters that there is a bit of Tiger in his game after all.

Scheffler, the odds-on favorite to win this year’s Tour Championship, has been ranked World No. 1 for more than 150 weeks and has most recently finished in the top-10 each of his last 13 tournaments — an impressive pair of streaks for the golfer that has golf media eager to draw their comparisons to Woods, 49, who once held the world’s top ranking for more than five years straight.

The two golfers had the chance to play together during the final round of the 2020 Masters Tournament, where Scheffler told reporters this week he absorbed vital skills from watching Woods play firsthand, according to the Associated Press and CBS Sports. At the time, both golfers were well out of contention to win the 2020 tournament, but Scheffler says Woods still put forth his best effort despite the score.

“My biggest takeaway from playing with Tiger was the amount of intensity that he took to every shot, and that’s something I’ve talked to a lot of guys about,” Scheffler said, according to CBS.

“Tiger was just different in the sense of the way he approached each shot, it was like the last shot he was ever going to hit,” Scheffler, a two-time Masters champion, recalled. “I played with him in the 2020 COVID Masters, and I think he made a 10 on the 12th hole, and he birdied, I think, five of the last six, and it was like, ‘what’s this guy still playing for? He’s won the Masters four or five times. Best finish he’s going to have is like 20th place at this point.’

Scheffler said he “just admired the intensity” that Woods brought to every round.

“And that’s something that I try to emulate,” the Dallas native said, per CBS. “If I’m going to take time to come out here each week — like it’s not an easy thing to play a golf tournament. If I’m going to take a week off, I might as well just stay home. If I’m playing in a tournament, I’m going to give it my all. That’s really all it boils down to.”

Since then, Scheffler said he’s strived to work on his “consistency,” adding that he now works on “not taking shots off, not taking rounds off, not taking tournaments off.”

“When I show up at a tournament, I’m here for a purpose and that’s to compete hard, and you compete hard on every shot,” he said. “I think it’s a lot easier said than done, and I think I’ve been in a good head space the last couple years where I’ve been able to stand up over a ball and focus on what I’m doing and just try and pull it off.”

All Scheffler, or anyone for that matter, needs to do is check the leaderboard to see if the newfound approach has been working. The four-time major champion has been the World’s No. 1 golfer since May 2023, the second-longest streak ever behind Wood’s historic 2005-10 stretch.

“I think in the simplest form, it’s very silly to be compared to Tiger Woods,” Scheffler said, once again shooing away the comparisons that have become so prevalent this year. “I think Tiger is a guy that stands alone in the game of golf, and I think he always will.”