Scottie Scheffler’s FedEx Cup Playoffs season ended Sunday with a T4 finish at East Lake as Tommy Fleetwood finally got over the line and secured his first PGA Tour win.
Scheffler didn’t cap off another legacy-building season with his second FedEx Cup title. But it was another year in which he continued to assert himself as the unquestioned No. 1 player in the world, with his dominance drawing comparisons to Tiger Woods along the way.
Scheffler’s season got off to a scratchy start by his standards as he worked to knock the rust off after an offseason hand injury that occurred while making homemade ravioli. That “bumpy” start? It looked like this: T9-T25-T3-T11-T20-T2-4-T8. Scheffler then won the CJ Cup in historic fashion, won the PGA Championship two weeks later, took the Memorial in June and finished his season off with wins at the Open Championship and BMW Championship. Scheffler led the PGA Tour in strokes gained total, tee to green, off the tee and approach. He was also first in scrambling, scoring average, birdie average and bounce-back percentage.
Is that all? Not quite.
While Scheffler didn’t win the FedEx Cup title on Sunday, thanks to a final round that saw him hit his opening tee shot out of bounds and later find the water on No. 15 en route to a double bogey, he still managed to card a T4-finish. That marked Scheffler’s 14th consecutive top-eight finish this year, the longest streak since Ben Hogan did it 14 times in the early 1950s, per Justin Ray. The last time Scheffler finished outside the top eight on a leaderboard? The Players Championship, where he finished T20 during a frustrating title defense.
Scheffler also finished the year shooting 21 straight rounds in the 60s, which ties the longest streak in PGA Tour history.
After winning eight times in 2024, including the Masters and an Olympic gold medal, it would have been understandable for Scheffler’s results to ebb the other way as they did in 2023 despite his consistently great play.
But they didn’t.
Instead, Scheffler delivered two dominant performances at major championships to bring his career total to four, authored an iconic moment with his soul-snatching chip-in at the BMW and continued to elevate his status in the history of the game.
“I think after a year like ’24, I think sometimes people’s expectations and stuff of me can change,” Scheffler said on Sunday at East Lake. “For me, nothing really changes. I’m not satisfied with where I’m at. I’m always trying to get a little bit better. I think that’s just part of the game. I think that’s what I love about golf is you’re always trying to get a little bit better. I feel like this year I improved my putting from last year, and that was really the one area of the game that I’ve been working quite hard on. Phil [Kenyon] and I have been doing a lot of stuff, and it’s nice to get some good results from that. Yeah, that’s the reason I was able to win some more tournaments this year.”
Among the myriad things that make Scheffler special is the relentless intensity he brings to each round and shot, which is something he learned from playing a round with Tiger Woods during the 2020 fall Masters.
“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 last week at East Lake. “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. I’ve only played with Tiger once in a tournament. 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. I just admired the intensity that he brought to each round, and that’s something that I try to emulate.”
Scheffler’s dominance has taken over the sport, and even those who are supposed to be his main challengers have felt the pressure of trying to keep up with him. The inevitability can be deflating even for the other best players in the world.
“I don’t think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon, and here’s Scottie sort of taking that throne of dominance,” World No. 3 Xander Schauffele said at the Open. “You can’t even say he’s on a run. He’s just been killing it for over two years now. He’s a tough man to beat, and when you see his name up on the leaderboard, it sucks for us.”
Rory McIlroy, who won three times this season but admitted he did so during Scheffler’s “rust” patch, knows there’s a gap between Scottie and everyone else.
“None of us could hang with Scottie this week,” McIlroy said at the Open. “He’s an incredible player. He’s been dominant this week. Honestly, he’s been dominant for the last couple years. He is the bar that we’re all trying to get to. In a historical context, you could argue that there’s only maybe two or three players in the history of the game that have been on a run, the one that Scottie’s been on here for the last 24 to 36 months. Incredibly impressive. He’s been absolutely amazing over these past two to three years. As I said, all you can do is tip your cap and watch in admiration.”
That’s all the rest of golf can do. Watch in admiration and wonder if the Scottie Scheffler train will slow down anytime soon.
