Rory McIlroy once said it’s ‘hard not to notice’ Scottie Scheffler’s superpower and he’s finally acted upon it

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Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are unquestionably the two best golfers on the planet right now.

Bryson DeChambeau might have something to say about that, but he’s probably just one level below McIlroy and Scheffler.

After his win at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson, Scheffler admitted that McIlroy’s Masters win got him fired up to practice even harder.

The Northern Irishman has been the best and most consistent player on the PGA Tour so far this season.

Just last month at Augusta National, McIlroy hit some ridiculously good shots on his way to winning The Masters at the 17th time of trying.

McIlroy currently sits one place ahead of Scheffler on the all-time PGA Tour win percentage list.

With the PGA Championship just around the corner, golf fans are eagerly anticipating a potential showdown between the top two players in the world at Quail Hollow.

Rory McIlroy once said it’s ‘hard not to notice’ Scottie Scheffler’s superpower

McIlroy probably has more highlight reels than Scheffler.

However, the American has definitely been the most consistent golfer out of the two over the past three years.

Before his win at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson on Sunday, Scheffler had five top-10’s to his name in eight starts, and hadn’t been outside the top-25 once.

So even when the 28-year-old is supposedly not playing his best, he is still very much better than the majority of players on tour.

Back in 2024, McIlroy praised Scheffler’s ability to avoid bogeys during tournaments.

“Yeah, I think when they’re playing with you it’s hard not to notice. Scottie does such a good job of – it doesn’t look like it’s 6-under par, and then at the end of the day it’s 6-under par. He’s just so efficient with everything.

“I made three bogeys today, which is fine out there in these conditions, but just need to tidy it up a little bit to try to keep up with him.“

And now McIlroy has finally learned his lesson from watching Scheffler up close and personal it seems.

Scheffler’s incredible bogey avoidance numbers and McIlroy’s improvement

Back in 2024, Scheffler’s game reached another level when he acted upon McIlroy’s advice to switch to a mallet putter.

And now the Northern Irishman seems to have picked up some wisdom from his American counterpart.

Whilst McIlroy’s ability to avoid bogies in 2023 and 2024 certainly wasn’t bad, it wasn’t at the level that it needed to be, given his talent and incredible short game.

Scheffler has taught McIlroy to be slightly more conservative with the lines he takes with his irons, and as a result, the 35-year-old has avoided missing greens on the short side as much as he used to.

As you can see from the stats above, there is still nobody better in the game at doing that than Scheffler, but McIlroy has made huge improvements this season.

In fact, that is probably the main reason why he has had so much success in 2025.