Adam Scott reveals ‘trick’ he actually used every time he was paired with Tiger Woods early in his career

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For many months now, golf fans have been comparing what Scottie Scheffler has accomplished in the 2024 season against some of the best years of Tiger Woods’ career, as they debate whether the world number one will be able to get close to the legacy the 15-time champion has.

Certainly, on the course, Scottie Scheffler has had one of the greatest seasons of all-time, winning eight times worldwide, including at The Masters, The Players, The Tour Championship and the Olympics.

Tiger Woods meanwhile, won eight times on the PGA Tour in a single season on two occasions, while he also won nine times in 2000. So Scheffler still has some way to go before he is in the conversation concerning the greatest to have ever played the game.

But it was everything which came with Woods which added to his greatness. He brought an entirely different audience to the game with the way he played. He appeared to realise very quickly that he had the galleries in the palm of his hand when he would fly down a fairway after hitting a flawless iron shot, twirling his club while his eyes were as firmly fixed on the ball as the ball was to his target line.

Adam Scott reveals what he would do when playing alongside Tiger Woods

Unsurprisingly, it seems that Woods had a psychological advantage over many of his peers before he had even teed off.

Speaking on The Scoop, Adam Scott was asked to name his favourite playing partner, opting for Ernie Els, before explaining why he was not fond of playing alongside Woods as a youngster.

“Playing with Tiger early in my career was so difficult. He was incredible, intimidating, the crowd was moving, and I actually had to not watch him play when I played with him, that was my trick to be able to play my own game and not get influenced by Tiger-mania,” he said.

“I’d literally turn my back. If you go back and look, guys shot 76 every time they played with Tiger and after a few times of doing that, I’m like, this is hopeless, it’s going to ruin my week. So I just got in my own world and actually turned my back so I didn’t see anything that was going on.”

Australian was probably not alone

Scott was probably not the only player who had a particular tactic whenever they were paired with Woods, because he had such an incredible aura – which still persists, on some level, to this day.

There were probably leaders in events who would initially ignore second and third place and look for where Woods found himself on the leaderboard, trying to work out if there was any possibility of him working his way through the field. And of course, Woods making a couple of quick fire birdies would just hit differently.

Scheffler created some of that aura this year. Few will forget what Scheffler produced on the back nine at the Olympics to go and clinch the gold medal – the foolish ones amongst us would have ruled him out at one stage when Jon Rahm had a four shot lead.

He does not have Woods’ charisma, but it is fair to say that no player has threatened to enjoy anything like this level of dominance for a long time.