Rory McIlroy was the only man who had any sort of claim to stop Scottie Scheffler from winning Player of the Year in 2025.
Of course, Rory McIlroy enjoyed a stunning start to the PGA Tour season. He won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, The Players Championship, and The Masters before the end of April.
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Will Rory McIlroy stop Scottie Scheffler and retain his title at the first signature event of the season?
However, Scottie Scheffler took the mantle from there. The world number one won six tournaments, including the PGA Championship and The Open Championship.
Scheffler has already opened his account for this season with his victory at The American Express. But it was his performance at the WM Phoenix Open that almost felt more ominous.
Rory McIlroy suggests the skill needed to catch Scottie Scheffler
The 29-year-old recovered from a nightmare first round to not only make the cut, but also go on and finish one shot away from being in the playoff at TPC Scottsdale.
Scheffler’s preparations for 2025 were derailed by the hand injury he suffered over Christmas. So it feels significant that he has now won in January for the first time in his career.
And speaking ahead of the first signature event of the year at Pebble Beach, McIlroy outlined just what it will take for anyone to catch Scheffler.
“If I had a critique of myself last year is that I didn’t bring the consistency that I maybe would have wanted post The Masters. I think some of that is sort of understandable, but Scottie just had his 17th top 10 in a row,” he said.
“Even you look at him last week, he shoots two over in the first round and he just pieces it together again, finds a way, has a chance to win on Sunday.
“He’s relentless. And I’ll never stop singing Scottie’s praises because he’s incredible at what he’s doing and the way he does it.
“I’ve had nice runs like that, but I’ve always been a little more up and down. I think anyone that wants to catch Scottie or get anywhere close is going to have to consistently bring that sort of game week in and week out like he does. He’s really the first one since Tiger that’s doing this.”
How Scottie Scheffler’s current lead in the world rankings compares with Tiger Woods’ best
Scheffler has opened up such an impressive lead over McIlroy in the world rankings. He now has more than double the amount of points on average as the Northern Irishman.
Interestingly, he still has some way to go to catch Tiger Woods‘ biggest lead in the OWGR.
Shortly after completing the Tiger Slam in 2001, Woods averaged 32.33 points – Scheffler’s current average is 17.04.
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Over or under 4.5…
In fact, no other player has managed to average more than 20 points in the modern era.
It does appear that the fields Scheffler is featuring in are stronger than what Woods had to come up against. But the 15-time major champion still had to face the likes of Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, and Vijay Singh while they were all at their peaks.
It is going to be fascinating to see where Scheffler’s career stacks up once it has come to an end. Clearly, he is on course to leave a very special legacy at his current rate.
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