Scottie Scheffler’s on-course dominance is statistically undeniable, but a golf insider’s brutal take suggests he’s missing the one intangible that made Tiger Woods a cultural phenomenon.

“Scottie doesn’t appeal to anyone who doesn’t already like golf. This is what it is. He is making zero cultural impact, whereas Tiger was a Moses-esque figure. But the man’s golf is sublime. It’s an unusual juxtaposition. Scottie actually has more personality than Tiger, but no aura,” Kevin Van Valkenburg, Director of Content at Fried Egg Golf, wrote on X.

This is a bold claim. But it has its points that no one argues. Tiger Woods did not just play the best in the field; he changed the complete background of the game in his prime. The visibility, economy, competitiveness, and most importantly, raw natural gifts prospered in a planetary system where Woods was the sun. And the results listed below make it clear.

1. In the decade following Woods’ arrival, PGA Tour payouts increased at a rate three times faster than in the era preceding him.
2. Total prize money on the Tour increased from $101 million in 1996 to approximately $292 million by 2008.
3. During his peak years, the tournaments he competed in delivered twice as much viewership as those he didn’t. In the 2008 season, his participation drove viewership up by as much as 300%.

Woods brought intense, must-watch energy to tournaments, drawing in viewers who had never previously cared for the sport. The main reason behind this was that he shattered the image of golf as an old, white boys’ club, making golf more accessible and appealing to diverse audiences.

The ‘Tiger Effect’ indeed was undeniable and even persists today; his 2018 PGA Championship charge boosted viewership by 73%, a stark contrast to Scheffler’s era, where even a major win at the 2025 PGA Championship saw a 4% dip in viewership from the prior year.

News served to you like never before!

Prefer us on Google, To get latest news on feed

Prefer Us on Google

Woods’s 2023 return at the Hero World Challenge delivered a 53% gain in average viewers over the previous year. That’s the reason Woods won the PIP award three out of four years, despite competing in a handful of official events in recent years.

And while Scheffler dominates the leaderboard, he has frequently struggled to carry the same weight. During the 2025 PGA Championship, CBS drew an average of 4.76 million viewers for Sunday’s final round. This was less than the 2024 PGA Championship final round, when 4.96 million people watched Xander Schauffele defeat Bryson DeChambeau by one stroke to win his first major.

Back in the 2024 Masters, despite Scheffler’s second green jacket, viewership dropped 20% compared to 2023. And though his historic 20th victory at the 2026 American Express drew so much attention, a large portion of the audience credited it to Blades Brown’s emergence. Brown was only 18 years old and played spectacular golf in the tournament, trailing behind #1.

Maybe this is why, despite the comparisons, Scottie Scheffler always remains a vocal denier of the Woods parallels.

“Tiger is a guy that stands alone in the game of golf, and I think he always will,” Scheffler noted.

With that being said, Valkenburg agreed that the quality of Scheffler’s golf rivals or surpasses certain metrics from the Woods era.

Scottie Scheffler’s ‘sublime’ dominance

Scottie Scheffler is the first player since Tiger Woods to win 5+ events in back-to-back years. He won 7 titles in 2024 and followed that by 6 in 2025. With his most recent win at the AmEx 2026, Scheffler became the 3rd fastest ever (behind Woods at 95 and Nicklaus at 127) to reach 20 victories on the Tour in 151 starts.

Scheffler has also had 9 victories since 2021 with a 4+ stroke margin. And he had the lowest individual scoring average in all 4 rounds in 2025, last done by Tiger Woods in 2000. There are many other records that Scheffler has matched, and it shows no one has come close to that dominance in the last decade, since Woods’s performance has dropped.

But though Scheffler is closing the gaps between him and Woods, there are several categories where Woods is still so much ahead of the current World No. 1.

The 15x major still holds the #1 longevity record with 281 consecutive weeks. Scheffler sat at 114 weeks as of February 2026, nearly half of what Woods achieved. Woods has achieved a career Grand Slam three times. Scheffler still requires a U.S. Open title to join the club.

Woods played for 10-12 years in his prime, while Scheffler just entered that zone in the last few years. So, Scheffler has a lot to achieve in the coming years, and he will certainly do that with his current form. However, matching Woods’s legacy may be a nearly impossible feat. Not just for Scottie Scheffler, but for the rest of the field and those who haven’t started playing yet.