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It’s not easy to walk in the shoes of The Tiger Woods. Scottie Scheffler – arguably the modern era’s best golfer – is many a time unfairly put up against the Big Cat’s unmatchable numbers. It’s rare to ever come across a feat where you could have an edge over Woods. However, according to Darren Clarke, Rory McIlroy has mastered something that the 15-time major champ could never.

Speaking to Gary Williams on the Golf Channel’s 5 Clubs, the 2011 Open winner shared a stark difference he has observed in his two favorites.

“Tiger was the most complete package,” says Clarke. “But, Tiger didn’t have the carefree freedom that you see Rory play with, carefree abandon that you see Rory play with at times.”

For the entirety of his career, Woods has been precision incarnate, always in his “unconscious zone,” as Clarke puts it. Watching him was like watching a chess grandmaster. The unfazed face remained stoic as he calculated one square at a time. A swish! And there goes the ball in the cup. His 2006 Open is one such example.

Woods withdrew his driver just once and used his famous two-iron “stinger” for every fairway bunker.

“The aura about him…the mindset where he just…hit some shots. It was just unbeatable,” Clarke recalls.

Having played alongside Woods several times, especially in the Ryder Cups, Clarke’s anecdote holds weight.

As the two would tee off together, there would be no conversation. Woods, for his part, was “so into his own thing” that what happened outside of his bubble didn’t matter to him. Later on, this zone came to be called the infamous ‘Tiger Stare.’

The attribution of such meditative isolation can be attributed to Earl Woods’s training. The father psychologically hardened young Tiger, which was evident even now. Bryson DeChambeau, who was making his Ryder Cup debut in 2018, experienced this firsthand.

But McIlroy is different. If Woods was precision-based, the European talisman is someone who simply believes in “freewheeling.”

“You watch Rory just freewheel it, rip it, send it up there,” Darren Clarke tells Gary Williams. “Rory just sends it straight at the flag. Doesn’t matter what the percentages are, he’ll just go at it.”

More than a decade ago, the US Open at Congressional saw it. A dominant Rory, who had just come out of his heartbreak loss from the Masters, won by eight shots. A record-breaking US Open score, which many sports psychologists called emanated from McIlroy’s “cocky” self. We have also seen that cockiness at this year’s Ryder Cup.

Young age has nothing to do with it. That all-in, risk-taking mentality was visible in his Masters’ win this year. His four double bogeys across the tournament, a record for a champion, tell you everything about his volatility. Even when he secured his career Grand Slam, McIlroy’s risk-taking was on full display, as he hit an aggressively spun pitch into the water on the par-3 15th.

In retrospect, both men have reached the “unconscious” state. For one, it’s canceling out the noise to become a genius puzzle solver. For the other, it’s entering a surreal realm where golf becomes an art form. What’s striking is that the puzzle-master himself has noticed the artist’s version.

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When Tiger Woods drew a line between himself and Rory

It was 2014 when Tiger Woods made the infamous comment about Rory McIlroy.

At the Open Championship, as McIlroy was set to win the tournament, Woods commented, “As you can see, the way he plays is pretty aggressively. When he gets it going, he gets it going. When it gets going bad, it gets going real bad. It’s one or the other.”

In the same tournament, the Big Cat finished 69th. For the opening round, he shot a 69, then went 9-over in the remaining three rounds. Three days later, McIlroy lifted his third major at the age of 25, joining only Woods and Jack Nicklaus.

Many see this comment as a pent-up frustration from Woods’s side. The veteran was growing older, plagued by back injuries and other physical ailments. His sport, on the other hand, was seeing the emergence of younger players. But in retrospect, this comment can also be seen as an acknowledgement of a player who is quite the opposite of himself.

This was validated when McIlroy won the PGA Championship by a decisive eight shots, less than a month later.