Rich Lerner: We Need To Back Off On The Scottie Scheffler-Tiger Woods Comparisons | 7/21/25

Rich Lerner: We Need To Back Off On The Scottie Scheffler-Tiger Woods Comparisons | 7/21/25

At what point do we dip our toe into the Scotty Tiger early comparisons? Yeah, I think we need to back off. Tiger was one of one. I mean, let let’s just let’s step back for a second. If you want to do raw numbers, Scotty’s 29, just turn. Uh he has 17 wins, four majors. He won four times in 22, two times in 23, seven times in 24, and he’s won four so far. I’ll give him conservatively one more win, maybe two. So Tiger, at the same age at 29, had won 40 tournaments, 40 to 17, and had eight majors versus four. Tiger had 10 seasons, count them, 10 where he won five or more times. Tiger ended up with 82 wins. you’re looking for sort of, you know, there’s some ball striking comparisons that you can make in terms of of of sheer dominance over his his peers. Uh, that’s legitimate. Gradle has done that. Um, I I think in terms of gap between uh number one in the world and everyone else, I I would say it this way. When Tiger won the US Open at Pebble Beach in 2000 by 15 shots, the gap between number one in the world and everyone else was never wider, not just in golf, maybe in in any sport ever than it was right there. Tiger was on the shores of the Monterey Peninsula. Everybody else was in a rowboat somewhere near Australia. Use that same analogy. I would say right now Scotty is on the shore, the the California shores, and everybody else is somewhere near Hawaii. Uh, still quite a gap. Um, now I will say um if if you gain this out, you you can begin to convince yourself that he could crawl into tiger major championship territory someday. And that’s predicated on staying healthy and and all of that. And and we we all sort of agree that Scotty’s and you never do know that’s the lesson of the last 30 years, Dan. You never do know what’s going on uh in someone’s life, but it it looks and feels like Scotty has all of that taken care of and has all of it together. So, it would be a question of health and motivation. So, he’s four majors right now. Let’s just say between 29 and 35 players absolute prime, Scotty wins one major a year. As we sit here right now, that doesn’t seem far-fetched. That would get him to 10 majors. that would put him ahead of some bedrock legends of the sport that would put him ahead of Ben Hogan and Gary Player. Then you say, okay, between uh 35 and 38, could he get a couple of more? Reasonably, you could say yes. Um that would put him at, you know, at 1213 and then you’re asking for maybe three or four more majors up until say in his early mid4s and he would have a crack. we’d be in serious discussions about getting to 15. That’s where Tiger’s at. Long ways away, a dominant player, uh, and and absent the kind of, you know, sort of buzzy storylines that accompany modern, uh, athletic celebrity, we are going to have to enjoy Scotty for the pure athletic achievement because he will not dabble in that other stuff. He’s not going to the Met Gala. He’s not going to the Mediterranean on a yacht. You’re not going to see a whole ton of him on Instagram except for what he does on the golf course. That’s about it. Enjoy it. Um he’s a hell of a player.

Golf Channel host Rich Lerner joins the Dan Patrick Show and explains why people need to back off on the comparisons between Scottie Scheffler and Tiger Woods