Scottie Scheffler continues to stretch our understanding of what a superstar is capable of doing in the post-Tiger Woods era. He is the standard for a new generation.
“I never thought in my lifetime I’d see a player as close to Tiger as this man currently is,” said Jim “Bones” Mackay, who got a close-up view of how far Tiger was above the rest as Phil Mickelson’s longtime bagman. “Scottie Scheffler just blows my mind every time I watch him play.”
It took Scheffler 1,197 days to go from winning his maiden major at the Masters to winning his fourth major at the Open Championship – the exact same number of days it took Tiger to go from one to four majors. The only difference is Tiger’s first four completed the Grand Slam set, and Scheffler still needs a U.S. Open to get that done.
“I don’t think we thought the golfing world would see someone as dominant as Tiger come through so soon, and here’s Scottie sort of taking that throne of dominance,” said Xander Schauffele. “You can’t even say he’s on a run. He’s just been killing it for over two years now. He’s a tough man to beat, and when you see his name up on the leaderboard, it sucks for us.”
Scheffler has won each of those four majors by three or more strokes, which puts him in the company again of names such as Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan. He’s as close to a sure thing as we’ve seen on a major Sunday when he has the lead, as Woods once was.
“I think Tiger stands alone in the game of golf,” Scheffler said, calling the comparisons “a little silly.”
He’s right, and Scheffler is not the new Tiger or the new Jack. Nobody can be those things.
But Scottie is the new standard.
BIRDIE: Harris English. With two major runner-up finishes this season to Scheffler and four career top-fours in majors, the 35-year-old English quietly moves himself into the fraternity of players such as Viktor Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood with enough starts and close calls to be tagged with the label of best players in the world without majors.
BIRDIE: Chris Gotterup. Perhaps the former Haskins and Nicklaus Award winner at Oklahoma as the best collegiate golfer of 2022 has finally found his stride on the PGA Tour. Or maybe he just needs to play more links courses.
PAR: England. Despite the best efforts of Matt Fitzpatrick (T4), the drought of Englishmen hoisting the Claret Jug will grow to a record 34 years since Nick Faldo’s third in 1992 at Muirfield – well exceeding its longest stretch of futility since the Scots won the first 29 Opens from 1860-1889. At least it’s better than the Welsh, who are 0-153.
BIRDIE: Schaden-friends. According to stat guru Justin Ray, Scheffler and Schauffele are the only players to beat the field scoring average in all 16 major rounds in 2025. Only three other players have done that in every major round of a single season this century: Tiger Woods (2000, 2007), Justin Rose (2015) and Jordan Spieth (2015).
BIRDIE: Rory McIlroy. Destiny and Scheffler conspired to deny the Ulsterman another fairy-tale major moment in 2025, but at least Rory got to bask in the adulation of his home fans with a top-10 finish and rinse the bad taste of his missed cut in 2019 out of his mouth. The Open will be back at Portrush soon enough for McIlroy to get another crack at it.
BOGEY: Shane Lowry. A frustrating major season continued for the 2019 Royal Portrush champion, who got caught on a hot mic for the third consecutive major dropping an F-bomb at “this place” after yanking his drive left on 11 Friday and then later was assessed a two-stroke penalty when a camera close-up seemed to show his ball move slightly in the rough after a practice swing on 12. Coupled with a similar angry outburst at Oakmont when he missed a short par putt when already 14-over and another at Quail Hollow when he slammed the turf after not getting relief from his ball embedded in a pitch mark, it’s been a blue summer. Mercifully, Lowry wasn’t on camera much during his final-round 81 at the Masters.
BOGEY: Bunker grooming. The R&A declined to use bunker rakers, as it has in the past, provided by BIGGA (British and International Golf Greenkeepers Association), instead relying on players’ caddies to do the job. That cost-saving decision backfired when Tommy Fleetwood found himself in an unraked fairway bunker on the fifth hole in the first round. After some choice words, Fleetwood could barely pitch out of the bunker mess and made bogey. Ex-caddie Bones Mackay said: “I am not sure I have ever seen this before at a pro event.”
BIRDIE: Bryson DeChambeau. Despite a first-round birdie-free 78 that derailed with a whiff/chunk combo on a rough-shrouded dune on the fourth hole, the two-time U.S. Open champion bounced back with seven birdies in the second round to slip into the weekend and kept rolling right into a backdoor top-10. The inspired rally likely locks up an automatic spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup team.
BIRDIE: First-round freshness. Jacob Skov Olesen, playing in his first Open as a pro, joined the quintet of 18-hole leaders with a 67. He’s the second recent British Amateur champion (Christo Lamprecht in 2023) to share the early Open lead. Former English Amateur champ Dan Brown led in his Open debut in 2024 while then PGA Tour rookie Cameron Young was an early co-leader in his Open debut in 2022.
BIRDIE: Sergio García. The 45-year-old LIV golfer did not hurt his chances of being on European captain Luke Donald’s radar as a potential captain’s pick, but did he do enough with a T34 finish? Considering his record as the all-time highest points earner in Ryder Cup history, his veteran presence might be welcome in a hostile road environment.
BIRDIE: Old guys. No other major favors experienced veterans these days more than the Open, with the average age of winners since 2011 of 33.8 three years older than the Masters (30.8) and 5½ years longer in the tooth than the U.S. Open (28.3). Phil Mickelson (55), Justin Leonard (53) and Lee Westwood (52) each broke par in the first round and made the cut.
BIRDIE: Cut sweepers. Fifteen players reached the weekend in all four majors, with Scheffler (of course) posting the best cumulative score in relation to par: Scheffler (-32), McIlroy (-11), Schauffele (-10), Jon Rahm (-6), English (-5), Matt Fitzpatrick (-1), Tyrrell Hatton (-1), J.J. Spaun (+1), Viktor Hovland (+3), Aaron Rai (+3), Maverick McNealy (+5), Sam Burns (+6), Daniel Berger (+7), Rasmus Højgaard (+14) and Brian Harman (+17).
BOGEY: Cut missers. Considering most notable players at least made it to the weekend if not into contention – even Dustin Johnson – it was especially jarring to see Brooks Koepka, Collin Morikawa, Cameron Smith, Adam Scott and Patrick Reed not even in the top 100.
BIRDIE: Bunkers. There are only 62 bunkers on the Dunluce Links – the fewest of any course in the Open rota – and not one of them is wasted. Except for the three holes that don’t have any, the placement of the hazards dictates club decisions for players better than any other major championship course. It really is a masterpiece of strategic design. Even Scheffler paid the price when he hit into one on No. 8 Sunday.
BOGEY: Patrick Reed. With an opening 77 killing his chances to make the cut, it also dooms any long-shot hope the erstwhile “Captain America” had of being considered for a Ryder Cup captain’s pick. Not sensing a lot of disappointment or sympathy.
BIRDIE: Twin killing. Danish twins Rasmus and Nicolai Højgaard played their way into a share of T9 entering Sunday and almost got to play the final round together. Nicolai eventually won bragging rights, finishing a shot better and T14 to Rasmus’ T16. These 24-year-old guys are the real deal. Get used to them.
BIRDIE: Open Radio. Even if it doesn’t always sync up with the images on television, listening to the delightful Open Radio team is an annual treat. Beyond the variety of charming accents and colorful vocabulary, it’s the inviting hominess of the crew’s insightful commentary that raises the coverage to the next level. Also: no commercials, only far-flung listener emails.
BIRDIE: Georgia Bulldogs. Former college teammates in 2008 and ’09, Harris English, Russell Henley and Brian Harman each climbed into the top 10 entering Sunday. All three of them, along with fellow Austrian Bulldog Sepp Straka, might be at Bethpage Black for the Ryder Cup.
BOGEY: Gouging. A pic of slack-jawed multimillionaire Rory McIlroy went viral when he was aghast at the menu prices in the Portrush Harbour by the Ramore restaurant group locales that include the famous Harbour Bar, Basalt and Neptune and Prawn. That viral shame prompted the gouging of Open-week patrons to be curtailed. Before the dialback, menu prices at the Ramore Wine Bar for a chicken and bacon burger increased from £7.95 to £17.95 while a bowl of chili chicken pasta leapt from £14.95 earlier in July to £27.95.
BIRDIE: Attendance. More than 278,000 spectators attended during the eight days of practice and competition at the Open, making it the largest sporting event ever held in Northern Ireland and the largest Open outside of St. Andrews (which had 290,000 in 2022 for the 150th). It was estimated that the championship will boost the Northern Ireland economy by more than £200 million ($268 million).
BOGEY: Interior OB. I don’t care what historic reasoning the R&A uses, the interior out of bounds left of the first fairway is contrived and sullies the opening hole. Fewer than 1 in 5 guys even tried to hit driver on the straightaway, 420-yard par-4 in the first round, and even using irons barely more than 50 percent hit the fairway. Ben Griffin, Taylor Pendrith, Kevin Yu and Rikuya Hoshino all had their Open starts tainted by the immediate re-tee.
BIRDIE: Drop zones. To deter players potentially bailing out by hitting into grandstands in order to get favorable free drops, the R&A’s designated drop zones were placed in some lush and gnarly patches. Best idea since furrowed bunkers.
PAR: Glacial pace. It is simply ridiculous for first and second rounds to take nearly six hours to complete no matter how hard the conditions are. The only guy who got dinged for a “bad time” was J.J. Spaun. During featured group coverage in the wee hours Thursday, viewers got to watch Collin Morikawa take nearly three minutes to assess and play his second shot on the second hole. Shane Lowry subsequently played his from maybe 10 feet away before the camera stopped showing Morikawa’s ball rolling.
BIRDIE: Chip and wash. Kudos to the Portrush “fun zone” organizers for setting up washing machines for patrons to try to chip balls into, re-creating the famous bit native son Rory McIlroy did as an 8-year-old phenom on “The Gerry Kelly Show” and reprised recently while wearing a green jacket on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”
BIRDIE: Bat crazy. When a bat found cover from the rain inside the NBC broadcast booth on Friday, viewers were treated to Dan Hicks flailing away at the flying mammal like a madman while Kevin Kisner did the only sensible thing and hid under the desk and his sport coat.
BIRDIE: Mass transit. An anticipated strike of transit workers nearly derailed train and bus service to Portrush before an “agreement” was struck with 200 workers in a dispute over pay. With no public car parking available beside the course, bus and rail service was essential to the Open’s success.
BIRDIE: Oakmont. Not taking “moving on” as an answer, the club’s board decided to sanction Wyndham Clark for his reprehensible behavior after missing the U.S. Open cut last month in ways the PGA Tour didn’t have the stomach to do itself. The 2023 U.S. Open champ is suspended from setting foot on the property. According to the board’s letter: “Reinstatement would be contingent upon Mr. Clark fulfilling a number of specific conditions, including full repayment for damages, a meaningful contribution to a charity of the Board’s choosing, and the successful completion of counseling and/or anger management sessions.” Royal Portrush was spared his wrath as he finished T4.
BIRDIE: Shinnecock Hills. While the long and torturous wait for the next major to tee off at the 2026 Masters now begins, add the U.S. Open in June to the list of things we will anticipate most with another historic career slam opportunity on the line.