In the history of Men’s Professional Golf, there have been only a couple of instances in the modern era of a player winning two Major Golf Championships in the same year and not being named Player of the Year by the PGA of America.
Nick Faldo, in 1990, because he was not a member of the PGA at the time while competing on the European Tour, and Xander Schauffele, in 2024, because he and every other player in the world, regardless of what tour they played on in 2024, were-overshadowed in every meaningful category by the best golfer on the planet.
Scottie Scheffler has firmly established his position as the undisputed preeminent player in the world.
Scheffler has remained firmly entrenched as No. 1 in the Official World Rankings for over 113 weeks, and this year, his playing performance ranks as the most remarkable effort since Tiger Woods’s unworldly year in 2006, when Tiger won eight times and claimed two major tournaments.
Scottie’s year it included winning the Masters for the second time, winning the Gold Medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics, and claiming the season-ending Fed-X Championship.
The 28-year-old Schieffer is the fourth youngest player with two Green Jackets.
Since the Official World Golf Rankings began in 1986, only four players have held the No. 1 spot and won the Masters: Ian Woosnam, Fred Couples, Tiger Woods, and Scheffler.
Woods and Scheffler have done it twice, and only three players younger than Scheffler have won two Masters: Woods, Nicklaus, and Seve Ballesteros.
Scheffler played in nineteen PGA Tour events in 2024, winning eight times—seven if you do not count the Olympics—two runners-up and sixteen top-ten finishes.
These were important events against the world’s best and most competitive players, starting with The Masters and five of the PGA Tour’s signature events, including the Arnold Palmer Invitational, RBC Heritage, The Memorial, The Players, and the season-ending Tour Championship.
Although the gold medal he won at the Olympics is not included in his official tournament-winning accounting, because of the Olympics’ historical significance, his accomplishment against the world’s best ranks was one of the most remarkable triumphs of his season.
Scheffler earned a record 9,228,357 million dollars in official PGA money, eight million for being the leading player in the bonus pool, and twenty-five million in the final FED-X standings, bringing his season total to $62,28,357 and establishing a new season earnings record, breaking the record, he set last season.
With an extraordinary year and money totals. Scottie moves to No. 3 in PGA Tour Official career earnings with $71,793 588, trailing only Tiger with $120,999,166 and Rory McIlroy with $90,989,179.
So, where does Scheffler’s year rank in the history of professional golf?
It certainly ranks as one of the best performances in modern history, but comparison is subjective.
In further context, history must acknowledge and record the distinguished participants and superstars who established those extraordinary record-setting seasons.
The dawn of organized and competitive golf began with Young Tom Morris in 1868 on the shores and estuaries of the North Sea, sprinkled amidst the gorse and thistle-strewn plains of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Professional Golf’s first superstar was Young Tom Morris.
Young Tom won the Open Championship in 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1872 (there was no Open Championship in 1871).
No one else has since repeated this feat of four straight Open Championships.
Young Tom’s 1868 win, at the age of 17, made him the youngest major champion in golf history, a record which still stands.
Golf then migrated to America, continuing with Bobby Jones’s genius and the athleticism of Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, and Tiger Woods.
Scottie Scheffler can now add his name to the outstanding athletes and superstars list.
But what about historical comparisons?
For comparison’s sake, let us also discount two pre-modern seasons: Byron Nelson’s 1945 war-time year with eighteen wins and Bobby Jones’s 1930 Grand Slam, when he won four Major Tournaments, the US and British Opens, and the US and British Amateurs while playing as an Amateur.
Both golfers played before the rapid advancements in club design and, in Jones’s case, wooden shafts.
However, technological advances, nutrition, and agronomy have undoubtedly contributed to lower scoring in Men’s Professional Golf.
However, winning is still winning, and Major Championships have always defined success, the strength of fields, and the money earned.
These are my unofficial and entirely subjective rankings of the twenty most successful seasons in modern golf history.
- Tiger Woods, 2000: nine wins and three majors.
- Ben Hogan 1953: five wins and three majors.
- Ben Hogan in 1948: ten wins and two majors.
- Tiger Woods in 2006: eight wins and two majors.
- Arnold Palmer 1962: eight wins and two majors.
- Arnold Palmer in 1960: eight wins and two majors.
- Jack Nicklaus in 1972: seven wins and two majors.
- Ben Hogan in 1946: thirteen wins and one major.
- Vijay Singh in 2004: nine wins and one major.
- Scottie Scheffler in 2024: seven wins, one gold medal, and one major.
- Sam Snead in 1949: six wins and two majors.
- Nick Price in 1994: six wins and two majors.
- Tiger Woods in 2005: six wins and two majors
- Jordan Spieth in 2015: five wins and two majors.
- Lee Trevino in 1971: five wins and two majors.
- Tom Watson in 1977: five wins and two majors.
- Tiger Woods in 2002: five wins and two majors
- Jack Nicklaus in 1963: five wins and two majors.
- Tom Watson in 1980: seven wins and one major.
- Sam Snead in 1950: eleven wins and no majors.
How high can he climb?
Scottie Scheffler has succeeded at every stage of his golfing career and is now coming to full flower.
Scottie Scheffler is the best of the best in the world, and his reign continues with no end in sight.
