Colin Cowherd suggests what people forget about Tiger Woods when they compare him with Scottie Scheffler

Scottie Scheffler is now drawing comparisons to Tiger Woods after his victory at The Open Championship last weekend.

Scheffler cruised to the Claret Jug with a four-shot advantage over runner-up Harris English at Royal Portrush.

The world number one has now won four major championships, including two this season, and the gap between him and second best player, Rory McIlroy, is significant.

His recent dominance has even reminded some people of Woods in his prime, but Colin Cowherd vehemently disagrees with those comparisons.

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Colin Cowherd dismisses Scottie Scheffler and Tiger Woods comparisons

Scottie Scheffler and prime Tiger Woods have plenty in common. Both players have complete games and are/were demonstrably better than the field.

However, Cowherd thinks that Woods was on another level to Scheffler with his driving, iron play and putting, and so the debate isn’t particularly close.

“People are saying, ‘Is this like Tiger,’ because [Scheffler] is the most dominant golfer in terms of leading and pulling away at majors,” Cowherd said on his podcast.

“But I think people forget Tiger was at least 40 yards longer off the tee. Scheffler is more 300 or 310 yards, and Tiger was 340 to 360.

“Tiger was the best iron player in my life. Now, you can ask experts who may put him third or fourth, but I thought, in his prime, he was as good an iron player as the world has had.

“And Tiger was not only the best big-putt maker, but he was a great lag putter as well. He could set up putts. If he missed, he only had a short putt from there.

“Whereas Scheffler, to me, his weakness has been putting. He’s better at it now than he used to be, but I’ve always felt that with his putting, if he’s making putts, he’s unbeatable, but he’s not always making putts.

“So my take is, I know we want to crown the hot new guy, Tiger, but I’ve never seen anything like Tiger in his prime. I think if Scheffler were in his prime with Tiger, he would be like [Phil] Mickelson. I think he’d be on him and he’d win majors, but I don’t think you can compare anyone to Tiger.”

The Golfing Gazette looks at whether Cowherd’s claim about Woods driving the ball further than Scheffler is actually true.

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Scottie Scheffler vs Tiger Woods average driving distance

The PGA Tour stats only go as far back as 2003, missing out Woods’ greatest season (2000), so we have taken arguably his best available (2005).

Cowherd is right that Woods drove the ball further 20 years ago than Scheffler does today, which is some achievement, but his figures are incorrect.

Scheffler ranks 52nd on the PGA Tour this season with an average drive of 297.8 yards, while Woods was the third-longest hitter in 2005 (301.6 yards).

But considering the advances in technology of both golf clubs and balls, the difference is far more noteworthy than the numbers suggest.

For context, the third-ranked player for driving distance in 2025 is Jesper Svensson (319.4), and it’s fair to assume that Woods would have replicated that had he grown up in this era.