On Wednesday at the 2025 Tour Championship, where Scheffler is the heavy favorite to retain his FedEx Cup title this week, he revealed that his change in mentality came after playing a the final round of the 2020 Masters with Tiger Woods. Asked if he had experienced any focus or motivation issues early in his career, perhaps “easing” his way into a tournament instead of attacking, this is what he had to say.
“The biggest change I felt like I made my first couple years on TOUR to 2022 was the question always was, hey, how come you haven’t won? The reason I felt like I hadn’t won yet is I hadn’t put myself in position enough times. I’d only played in a couple final groups. I always found myself just a little bit on the outside looking in, and that’s one of the things I learned from playing with Tiger.
It was like, we’re in 20th place or whatever going into Sunday at the [2020] Masters, Tiger has won five Masters, he’s got no chance of winning the tournament. Then we showed up on the 1st hole and I was watching him read his putt, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this guy is in it right now …
… Tiger was just different in the sense of the way he approached each shot, it was like the last shot he was ever going to hit … I think he made a 10 on the 12th hole, and he birdied, I think, five of the last six, and it was like, what’s this guy still playing for? He’s won the Masters four or five times. Best finish he’s going to have is like 20th place at this point.
I just admired the intensity that he brought to each round, and that’s something that I try to emulate. If I’m going to take time to come out here each week — like it’s not an easy thing to play a golf tournament. If I’m going to take a week off, I might as well just stay home. I’m not going to come out here to take a week off. If I’m playing in a tournament, I’m going to give it my all. That’s really all it boils down to …
… That was something that I just thought about for a long time. I felt like a change I needed to make was bringing that same intensity to each round and each shot … I think it’s just the amount of consistency and the intensity that I bring to each round of golf is not taking shots off, not taking rounds off, not taking tournaments off.”
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No shots off. That’s a heckuva slogan if anyone from Nike is listening. But that wasn’t all, a few questions later, Scheffler was asked how he feels about the current comparisons between Tiger Woods and himself, and the World No. 1 once again returned to that fateful round at Augusta National in 2020.
“I think it’s very silly to be compared to Tiger Woods. I think Tiger is a guy that stands alone in the game of golf … I talk about a mental change I made because I played one round of golf with him in a tournament. I’ve only played one round of tournament golf with Tiger Woods, and it completely changed the way I look at how I play tournaments.
I can’t tell you the look on his face when we got to the 1st green, and I look over, and we’re in 20th place, kind of playing, yada, yada, yada, and I look over and this guy is just locked in, and I was taken aback. I was like, holy smokes. Then we got to the 2nd hole, and he had this chip shot and he looked at it like it was an up-and-down to win the tournament. I’m like, this is incredible. I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life.”
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Scheffler stressed that he isn’t trying to be Tiger Woods on the golf course. He’s trying to be himself. But he’s not shy about admitting that one round with the Big Cat singlehandedly changed the trajectory of his career.
It’s not that simple, of course. Plenty of PGA Tour pros have played alongside Tiger Woods over the years and not gone on to have the success Scheffler has. But Scheffler had the humility, work ethic and ability to take the example set by Woods on that November Sunday and run with it. The results since—14 PGA Tour wins, four major titles and an Olympic gold medal—speak for themselves.
