The skill Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler ‘innately’ have that Rory McIlroy is only just learning

Jaime Diaz believes that Rory McIlroy has only recently developed the skill Scottie Scheffler has had throughout his career with his ability to win while not at his best.

There is no question that the respectful rivalry between Scheffler and McIlroy has been a huge boost to the PGA Tour in recent years.

Scheffler has been the world’s best player over the last four years, but McIlroy has been around the very top of the game for the best part of two decades now.

Why Scottie Scheffler has been backed to end up with a better career than Rory McIlroy

McIlroy is now a six-time major champion and one of only six male players in the history of the game to have completed the Career Grand Slam.

Scheffler is closing in on his tally, with four majors under his belt already. He is also only a US Open victory away from becoming a Grand Slam winner himself.

So it is going to be fascinating to see who ends up with the better career once they have both retired.

Speaking on Five Clubs, writer Jaime Diaz suggested that he expects Scheffler to overtake McIlroy at some stage.

“I’d qualify it by saying if you ended it right now, you’d have to say six majors and all the tournament wins, you’d have to kind of say that’s the end product of a slightly superior career. But when you talk about just the continuum that Scottie Scheffler has done, only to the age of 30 now, I think his level has been higher than anyone else. It’s higher than Rory’s,” he said.

“To me, he’s been the second best player of this century, in terms of his level of play, his standard of play. And it’s because he’s so well-rounded. He’s so complete. He can do it so many different ways. He can not play his best and win tournaments. You don’t see that too often. Rory’s learning to do it, but he’s already 37. Scottie seemed to have it innately, and Tiger always did that.

“He’s a Tiger-lite slightly. There’s certain things he does maybe as well or even better than Tiger. His iron play is pretty darn close. Tiger was longer, Tiger’s a better putter. Scottie in every other area, you could say is almost Tiger’s equal which is just incredible. I do think because of that, if you’re talking about what was the most memorable play to this point, 2026, in this century, I would say it is the Scottie era because it looks like it’s moving forward. Rory still has some years left and he can add a couple more majors, and then you’d have to say well, it’s Rory. But at this moment, I would say Scottie has the edge.”

The question mark over Scottie Scheffler after his first four major victories

Scheffler is certainly ahead of McIlroy when it comes to how quickly he moved to 22 PGA Tour victories, with the Northern Irishman 33 years of age when he won the Tour Championship four years ago.

Having said that, few could have foreseen just how long McIlroy would have to wait for a fifth major victory after winning the PGA Championship in 2014.

It is incredibly difficult to imagine that Scheffler will have to wait another decade for his next major victory. His worst finish in the four biggest events of this year was tied for 14th, while he finished inside the top five on three occasions. But strange things can happen.

Diaz would probably argue that Scheffler’s floor is higher than McIlroy’s. Even when he is not firing on all cylinders, he is able to put himself in contention with little fanfare.

McIlroy is more spectacular whether he is playing well or not. But that also ensures that the lows are likely to be a lot more damaging than they are for Scheffler.

However, with so much up in the air across the game right now, it is nearly impossible to predict how the coming years will play out for two players who are already among the all-time greats.