The Five: Crazy statistics that tell story of Scottie Scheffler’s award-winning season

Scottie Scheffler is the 2024 Player of the Year.

Was there ever any doubt?

Scheffler was announced as the Jack Nicklaus Award winner Tuesday night. He’s won the award three years in a row, joining Tiger Woods as the only two golfers to accomplish the feat. He’s the first player to win THE PLAYERS Championship, Masters and TOUR Championship all in one season. He spent three-quarters of the year at No. 1 in the FedExCup and strung together 13 consecutive top-20 finishes to begin the season, tied for most in the TOUR’s modern era.

None of those stats cracked this list, however. As we look back at Scheffler’s dominant 2024, countless crazy stats explain his award-winning year. Here are five absurd stats that do the job of telling Scheffler’s season.

1. Scheffler won more than any golfer since 2007

Counting wins can sometimes feel simplistic, a 1 or 0 outcome in a sport that is full of gray areas and margins, where 0.1 shots per round add up in massive ways throughout a season.

But wins are still the measuring stick, the way pros and fans evaluate a season. And Scheffler was more prolific at stacking wins than anyone in more than a decade. His seven official PGA TOUR wins are the most since Tiger Woods in 2007. If you count the Hero World Challenge and Olympics victories, his nine wins are the most since Woods in ‘06. Nine victories, however, you come by them, are rivaled only by Woods and Vijay Singh in the modern era.

Not impressed enough? Let’s compare Scheffler to others in the top five of the Official World Golf Ranking. Scheffler won nine times in 2024; world No. 2 Xander Schauffele has 10 wins in his TOUR career. World No. 3 Rory McIlroy has won 10 times worldwide (PGA TOUR and DP World Tour) in the last five years. World No. 4 Collin Morikawa has seven career victories, or in other words, Scheffler won more in one season than Collin Morikawa has in six seasons.

World No. 5 Ludvig Åberg and world No. 6 Wyndham Clark have a combined five career worldwide victories.

So it’s not a stretch to say Scheffler achieved a career’s worth of victories in a season, and that of an elite pro.

2. Scheffler’s scoring average was lowest in the modern era

The PGA TOUR’s “modern era” is defined from the year 1983 onward, when the organization adopted the “All-Exempt Tour” that exempted anyone in the top 125 of the FedExCup (then the money list) at the end of a season for the next year.

Scheffler’s 2024 scoring average (actual) was 68.01, not only lower than anyone this season but also the lowest in the modern era, better than any season by Woods, Singh, McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Justin Thomas or any other player you care to compare Scheffler to.

Put another way, Morikawa ranks No. 3 in scoring average at 69.05, more than a shot worse than Scheffler. By those numbers, on average, Scheffler beat Morikawa by four strokes in every event. TOUR average was 70.29, meaning Scheffler beat the average TOUR pro by more than eight shots in every tournament.

3. Scheffler’s last below-average performance was 30 months ago

There’s no denying Scheffler’s ceiling is as good or better than any pro golfer. But what truly separates him is how high his floor is and how rarely we see him fall through it.

It held true in 2024, but the consistency has been there since the summer of 2022. Since Scheffler was cut from the 2022 Genesis Scottish Open, he has not lost strokes to the field in any tournament. He’s had a bad round, or two, sure, and even battled extensive struggles on the greens but it never sustained over four days or, in the case of his putting, corroded other parts of his game.

That streak extends across 50 tournaments and nearly 900 days. It’s been that long since Scheffler has walked off the golf course and empirically played below the TOUR average.

That consistency is most notably driven by his impressive ball-striking. There was only one week this season where he lost strokes to the field off the tee (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am) and one week where he lost strokes on approach (BMW Championship). In both cases, the rest of Scheffler’s game rose to the challenge.

4. Scheffler was No. 1 in the world for the entire year … and will be for the considerable future

Scheffler has spent the last 82 weeks at No. 1 in the world a streak extending well into 2023 and it’s unlikely he’s going to give it up at all in 2025.

Scheffler earned the fourth-most ranking points in a calendar year since the Official World Golf Ranking’s inception, per world ranking expert Nosferatu. Woods was responsible for the only three seasons better than Scheffler’s 2024.

In January, Scheffler will pass Rory Mcilroy for the fourth-most weeks ever spent at No. 1. Scheffler is likely to pass No. 3 Dustin Johnson later in 2025, though he remains far away from No. 1 Tiger Woods and No. 2 Greg Norman.

Because of Scheffler’s record-setting season, it’s unlikely any player will pass him in 2025. It would take Schauffele or McIlroy rattling off a similar season to Scheffler to unseat him.

5. Scheffler made the most birdies and second-fewest bogeys

This one is pretty simple, but it paints a straightforward picture of Scheffler’s domination. The Texan led the TOUR in birdie average, 4.88 per round, while he made the second-fewest bogeys, trailing only Schauffele.

It bucks the thinking that those who make the most birdies are bound for bogeys because of the aggressive play-style you have to implement. For some, that’s true. When you’re Scheffler, your conservative golf is still good enough to get close to the hole and convert on the chances.

That’s how you end up a staggering 239-under-par for the entire season, by far the best mark on TOUR.