There’s a reason Scottie Scheffler has been ranked World No. 1 for most weeks (138 and counting) than any golfer not named Tiger Woods, and certainly his play at the CJ Cup Byron Nelson was representative of that. However, there was an overlooked line from the CBS broadcast that might spell out just how incredible Scheffler’s week at TPC Craig Ranch was.
It was noted as Scheffler was playing the final nine on Sunday that his total score for the week might end up matching or beating the total of the other best scores each day of the entire field. Think about that: One guy playing the rest of the field’s best score each day. Preposterous, right? Except Scheffler, who had a sloppy bogey on the par-3 17th Sunday, played the field to a draw. His 61-63-66-63—253 total matching the 63-65-63-62 lows by the field.
To put this into context we broke out the Excel spreadsheets and ShotLink. We found in the other 18 individual stroke-play events in 2025, only two winners came within five shots. Hideki Matsuyama (four) at the limited-field Sentry and Thomas Detry (five) at the WM Phoenix Open. The average differential between the winner and field best in those 18 events: 11 shots.
OK, but surely the two fellas Scheffler tied for low 72-hole total at 253 turned the trick, right? Um, no. Justin Thomas, who shot 253 at the 2017 Sony Open in Hawaii (including a 59) lost to the field by nine shots. Ludvig Aberg, who posted 253 at the 2023 RSM Classic fared a little better, but came up four shots shy of matching the field, despite a pair of 61s and a 63.
Alright, so we’re not talking about things mere mortals do. Given that, let’s move on to Tiger.
Woods killed it at the 1997 Masters, setting the scoring record at 270, yet still came up three shots shy of matching the field. Then he had to have done it at the 2000 U.S. Open? No one wins by 15 shots and doesn’t match Scheffler’s feat? Except Woods didn’t, coming up one shot short. That didn’t leave us holding out much hope for the 2000 Open Championship, and our hunch proved correct. Tiger was four shots in arrears of the field best.
Which begs the question: Has anyone ever done what Scheffler accomplished this past week? We found one that matched him. At the 1973 Phoenix Open, Johnny Miller shot 260, won by 13 and matched the low total shot by the field. That was 52 years or some 2,200 tournaments ago.
As for anyone bettering it, we’ve reached out to the PGA Tour with the query and will come back when we get an answer but even their high-powered computers might need some time to figure this one out.
Scheffler simply has another gear. Which makes the number crunchers find another one of their own as well.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
