Dueling virtuosos: Scottie and Nelly

World No. 1s Scheffler and Korda are on unstoppable rolls worth watching

Scottie Scheffler has a lot to smile about (Andrew Redington/Getty Images)

Please pick up the remote and turn the golf back on.

If you’re a golf fan and you’re not watching because you’re mad or disillusioned or frustrated or bored with the current narrative in the professional game, well, you’re missing out on some pretty epic stuff. What Scottie Scheffler is doing on the PGA Tour is special. What Nelly Korda is doing on the LPGA Tour is historic.

Two American world No. 1s are completely dialed in and separating themselves from their peers in ways that simply aren’t normal.

“We’re watching greatness right now,” said CBS host Jim Nantz on Sunday’s RBC Heritage broadcast from Harbour Town Golf Links. “It doesn’t happen all the time, but it sure is fun when you find yourself witnessing something like this.”

“You think about the world No. 1s right now in women’s and men’s golf, it’s not just that they’re better than everybody else to get to No. 1, they’re dominating,” said Terry Gannon on NBC’s broadcast of the Chevron Championship. Look at what they’ve done in their last four starts … and guess what, they’re both up by three today.”

“It’s really remarkable what both of them are poised to accomplish,” said analyst Morgan Pressel. “You don’t see that streak – I mean this is the third player in the history of the LPGA to potentially win five in a row – and to be doing it at the same time as the No. 1 in the men’s professional game is remarkable.”

“And with all eyes on them and the pressure every single week,” Gannon added.

All eyes really should be on them. The only bigger shame than fans tuning out was the one’s tuning in being forced to keep flipping between CBS and NBC to see it all unfolding simultaneously Sunday afternoon. (Mother Nature intervened and suspended play in Hilton Head Island on the back side to let Korda and the LPGA have center stage for the finish.)

NellyKorda and Scottie Scheffler were 2023 TaylorMade Christmas card elves. (TaylorMade Golf)

“I actually was checking the scores this afternoon when we were in the rain delay, and she finished I think T16 in her first event this year, and the other five she’s won,” Scheffler said of Korda. “I don’t know if I can quite relate to that. That’s some pretty serious golf. I’m extremely happy for her and proud of her. That’s some pretty special stuff. It’s been a treat to watch.”

Scheffler can relate a bit. What he’s doing right now is every bit as good as what Tiger Woods was doing at his absolute peak in 2000-01 when he won four consecutive majors and the Players Championship in a stretch dubbed the Tiger Slam. Each of them in their own ways settled into a zone of profound confidence, executing extraordinary shots with a consistency nobody else could match.

It’s not unreasonable to to believe Scottie will be in the mix at every major this summer chasing his own grand slam.

The only thing that Woods had on Scheffler was the showmanship. Woods was all fist pumps and howls and attitude when he trampled his peers. He wore red-and-black every Sunday like it was his Marvel uniform that conveyed superpowers to his challengers. He exerted his will on the course and his outsized stardom drew all the oxygen. His confidence and skill was such that he always seemed able to reach a little deeper at certain moments to pull off dramatic shots that left tongues wagging and rivals dragging. The entire production and execution was a master class in how to create something larger than life, and Tiger delivered time after time for years.

Scheffler isn’t any of that yet – other than the Nike swoosh on his cap. He doesn’t convey any kind of menace at all in his assorted pastel polos – the epitome of nice. He wore peach on Sunday when he won the Masters, a white shirt over sage trousers at the Players, lavender at Bay Hill. Sunday’s pale blue-on-azure ensemble would pair as well as anything can with a red tartan. He doesn’t stalk from green to tee with his eyes trained dead ahead, tuning out all the people and the noise around him with his singular focus on finishing the kill. He smiles and waves. He even talks to the guys trying to beat him.

So Scheffler doesn’t possess Woods’ flair for the dramatic. Who does? On top of his game, Tiger always played to the cameras. Scottie just plays his best week after week after week.

And Scottie’s best is magnificent even without all the stylistic flourishes. He is a ball-striking machine, his consistency like the robotic Iron Byron even as his feet slide under him like Gene Kelly on a dance floor. He doesn’t make the big mistakes, playing every round the way Tiger always played Sundays when he’d already firmly established his leads and let the guys trying to beat him beat themselves instead.

Korda sings a similar tune with her game.

“I think there’s a key in the simplicity that I have when I play,” Korda said Sunday.

It’s all still brilliant stuff and the shot quality is exceptional. Instead of roaring and punching the air when he makes an absurd pitch-in for eagle on the second hole to turn a dicey one-shot lead into three at Hilton Head, Scheffler shrugs and says “pretty good” to caddie Ted Scott.

We knew he was going to win … eventually. Scheffler knew he was going to win. Everybody knew he was going to win except maybe Wyndham Clark for about 11 holes. Playing the roll of Ernie Els so often back at Tiger’s peak, Clark is the closest thing Scheffler has to a rival. He managed to beat Scheffler once this year at Pebble Beach, needing a course-record 60 and a Sunday washout to prevent Scottie from having a chance to rally from four back. At Bay Hill and Sawgrass, Clark finished second to the man.

Clark was 8-under through 11 holes Sunday to draw within one of Scheffler before a carom off a tree OB derailed the one guy in the field had of unseating the current king before he heads off to paternity leave.

Scottie Scheffler won Tiger’s tournament in December (Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)

Those who scoff at comparing Scheffler to Woods don’t really have a good reason to deny the similarities. It took Scheffler a little longer to break through, but once he did he’s been indisputably the most consistently excellent golfer in the world. Jon Rahm had his turn at the top while Scottie went through some putter adjustments, but Scheffler’s consistency never waned even when the putts weren’t dropping

Since his maiden win at the 2022 WM Phoenix Open, Scheffler needed just six weeks to ascend to No. 1 after adding wins at Bay Hill and the WGC Match Play. He then secured his first major title at the Masters two weeks later. The RBC Heritage was Scheffler’s 51st career start since that Phoenix breakout and in that span he has 10 victories (19.6 percent rate), 23 top-three finishes (45.1 percent) and 35 top-10s (68.6 percent).

Scheffler leads the PGA Tour in 30 statistical categories – a figure we can’t perfectly compare to Woods in 2000 before ShotLink and all the strokes gained data was available to analyze. But the eye test and Tiger’s leads in everything like total driving, greens in regulation, scoring average, birdie-or-better conversion, bounceback, et all were off-the-charts dominant like Scheffler is now.

Scheffler has shot even par or better (mostly better) in 40 consecutive rounds dating back to the 1-over 73 he shot in the third round of last August’s Tour Championship. All 39 rounds this year so far, only three of which have been as pedestrian as level par.

That current streak leaves Scheffler 12 shy of Tiger’s PGA Tour record mark of 52 rounds par or better achieved during his pinnacle 2000-01 season. Woods’ run ran from a 73 in first round of the 2000 Byron Nelson on May 11 to the second round of the Phoenix Open on Jan. 26, 2001. During that span he won six times including three majors (2000 U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship) as well as the Memorial, WGC at Firestone and Canadian Open.

For what it was worth, Woods grossed $4.61 million for the six victories. Scheffler hauled in $16.1 million for his four wins so far this year.

If that haul offends anyone – why? Every cent of that was performance-based, none of it a guaranteed salary for signing a contract like LIV golfers or professional athletes in other sports. Maybe that’s the problem with golf – pay gets listed every single week as opposed to the one time when superstars like Shohei Ohtani, Patrick Mahomes or Lebron James sign a long-term contract.

The frustration of golf fans with what is happening at the highest level of the men’s game is understandable. The schism between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf – warring factions who have proven worse at brokering peace than they are at governing themselves – has created an unrelenting narrative of obnoxious greed. Many elite players have made it very clear that the primary thing that matters to them is money – not legacy and certainly not the fans whose interest presumably makes them valuable commodities in the first place. Money is literally tearing the game apart.

If that’s the motivation for tuning out on PGA Tour broadcasts (very few have ever bothered tuning into LIV on the CW in the first place), what is stopping golf fans from flipping over to the LPGA where Nelly Korda is on her own historic heater? It can’t be about the money, since Korda’s cumulative winnings in her 5-0 streak is $2.4 million – a little more than runner-up takes home at a PGA Tour signature event.

Nelly Korda celebrated with her coach Jamie Mulligan (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

On Sunday, Korda chased down her fifth consecutive victory in the LPGA’s first major of the season at the Chevron Championship. She started the final round one behind and by the fourth hole was three ahead and in command. Korda made the turn and chipped in like Scheffler for her fourth birdie of the day to push her lead to four. When the stakes seemed to be getting to her a little on the back, everyone near her couldn’t step up the pressure.

“I can finally breathe now,” Korda said. “That back nine felt like the longest back nine of my entire life.

“I was definitely starting to feel it on the back nine. Just the nerves setting. It’s a major, I mean, it’s everything that I’ve always wanted as a little girl to lift that major trophy. And as I said I can finally breathe now and just enjoy the moment. Because I was definitely really nervous. I feel sick to my stomach.”

Korda joins LPGA Hall of Famers and legends Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as the only women to win five consecutive tournaments on the LPGA Tour.

Lopez took women’s professional golf by storm as a rookie in 1978, winning nine times including that streak of five that included the LPGA Championship. She was such a phenom, Sports Illustrated featured her on its July 10 cover with an accompanying Frank Deford story declaring her that “she’s no longer a golfer, she’s an event.”

Sörenstam was already a hall-of-fame force in 2005 when she won 10 times – her five-win streak including a pair of majors at the Kraft Nabisco and McDonald’s LPGA championships. Oddly, Sörenstam never made it onto the cover of SI. – a media oversight that’s something Korda can surely relate to.

This is riveting, historic stuff. Absolutely worth watching to see just how far Scheffler and Korda can go.

“It’s been an incredible run, and I want to keep it going,” she said.

It’s worth watching.