Scheffler's Year Compared To Tiger's Best, Jay Monahan's Kamala Harris Approach, And Aberg Heads For Surgery
Scottie Scheffler was spotted a two-shot lead to begin the Tour Championship and ultimately won by four. Who could have possibly seen that one coming?
In all seriousness, Scheffler getting the job done in Atlanta was the only way the FedEx Cup Playoffs could have ended this season. He has been the best player on planet Earth this year, delivered in the season's final event, and won the season-long race en route to a ginormous paycheck while undoubtedly securing Player of the Year honors. We now need to play the game of comparing Scheffler's historic season to some of Tiger Woods' best.
Jay Monahan was actually spotted in the flesh at the Tour Championship to pass along the FedEx Cup trophy to Scheffler, and may or may not have invited 2,000 of his closest friends to the trophy ceremony as he somehow avoided boos from the crowd.
We also learned that Ludvig Aberg will be having knee surgery in the coming days. It was the worst-kept secret in the game that he's been dealing with knee issues essentially all season, but it's nice to learn that he is in fact human and not a robot built to swing a golf club.
Time for a Labor Day edition of Par Talk.
Scottie Scheffler's All-Time Season vs. Tiger Woods' Best
Scottie Scheffler's 2024 campaign - along with the statistics behind it - is the only one we've seen come remotely close to one of the many dominant seasons we witnessed Tiger Woods put together when he was dominating the game. So, let's do some comparing.
If you include the Olympics, which we are in this case, Scheffler made 20 starts in 2024, and accomplished the following: Eight wins including the Masters, The Players, and an Olympic gold medal, two runner-up finishes, 16 total Top 10s, zero missed cuts, and $29.2 million earned plus another $25 million for winning the FedEx Cup.
For those curious, Scheffler averaged right around $677,500 per round played this season, and we're basing that number off of earnings without the millions more in other bonuses that will hit his bank account later in the year.
Now it's Tiger's turn, and for his single best season on Tour, we have to go back to 2000, when he also made 20 starts and pulled off the following: Nine wins including three major championships, four runner-up finishes, 17 total Top 10s, not a single missed cut, and $9.1 million earned, which is practically irrelevant given the influx of cash put into the game over the last two decades and counting.
The greatest outlier here is the major championships. Woods winning three of the four majors in 2000 - he finished fifth at the Masters that year - automatically puts his campaign well above Scheffler's 2024. One major victory compared to three isn't even worth beginning an argument, as two more major wins put a significant gap between the two seasons.
If Scheffler would have coupled his green jacket, gold medal, and The Players with one more major in 2024 then we could at least start a conversation about the two years being *somewhat* similar, but the reality is that they aren't, at all.
I'm absolutely on the team that believes that the competition Scheffler is facing week in and week out is stronger than what Woods saw during his heyday, but that doesn't make up for three major championship wins in a season compared to just a single one.
Ludvig Aberg Managed Quite A Year On One Knee
Ludvig Aberg, the No. 5 player in the world, did his best to downplay the severity of his knee injury throughout the year, but after wrapping up the Tour Championship was finally able to share what we already assumed, which is that he needed surgery.
Aberg is set to have arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee this week. While it's somewhat concerning whenever a player not even in the ‘prime years’ of his career has to go under the knife, the 24-year-old is still expected to play a limited schedule during the fall swing which is an indication things with his knee aren't too alarming.
Ludvig Aberg will have knee surgery, but plans to return to golf sooner rather than later. Credit: John David Mercer-USA TODAY Sports
Aberg withdrew from the Wells Fargo Championship back in May citing soreness in his left knee before teeing it up in the PGA Championship the following week with a knee brace. Each time he was asked about the injury, he'd come up with some version of ‘it’s not bothering me.'
During the following month's U.S. Open, it was reported that Aberg had torn his meniscus, and while he battled through the injury to make 20 starts on the year, it's now clear surgery was inevitable.
"I’m probably going to kick my feet up quite a bit, make sure that I’ve got some time to recover, got some time to work on a few things, and I’ll definitely go play the DP World Tour in Abu Dhabi, Dubai," Aberg said ahead of the Tour Championship.
If those plans hold true, Aberg would be returning to the links the second week of November.
Aberg did not earn a win on the PGA Tour in 2024, but managed three runner-up finishes and five more Top 10s.
Jay Monahan Is Taking The Kamala Harris Approach Because He Can
Bigfoot has been seen by the public more in 2024 than Jay Monahan, but the commissioner was on site to bear hug Scheffler as he walked off the 18th green at East Lake and give a brief, somewhat awkward speech about the newest FedEx Cup winner. Well, actually, he filibustered for three minutes, thanked every sponsor under the sun, and then eventually got to Scheffler's accomplishments.
On the one hand, I get it, Monahan has to check boxes and make sure sponsors remain happy despite the product on television only getting worse. But, on the other hand, Monahan receiving the Gary Bettman treatment and being booed, at least for a few seconds, wouldn't have caused anyone to bat an eye.
Jay Monahan is taking the Kamala Harris approach in hiding, because he can. (Photo by Michael Wade/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Apart from magically finding more money to pay players in signature events, Monahan has done nothing public-facing to better the PGA Tour since he sat on MSNBC and announced a framework agreement with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) in June 2023.
Those discussions of a merger with the Saudis are still ongoing and professional golf is still a divided game. The division in the sport isn't Monahan's fault, although some think he's played a role, but that responsibility falls solely on the Saudis creating LIV Golf and signing players with their endless amount of money to play with.
Despite that being the reality, Monahan deserves to have plenty of other fingers pointed in his direction for the lack of, well, anything that has happened over the last 15 months and counting.
Monahan has taken what we can now call the Kamala Harris approach with all the uncertainty surrounding professional golf. Harris isn't holding press conferences or answering unscripted questions because she doesn't have to, and the team around her does possess enough brain cells to know an impromptu interview has a better chance of being a disaster than a win.
The same is true for Monahan, even when we're talking about a non-big-four sport, the media and myself included would have the ability to spin any word vomit he would share about the future of the game.
Damage has already been done to Monahan and his reputation, but why damage it any further by talking about something that you very clearly don't have the answers for anyway?