“I didn’t want to give up in the tournament,” said a competitive Scottie Scheffler after winning the PLAYERS Championship, and that too in a spectacular fashion. Interestingly, the victory that he achieved after fighting foot and nail for the same drew a surprising parallel between himself and the legend of the game, Tiger Woods.
Well, Scheffler had been suffering from pain in his neck from the second round onwards, which he managed to overcome to emerge triumphant. Meanwhile, Texas Men’s Golf head coach John Fields couldn’t help but compare his former pupil to the 15-time major champ who once won a major on one leg!
The Tiger Woods-Scottie Scheffler parallel
In an interview with Colt & Drew on Gravy and The Sleeze, the head coach went ahead to retell an instance of the current world No. 1’s triumph amidst injuries during his senior year. Recounting the same, Fields divulged how the athlete dealt with the same neck injury in a practice round at the NCAA Championship at Carston Creek. “It took a couple of days but he finished third in the NCAA Championship,” he divulged before adding, “I’ve just seen him overcome difficulties like that throughout his career, and its, its Tiger-esque,” all the while comparing him with Woods.
Doubling down on his parallel, he said, “We got to see Tiger matriculate up through college, and it seemed like he had always something going on… And yet, he’d still win golf tournaments,” while alluding to his health concerns. “He[Woods] did that in the U.S. Open in San Diego at Torrey Pines when he had that broken, whatever it was, I can’t remember what it was,” added Fields as he continued, “And he was hurt, and this was very similar,” while pointing out how alike Scheffler and Woods were.
During the recent tournament, the golfer experienced discomfort with his neck after the 11th hole on Friday. Fortunately, he was able to receive a massage on the 14th tee while Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas were hitting their shots. Despite such a setback, he went ahead to propel himself to the top on the final day with a score of 20 under 268, all the while raking in a cut of $4.5 million.
Meanwhile, one can’t help but think back to the parallel that the 27-year-old’s ex-coach drew upon. The major he had tried to recall was the 2008 U.S. Open, which saw the legend of the game emerge victorious despite sporting many injuries.
The 2008 U.S. Open: a story of Woods’s determination
Back in 2008, Mr. T won his 14th major, in which he beat Rocco Mediate in the sudden death playoffs. But, there’s a catch to the whole story, he did so while suffering from various injuries, including two stress fractures and a battered ACL. After four days of play, he managed to tie first with his opponent while carding a score of 1-under 283.
The play, however, resumed on Monday with an 18-hole playoff where both athletes scored even par, leading them to face each other in the sudden-death playoffs. Woods managed to emerge victorious by dishing out a par score at the 7th hole, while Mediate missed the same.
Anyhow, regardless of the length, the 2008 U.S. Open went down as one of the greatest matches ever played in the sport’s history. And fascinatingly, John Fields saw an image of that exact ‘Tiger Woods’ in his former pupil, Scottie Scheffler.
