Scottie Scheffler joins exclusive club with only Tiger Woods

This week marks a monumental occasion for Scottie Scheffler, the top-ranked player in the world.

Scottie Scheffler has topped the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) for 97 consecutive weeks now, a remarkable accomplishment that only Tiger Woods has reached in history.

Woods, of course, spent 623 total weeks as the No. 1 ranked player in the world during his career. But he had two stints where he sat on the throne for over 100 weeks. The first was from Aug. 15, 1999, to Sept. 4, 2004, and the second came between Jun. 12, 2005, and Oct. 30, 2010.

This particular week marks a special occasion for Scheffler, though. Now that he has sat atop the sport for 97 weeks, Scheffler passes Greg Norman in the record books. The 2-time major winner from Queensland stood atop the OWGR rankings for 96 consecutive weeks, doing so from Jun. 18, 1995, to Apr. 19, 1997 — one week after Woods won his first Green Jacket.

Funny enough, Woods did not surpass Norman. Tom Lehman did, as he held the top spot for a week in late April 1997. If not for Lehman, Norman would have passed the 100-week threshold with ease. The Shark occupied the World No. 1 ranking for seven more weeks after that. Norman then had a separate stint — his 11th overall — in which he was the best player in the world from Sept. 7, 1997, to Jan. 10, 1998. Woods’ dominance of the OWGR came shortly thereafter.

Scheffler’s current streak of being World No. 1 began after the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill. He tied for second on the East Course, finishing two strokes behind Brooks Koepka. Scheffler then recorded seven more top-six finishes during the 2023 season, cementing himself as the best player in the world going into 2024.

Then, Scheffler turned in a Tiger Woods-like season in 2024, winning on the PGA Tour seven times while adding a Gold Medal in Paris at the Olympics in July. He capped off his historic year by successfully defending his Hero World Challenge title in the Bahamas and entered 2025 as the undisputed World No. 1.

Although he has yet to win in 2025, Scheffler continues to sit atop the OWGR rankings with plenty of wiggle room. He leads Rory McIlroy by roughly 100 points, and for McIlroy to de-throne him, the Northern Irishman would likely have to win The Masters and a Signature Event soon after. That’s possible, especially with how McIlroy has played over the past two months. Heck, Scheffler did exactly that a year ago.

Wins at Pebble Beach and The Players have helped McIlroy leapfrog Xander Schauffele for the second spot in the rankings, and the four-time major winner looks as primed as ever heading into Augusta National next month.

Regardless of what plays out, Scheffler has made history, doing something that only Woods has done before. And whenever your name is on an exclusive list with Woods, you know you have done something remarkable.

Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.