{"id":1186607,"date":"2026-09-04T20:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T20:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1186607\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T20:00:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T20:00:31","slug":"rory-mcilroy-claimed-to-have-put-a-little-daylight-between-himself-and-scottie-scheffler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1186607\/","title":{"rendered":"Rory McIlroy claimed to have put ‘a little daylight’ between himself and Scottie Scheffler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/ Follow us on Google Discover <\/a> <\/p>\n

Scottie Scheffler was totally dominant on the PGA Tour throughout the 2026 season.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scheffler only won three times, which may seem like a fairly underwhelming tally compared to his 2024 and 2025 seasons, when he racked up a combined 13 victories.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Rory McIlroy has only one win to his name in 2026, but that victory did come at The Masters.<\/p>\n

Scottie Scheffler<\/a> is the best golfer in the world by a long way, with Rory McIlroy<\/a> in a distant second.<\/p>\n

\"RoryPhoto by Matthew Maxey\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images<\/p>\n

McIlroy greatly admires Scheffler<\/a>,\u00a0and the feeling is very much mutual.<\/p>\n

The American and the Northern Irishman are the two biggest stars on the PGA Tour<\/a>, and indeed in professional golf in general.<\/p>\n

However, Scheffler is still said to be chasing McIlroy in one particular department.<\/p>\n

Rory McIlroy puts \u2018a little daylight\u2019 between himself and Scottie Scheffler<\/p>\n

While making an appearance on the Indo Sport Podcast<\/a>, renowned golf writer Alan Shipnuck explained how McIlroy has done something that Scheffler has not yet been able to match.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I mean, he had a chance at three of them, but he didn\u2019t get it done,\u201c Shipnuck said.<\/p>\n

MORE SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER STORIES<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, you know, that\u2019s what makes the majors so tantalising and important. It\u2019s a small sample size, and you just gotta do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, it\u2019s an interesting thought exercise. Would Scottie trade his season for Rory\u2019s?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think he would. I think he values that week to week consistency, but if the roles were reversed, you know, Rory would take the Masters over everything else.<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent players assign a different value to the majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly Scheffler cares deeply, but his north star is playing his best in every round of every tournament, and he really accomplished that this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019m sure he would give himself an \u2018A\u2019 for the season, maybe not an \u2018A plus\u2019 because he didn\u2019t get it done at the majors, but you know, he\u2019s talked about the intensity that he brought to every round.<\/p>\n

\"ScottiePhoto by Ben Jared\/PGA TOUR via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so it\u2019s a little more ephemeral how Scottie judges his success and in some ways, this is his most impressive year, I think, because he could have just mailed it in.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, in July, after the Open Championship, he ran through the tape like a champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s a very impressive season, clearly, there\u2019s one gaping hole in the resume. Looking ahead to next year\u2019s major championships. The US Open at Pebble Beach, Open Championship at St. Andrews.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, it\u2019s one of those years that aligns for some magic. So we\u2019ll see if Scottie can alter that narrative a little bit in 2027.\u201c<\/p>\n

McIlroy is still the \u2018rabbit\u2019 that Scheffler the \u2018greyhound\u2019 is chasing<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, there\u2019s this sense of inevitability around Scheffler, you know, especially here late in the season,\u201c Shipnuck said.<\/p>\n

\u201cStatistically, he had one of the best seasons in the history of the PGA Tour, if you look at strokes gained, birdie percentage, and all the metrics.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, you know, he came into the playoffs with only one victory, and he knew that wasn\u2019t enough to really make it a standout season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was playing with a kind of vengeance at the end of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike, he wanted to sort of justify his entire existence, it felt like, because, you know, he got skunked at the majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, clearly, he\u2019s the best player in the world, but Rory\u2019s put a little daylight between himself and Scottie with the back-to-back Masters, something that Scheffler\u2019s never done.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, Rory has six majors to Scottie\u2019s four. Scheffler was creeping up very quickly on him.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think that we can all agree that Scottie\u2019s, you know, deservedly world number one, but in some ways, Rory\u2019s still that rabbit that the greyhound is chasing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Scheffler knew he had to make this a season that would not be deemed a disappointment. He had to win the FedEx Cup and he did it in high style.\u201c<\/p>\n

Join Our Newsletter<\/p>\n

Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Follow us on Google Discover Scottie Scheffler was totally dominant on the PGA Tour throughout the 2026 season.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1158380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4106],"tags":[2826,4298,4287,4288,79,16,15],"class_list":["post-1186607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-pga-tour","tag-rory-mcilroy","tag-scottie-scheffler","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117214553908030424","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1158380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}