The rise of Scottie Scheffler?
It looks like the putter has finally come to join the party; with such dominant ball-striking displays it was only a matter of time until he found a winning formula on the greens. We all see the equipment changes but not necessarily the hard work that goes on behind the scenes. Scottie brought in expert putting coach, Phil Kenyon into his team just before the Ryder Cup at Marco Simone in Rome
Understanding the Basics
The world number 1 golfer still has few little chinks in his armour but its how you respond to those downfalls that matters.What else is highlighted here? The Ryder Cup was in late September/early October 2023. Six months down the line the performance on the greens is now showing in his stats. It takes time to implement change, so when you go for a lesson or you are joining a game improvement programme, be realistic with those expectations in the early stages of change. Getting better is not meant to be easy, its a challenge and a very non-linear development.Keep turning up golfers and be consistent with your habits!
How does he do it with that swing?
This is a question I get asked a lot, it may not look like a silky-smooth Adam Scott version, but how it looks isn’t always a key ingredient! What can we learn from his move? Don’t be fooled by his aggressive footwork as it’s a key part of the recipe for the ball-striking machine. Scottie has a steeper plane of the arms in the backswing but his lateral movement with the lower body in the downswing is what helps create a very efficient impact position that has produced some of the best ball striking stats since an in prime Tiger Woods. He currently gains 2.8 shots per round on overall strokes gained to the rest of the field on the PGA Tour.He gains 2.8 shots from tee to green, 0.96 from the Tee and 1.2 in approach play which is demonstrating a very dominating ball striking display.& Tiger in 2000 was gaining 3.83 shots per round on the rest of the field which is crazy. Scottie finished the 2022-23 PGA Tour season with an adjusted scoring average of 68.63, the 7th-best of all time. Please note that Tiger Woods has spots 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on that list (1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2009). As of writing this Scottie has gone under par every round this year, that’s an incredible 29 rounds in a row…a Tour record!
His steely mentality
Don’t be fooled by his humble personality, if this guy gets a sniff of a trophy, he’s not letting anyone get in his way. He is a very calm and collected character and holds himself brilliantly on the course no matter how he’s playing. Halfway through the Players this year he nearly had to withdraw due to a neck injury where we witnessed some of his worst golf shots live on TV the next day. As much as his 8 under final round was eye-watering, staying in the tournament with his C game on the Saturday was the real winning score of the week. How good are you at getting a score on the board with your C game? To finish, let’s just remember Scottie needs to maintain this level for the next 11 years and grab another 15 majors to overtake the number of Tiger years at Number 1 in the rankings, but he’s on his way!
