ROME — After another dismal putting performance at the Tour Championship in August, Scottie Scheffler had enough.
So, he sought help, first sending a text the night after the tournament and then calling one of golf’s leading putting coaches, Englishman Phil Kenyon, the next day. A few days later they began working in Dallas on his putting woes.
“Basically he just told me I sucked, he couldn’t believe I’d ever won a tournament with how I putted. That’s what you want to hear, right?” Scheffler joked of their initial meeting. “No, on a serious note, I had a feeling what I was doing wrong. It was something that — my suspicions were kind of answered. It was just I was trying to fix it in the complete wrong way. To get into the details of it would take a little bit of time, but it’s really very simple.”
We’re in no rush, Scottie. Please continue: “The way I moved the putter through the ball, I was kind of fighting the toe rising on the putter as I went through, and so sometimes I’d miss contact a little bit in the heel,” he explained. “In order for me to try to keep my putter head low, the way I would do it is I feel everything in my hands, and what I would do is I would lower my hands. But when I lowered my hands, it actually caused the toe of the putter to go higher and higher. So as the year went on, my hands are getting lower and lower, and the problem is getting worse and worse. It was something I couldn’t figure out, and it was preventing me from hitting as many putts on line as I should have. Like I said this year, I really did hit a lot of good putts. Now I feel like I’m much more consistent hitting my start line, especially my practice.”
Scheffler won the WM Phoenix Open in February and the Players Championship in March and had an incredible run of consistency during the season, good enough to hold the FedEx Cup lead going into the Tour Championship for the second straight year. The only thing holding him back was a balky putter. He ranked 151st in Strokes Gained: Putting. Scheffler has never worked with anyone other than longtime coach Randy Smith on any facet of the game.
“I called Randy. I said, ‘Hey, thinking about calling this guy named Phil.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I know him, I think it’s a good idea, let’s do it,” Scheffler recounted.
Scheffler said he already feels more comfortable over the ball despite making only minor tweaks.
“Like even something as simple as lining up the ball, sometimes I would do it and sometimes I wouldn’t, and I wasn’t using the line in the right way. Phil kind of gave me a different perspective on using the line that’s been really helpful,” he said. “It’s just little things like that. I haven’t felt like I’ve made a huge change. I just kind of got my mind right. I feel like we made little changes to where I’m more comfortable over the ball and now I don’t have to think about my stroke. That’s pretty much all it is.”
Could Scheffler’s work with a coach who is a native from England impact who wins the 44th Ryder Cup?
“When he came to Dallas, I was joking with him,” Scheffler said. “I told him his stuff is going to work so well he’s not going to be welcome back at his home club when he gets home after the Ryder Cup.”
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