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Much has been made of Scottie Scheffler’s putting. To put it simply, it has undoubtedly cost him some tournaments over the past year, when he’s been the most consistent player in the world by far. Scheffler retained the No. 1 ranking through the end of last year and now despite going a year between victories.
The subject has become uncomfortable at times as Scheffler both anecdotally and statistically was missing too many putts. He experimented with technique. He tested different putters, including the model he went to prior to winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
The TaylorMade Spider putter is a mallet and it was interesting to hear Scheffler explain why it helped him.
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“At times last year I struggled lining the ball up in the middle of the face, so I lined the ball up on the toe sometimes, and I struggled with a tiny bit of a heel strike, and that ... just became kind of my miss. Like if I was fighting a duck hook off the tee, I was fighting a little bit of a heel miss with the putter.
“This Spider putter is really easy for me to line up. I don't have to use the line on the ball. I line the putter up really well, and I line up in the middle of the face, and pretty much as simple as that. Kind of gives me just a really good visual.”
And ...
“It's good for me visually, and I like the way kind of the ball comes off the face, and so it's helping me just be more kind of outward with my putting than focusing on what’s going on right here, just focusing on the picture of the putt,” he said.
Scheffler went on to explain that he took off the line he had on his golf ball because it bothered him if he felt it wasn’t rolling correctly when watching.
“At times last year I think I definitely tried too hard on my putting, and the idea of not going to the line is to become more free over the ball,” he said. “I've found a putter now where when I line up very well, and the line on the ball I was using to help myself line up. I wasn't using it as trying to hit it perfect each time or using it in anything else other than to try and help myself line up.
“At times I think it got to the point where a ball would go in, but if that ball didn't roll end over end, at the back of your head, you're like, wait, did I hit that putt really good? I think sometimes I expected perfection out of myself, and I'm like that in a lot of different things, so when it comes to the putting, now not using the line just to be more free to not try as hard, which is a heck of a lot easier said than done. . . It’s about sticking to my process and controlling what I can control, and that’s having a good attitude and hitting a good putt, and not using the line has helped a lot in that.”
Scheffler was not as solid on the greens at TPC Sawgrass as he was in winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but he still had a strong putting week at the Players Championship, doing plenty good enough given how well he, again, hit the ball off the tee and into the greens. And he needed just 51 putts on the weekend, 26 on Saturday and 25 Sunday.
