Seven victories on the PGA Tour, the gold medal at the Olympic Games, the first player in history to defend the title at The Players, his second Masters Tournament, the largest margin at the top of the world rankings since Tiger, 16 top tens in 19 tournaments on the American circuit… Nothing you don’t already know, but the numbers that Mr. Scottie Scheffler has accumulated in 2024 remain impressive.
All this has led the PGA Tour to produce a documentary about the historic year achieved by the Texas-born player. The player himself, his entourage, and numerous players have shared their impressions firsthand, including Tiger Woods.
Despite the final success, it should not be forgotten that Scottie’s season did not start as he would have wished. His game remained at a spectacular level, but in line with the previous months, four top tens and a top 20 that he couldn’t finish with a victory. In the documentary, he acknowledges that this situation was causing him a lot of frustration. All the media reminding him every day how well he plays and how much he’s struggling with putting.
There was something beyond his game that was starting to falter: “One of Scottie’s sometimes undervalued virtues is his competitiveness, which is actually one of his defining traits,” says Phil Kenyon, his putting coach. However, it’s a double-edged sword; Scottie began to find it difficult to see himself playing so well and not being able to finish: “Managing expectations was weighing on me. Everyone was telling me that at the level I was playing, I should win every tournament… and I wasn’t. I told myself I had to isolate from all that, keep working, and the results would come.” Kenyon himself acknowledges that the frustration with the putter was causing him to lose championships.
However, Scottie Scheffler is perfectly aware of the day everything changed. Or at least when things aligned. The Texan had been working with Kenyon since the middle of the previous year. “For the first time, I was working on the putter consistently; before, I tried many things, but none consistently, as soon as things went a bit wrong, I changed. Phil changed my mindset on that. I needed to be patient and consistent with the changes we implemented.”
The Arnold Palmer Invitational arrived, and the Number One appeared with his new putter. In the first round, nothing went as he expected the change to work… or at least in terms of results. That Thursday night, analyzing that round, Scottie was able for the first time to see the glass half full. The number of putts wasn’t as desired, but the reality was that he hadn’t putted that badly, he read the breaks correctly, and simply the ball didn’t drop. The internal reading was different. Frustration stepped aside and made room for optimism and a more relaxed perspective.
In the second round, everything changed: “I clicked, I felt much more comfortable, my feeling improved, and the way I saw the ball. In the first round, the putt was really warming up, but on Friday, I felt the pieces were coming together. My attitude also changed; I stopped reacting internally or even externally so harshly with myself. I had to stop beating myself up every time one didn’t go in. I needed to relieve some pressure.” He had finished at the bottom of the putting statistics in the first round and ended the tournament with his first victory of the year, being the best in that statistic in the fourth round. It’s clear that the change was in the putter, but above all in the mind. Relieving pressure and not giving so much importance to each stroke. The beast had been able to find the calm he needed. The rest of the story you already know.
The documentary also features Tiger. The Cypress native confesses while talking about Scottie Scheffler. Such extensive statements comparing his own game with that of the current Olympic champion had not been seen.
“In approach shots, I see certain similarities in how we approach those shots. We miss balls in the right place, maybe it’s not the most spectacular, but we both think beyond the here and now,” highlights Tiger, who also relates it to his way of planning the game strategy: “I think this is the big similarity between his way of playing and mine. We both approach shots and rounds as a very long game, which has 72 holes. It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon.”
Breaking down the game of the two-time winner in Augusta, he highlights: “What impresses me most is the control he has over the ball’s flight; the spin he gives it, the trajectory, and the preparation.” When asked about the swing, the fifteen-time major champion is amazed at the way he impacts the ball: “If you take away the footwork and sit behind him to watch how he hits the ball, it’s impressive how straight he hits it. He plays in very narrow flight windows,” Woods emphasizes.
Lastly, a comparison made by Randy Smith, Scheffler’s swing coach, is noteworthy: “He shoots at the flag as if he were playing basketball. He has a great sense of where the target is and knows the energy he needs to put in or take out. It reminds me of Michael Jordan shooting a basket while jumping backward, the hand to one side over the face, and you don’t quite know how, but the shot was precise and went in.” Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, the comparisons are starting to fall into the hands of the good Scottie Scheffler.
