NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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It’s been no secret that the only thing keeping world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler from running away from everybody else in the world and taking his Pro V1 with him has been his putter. He’s been so good with every other element of his game in stacking up top-12 finishes as if they were participation trophies, that the one part of his game that kept him from winning for a full year was putting.
From March 12, 2023 at the Players Championship to March 10, 2024 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Scheffler went a full 365 days (it’s a leap year) between lifting official PGA Tour trophies. He did win the 20-man Hero World Challenge in December, but who’s really counting that other than the OWGR and agents. Sunday, he went back-to-back, becoming the first player in 50 years to successfully defend as Players champion.
Scheffler ranked 162nd in strokes gained putting last season and arrived at Bay Hill ranked 144th in the same category in the first two months of 2024. Not exactly the improvement he was hoping to make when he started working with putting guru Phil Kenyon last fall.
Rory McIlroy might regret opening his mouth in a CBS interview at the Genesis Invitational when he suggested that Scheffler switch from his traditional blade to a mallet putter. “I've certainly been through my fair share of putting woes over the years, and I finally feel like I’ve broken through and become a pretty consistent putter,” McIlroy said on the air at Riviera. “For me, going to a mallet was a big change … so I’d love to see Scottie try a mallet.”
That might rank up there with the putting lesson Steve Stricker gave Tiger Woods on Sunday morning at the 2013 WGC Cadillac Championship at Doral. Woods employed Strick’s tips and went out and beat Stricker that afternoon, costing him $620,000 with a runner-up check.
Scheffler showed up at Bay Hill with a TaylorMade Spider Tour X putter in his bag, a mallet that’s a half-inch longer than his previous Logan Olson prototype with which he won in the Bahamas or the various Scotty Cameron blades he has employed. His Spider Tour X features an L-Neck hosel, a True Path alignment aid, 3 degrees of loft and a 72-degree lie angle.
“I like not having to line the ball up,” he said of the full-line sight line across the top. “I line this putter up well in the middle of the face. It’s very good visually.”
According to TaylorMade, Scheffler spent time testing the club at home before putting it in play two weeks ago. He tried out a Spider Tour X SS mallet for two weeks during last year’s FedEx Cup playoffs.
“I did hear that [Rory] said that, and it was just kind of funny timing,” Scheffler insists of the switch.
After a few shaky moments on the greens early in Bay Hill week, Scheffler and his new putter dialed in on Sunday as he pulled away to a five-shot victory at Arnie’s place. For the week he ranked fifth in strokes gained putting, a lethal additive to his usual excellence in every other strokes gained category.
“I got off to a horrible start with the putter,” Scheffler said of his week. “I hit a really bad putt to start [Thursday], and I missed a couple other makeable ones on the first few holes. When I got to the practice range after, the discussion was not ‘What are we going to fix?’ It was how well that I did. And that all goes back to the process that we’re working on, and it’s not results-based.
“It’s frustrating to not have the best of myself, just because I know that I can putt really well. It’s not like I’ve been a bad putter my whole career. I’ve just gone through a stretch where it’s been tough. I think this week I did a really good job of not letting the misses get to me.”
The putter held up well again at TPC Sawgrass, as he ranked a respectable 37th in SG putting, which was good enough when every other strokes gained category was top seven.
Meanwhile, Golf.com reported that Titleist released a special tour-only TSR “mini driver” for competitors at the Players. Designated a “2W” on the hosel, the club “isn’t a driver – and it’s too big to be a fairway wood.”
The “2-wood” – at 13 degrees, with a deeper face than the TSR2+ fairway wood – is designed for greater variability and extra spin than a 460cc driver, with a larger profile than a 3-wood to offer a secondary club off the tee at places such as TPC Sawgrass, where hitting the fairway is a premium.
Titleist tour rep JJ Van Wezenbeeck told Golf.com that Cameron Young initiated the development of the club in looking for something to handle specific course setups. At the Stadium Course, holes such as Nos. 1, 2 and 18 would set up nicely for the “mini driver.”
“This truly might just be a prototype that goes nowhere,” Van Wezenbeeck said. “It was a thought experiment with R&D. We’d had some inquiries from players looking for something as a primary tee club that was less than driver.”
Scott Michaux