Scottie Scheffler returned to the course for the first time since the Ryder Cup refreshed and ready to put his recent work with putting coach Phil Kenyon to the test at the Hero World Challenge. During his pre-tournament press conference on Wednesday, the 2022 Masters champion was asked for an update on his time spent with Kenyon, which began in earnest at the Ryder Cup.
Not much has changed since the two started working together. Scheffler confirmed “the stuff that we put in place when I saw him before the Ryder Cup is the same stuff we’re working on now.” He even revealed a lot of the work they’ve been doing during the downtime has been done over video.
“Putting’s one of those things, I think what Phil has helped me the most with is just getting a clear mind,” Scheffler said. “Right now I feel like my mechanics are in a good place to where I can use my athletic ability instead of using it more as a crutch, kind of overusing my athletic ability.”
When the mind is free, Scheffler said, he’s able to remove his hands more from the stroke, something he struggled with at times last year.
“That’s something I also battled with my swing when I was in college,” he continued. “I found myself in certain mechanical positions in my swing that I was having to use my hands so much that they became more of a hindrance, if that makes sense. My putting was something where I got out of position in my backstroke and I was having to use my hands too much. That’s where I got a little bit of the heel strike that I fought a little bit this year and some pulled putts. So now I feel like Phil has helped me get into place where my mechanics are good enough where I can kind of turn off and use my athletic ability to kind of help.”
Scheffler kept the conversation to only putter mechanics, but there’s another piece of the puzzle that changed as well during their time together — and that’s the putter. You’ll find little in the way of putter tinkering for Scheffler prior to 2022 when he switched from a Scotty Cameron Tour Rat 1 blade to a Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS Prototype ahead of his 2022 Masters victory.
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But when things started to go off the rails on the greens after he slipped on the green jacket, Scheffler started searching for answers. He eventually sought putting advice from Steve Stricker, briefly tried out a Scotty Cameron T5.5 mallet at the CJ Cup, went to a Newport 2 with a flatter lie angle, and wielded a wide-body Newport 2 Plus at the U.S. Open. Nothing seemed to stick for long.
There was also a TaylorMade Spider X during this year’s FedEx Cup playoffs, and a new Scotty Cameron Super Rat 1 during the Ryder Cup. Changes have been plentiful, but again, nothing has stuck.
Scheffler’s hoping a relative unknown can do the trick as he makes his final start of the year.
The latest wand isn’t from Cameron or TaylorMade, but a bespoke putter brand out of Fortuna, California, called “Olson.” While Scheffler hasn’t commented on the Olson prototype putter, GOLF.com connected with Olson founder Logan Olson, who confirmed things started getting serious when Scheffler noticed some of the putters he’d recently made.
“Scottie had seen some of my creations and his team reached out asking if we could meet and I could make some putters for him to try out,” he said. “We’ve been working on options and tweaks since meeting and I am delighted to see him playing one of them this week at the Hero.”
Scheffler did head-to-head testing at home that revealed the Anser-style Olson blade was noticeably better. The results from the session then led Scheffler to make some additional tweaks and green-light the putter for this week.
In addition to Olson, smaller putter brands have been making inroads on the PGA Tour in recent years. Justin Rose has continued to dominate the majors with an Axis1 Rose putter he helped design, and L.A.B. Golf has seen their usage skyrocket since Lucas Glover and Adam Scott started using Mezz putters.
With no cut to worry about this week, Scheffler has the opportunity to give his new Olson prototype a proper test drive and see how it performs.
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