How a benching helped get Scottie Scheffler’s putter on track | Wall-to-Wall

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Even the most loyal golf clubs have been known to misbehave on occasion. For much of the season, Scottie Scheffler’s Scotty Cameron Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS Tour Prototype was the picture of perfection — an early-season addition that produced instant results in Phoenix and a green jacket in Augusta.

By the time the 2022-23 PGA Tour season had come to a close, Scheffler was No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking with four wins. While things looked to be clicking for Scheffler and his putter, putts that normally found the bottom of the cup were no longer dropping.

With the meat of the Tour season in the rearview, Scheffler chose to shake things up on the greens, benching his Masters-winning blade for Scotty Cameron T5.5 mallet at the CJ Cup.

“I think when I see so many putts go up to the cup and not go in, it was like, well, maybe I’ll just make a change and see what happens,” he said. “This is usually the time of year when I’ll usually experiment with stuff.”

A T45 finish in South Carolina wasn’t enough to deter Scheffler from immediately going back to his blade putter, but a 71 on Friday at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba turned out to be it for the mallet. In search of a spark, Scheffler called the Special Select Timeless off the bench and watched as it helped him shoot 68-62 over the weekend at El Camaleon Golf Course.

Scheffler looked like his old self on the greens as he recorded just 25 putts (1.438 per green in regulation) during the final round — a promising sign as he prepares to wind down the year and look ahead to 2023.

“It never goes too far away,” Scheffler said of the Newport 2-style blade. “It’s probably something I’ll continue to fiddle around with, but I went back to something I’m really comfortable with and I putted well the last two days.”

Lucky for Scheffler, the brief benching looks to have made the putter decision a simple one as he prepares to play the Houston Open.

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