Scottie Scheffler says Nick Faldo criticized him. So he gave a demonstration

Jon Rahm believes he could try, but he knows the outcome. Should the two-time major winner give another two-time major winner’s footwork a go:

— “I don’t think I would be a very efficient golfer if I did that, ” he said; and 

— “I don’t think I’d be a pro whatsoever,” he said; and 

— “Could I hit it? Possibly, but it wouldn’t be pretty,” he said.

So no, Rahm won’t be incorporating the move of Scottie Scheffler any time soon, because, yes, its footwork is, in a word, funky. A Scheffler slide, if you will. It’s his, though, creating enviable results:

— He’s world No. 1; and 

— He won the Masters this year for his second green jacket; and 

— He’s won nearly every other tourney he’s played in this year.

But folks are curious. 

What if his right foot didn’t kick back? What if his left foot didn’t twist? What if it looked ‘normal?’ Surely, the swing was unsustainable. Seemingly, Scheffler revealed Tuesday in his pre-Open Championship press conference, these thoughts had been swimming inside the head of Nick Faldo, himself a six-time major winner and a former TV analyst. 

“He was one of the guys that was, I think, pretty critical of it,” Scheffler said at Royal Troon. 

So a few years back, Scheffler said, Faldo approached him on the range at the Masters. He asked him about the methodology behind his footwork. The why.

And?

“And I was like, I don’t really know,” Scheffler said. “Let me hit one normal and see how it goes.”

And?

“So I hit one with traditional footwork,” he said, “and I turned around, and I was like, it just feels like I’m locked into the ground. I don’t really feel like I can hit my shots. 

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“Then I just kept moving my feet like I normally do.”

And that was that. 

Here, a reporter wondered whether letting Scheffler be Scheffler was a mark of a good coach. Scheffler agreed. He then opened up on the relationship he’s had with Randy Smith, a GOLF Top 100 Lifetime Achievement Teacher.

“Yeah. I mean, Randy, he’s taught me since I was 7,” Scheffler said. “We have definitely made changes to my swing, but that was something that he never changed. I think the words he would use is that was kind of just the DNA of my swing, and he doesn’t want to change what I did to try to work the ball.

“I think that was one of the things he liked about me when I was a kid was there was always a pole out on the driving range, and I would try to hit it with a straight shot and I’d try to hit it with a draw. I loved being able to try to curve the ball.

“Part of it is when I was a kid, I used to play in the house with a ping-pong ball. A ping-pong ball is super spinny. I would learn to curve it from room to room and spin it a lot. That was what was fun for me about the game.

“As time went on, I didn’t want to turn into a robot. I wanted to do what I thought was fun, and that was seeing and creating and trying to hit shots. I get bored sitting on the driving range trying to hit every shot straight. Sitting there learning how to curve it, learning how to hit shots, that’s more fun for me than it is just sitting there and working on club position.”

Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his role, he is responsible for editing, writing and developing stories across the golf space. And when he’s not writing about ways to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native is probably playing the game, hitting the ball left, right and short, and drinking a cold beer to wash away his score. You can reach out to him about any of these topics — his stories, his game or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.

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