One of the questions golf fans would ask about Scottie Scheffler during his incredible 2024 season was what on earth could he achieve if he was anywhere near as good with the putter as he was throughout the rest of his bag.
Scottie Scheffler won nine times worldwide during the 2024 season, including at The Masters, the Players Championship, Memorial and the Olympic Games.
The world number one was nearly flawless from tee to green. He was second for strokes gained off the tee on the PGA Tour, while he was first – by some distance – with his approach play.
However, there was one clear weakness in Scheffler’s game, with the 28-year-old down in 77th for strokes gained with the putter.
Phil Kenyon suggests the changes he made to Scottie Scheffler’s putting
It obviously did not hold Scheffler back. But ominously, he has made giant strides during the 2025 season, with Scheffler now 27th on tour for strokes gained with the flat stick.
Scheffler has been working with Phil Kenyon since midway through the 2023 season, and the partnership certainly appears to be reaping big rewards.
And speaking on The Rough Cut Golf Podcast, Kenyon explained some of the notable changes Scheffler made to his putting game once they started working together.
“I think one of the biggest things is giving him clarity in what he’s doing that’s actually relative to the faults he has. I think he’d gone down different roads trying to improve things that were wrong. And when you’re working on the wrong things, you’re never really getting to the root of the problem. So it was just giving him some clarity and simplifying a lot of things,” he said.
“He’s an amazing athlete, and his intuition is so good. And I’ll give you a good example of that: in terms of his green reading, he’s using Ted, his caddie, a lot who actually is a good green reader and a great guy, great caddie, but I’m not necessarily a massive fan of that. And I think it was creating some indecision in some of Scottie’s read. But intuitively, he builds a very good picture of the read, so we’ve helped him tap into his own intuition more easily in terms of his green reading, simplify the process, give him confidence in his instincts, so that was one aspect.
“And then, some changes to his setup. Obviously, more recently, changing grip, just to help the consistency and the stability in how he releases the putter, face control.
“And then some simple things. The important thing for him is when we got him to stop using the line on the ball because I think he was getting very line-locked by using that. That was at the time when he switched to the mallet putter. And one of the reasons he switched to the mallet putter was actually the site line and configuration on that club helped him aim the putter better without using the line on the ball.”
The PGA Tour player Scottie Scheffler wants the putting ability of
Interestingly, it appears that Scheffler is still not entirely satisfied with his putting just yet.
Ahead of the PGA Championship, Scheffler was asked which part of the game he would love to take from another player.
Perhaps it is not a surprise that he opted for the putting of another PGA Tour star, given the quality of the rest of his game. And it was a good friend that Scheffler opted for.
“So today I played a practice round with Sam Burns, and I remember when we played the Presidents Cup here in 2022, it was like he was putting to a hole that was the size of a basketball hoop. So I do a lot of practice rounds with Sam, and he’s a tremendous putter. I would trade that with him,” he said.
On his current trajectory, it will probably not be too long before Scheffler’s peers are talking about wanting to emulate his putting ability.
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