I don’t think there has ever been more analysis in various sports about the proper action that brings success than there has been in the game of golf. That is, there has been so much teaching about how to swing a golf club properly than how to swing a baseball bat, how to throw a football, or how to shoot a basketball. Don’t get me wrong; there has been plenty of analysis in these other sports about proper technique regarding those actions. But it doesn’t supersede how to swing a golf club. That is why, for a long time golf has had this adage–The Swing’s The Thing.
The 50th Players Championship on the PGA Tour begins tomorrow at Ponte Vedra, Florida. It is contested at the PGA Tour’s own TPC at Sawgrass (Stadium Course). Scottie Scheffler, the #1 player in the world for the past 70 some weeks, and the winner of the Arnold Palmer Championship last week in Orlando, Florida, is the defending champion this week. Whenever a pro dominates the PGA Tour for an extended period of time, as Scheffler has been doing with his seven wins in the past barely more than two years, which included The Masters, the TV commentators get cranked up by analyzing why that player is better than everyone else.
Scheffler has been even better in statistics over this period of time than his number of wins indicates. He is a very good putter most of the time. Yet last year, he actually putted poorly, having trouble with the short stick so much of the time. But not last week. He changed putters and posted one of the most amazing putting stats I’ve ever heard of–he never missed a putt inside fifteen feet on about his last 25 holes of the tournament. That is incredible! And when you look at his superior iron play almost every week, it look to me like the rest of these guys are playing for second this week.
And the pundits are talking about why Rory McIlroy, a five-time major champion who drives the ball very long and better than anybody, hasn’t won another major since 2014. Okay, I’m now going to join the club of pundits and throw in my two cents about why that is compared to Scheffler.
The two greatest golf ball strikers of all time were the great Ben Hogan of Fort Worth, Texas, and the eccentric Moe Norman of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. There wasn’t any question about it, and there still shouldn’t be even considering the game’s best ever since, even Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. I knew both Hogan and Norman. I played with Hogan twice on the PGA Tour. And I watched both of them many times hit golf balls in practicing.
Both Hogan and Norman did something in their golf swing that was so unique and actually difficult to do. The swung the club so that from the point of contact of the ball and well into their follow through, they restricted the club head from passing their hands. In golf swing parlance, it is called “not releasing the club head.” In the case of Hogan, I always thought of it has “a manufactured swing.” At least when Hogan was young, he had extreme wrist cock in his backswing which helped much to give him club head speed and thus length off the tee. He needed to do this because he was only five feet, eight inches tall. Then 0n his downswing, Hogan would delay the release of his wrist cock until very late, which also gave him more length with his driver. And then he had a massive release late on the downswing until he ideally made contact with the ball with his hands neither ahead or behind the ball at impact. And what he did in the next several feet of his upswing was amazing. He did not allow the club head to release much. Norman did this even more than Hogan did because Norman didn’t have much wrist cock in his backswing, which made it easier for him to have very little wrist cock on his follow. Norman could do this because he was strong physically in his hands. The result of this type of swing is that, depending how upright or flat the person’s swing is, the club head makes a very wide arc in the upswing. This type of swing is what can produce great accuracy in shotmaking.
That is what Scottie Scheffler does. He has very little release of the club head on his upswing. Since Scheffler is tall and has an upright swing, the arc of his club head on his upswing is very wide, resulting in his club head swinging very high above an imaginary horizontal plane on top of his head. I think this is the main reason Scheffler is often #1 on the PGA Tour with his iron play.
On the other hand, Rory McIlroy is more like Dustin Johnson, who has a lot of release of the club head on his follow through. Thus, the club head of both Johnson and McIlroy has a short arc on their follow, Johnson more than McIlroy. That produces more distance with the driver, and when those guys are “on their game,” they can be unbeatable. However, much of the time their iron play will not be that accurate. And that is what Rory has been fighting for time. Lately, he has been the #1 driver on the Tour, and lengthy as well, but he’s been about 150th in his iron play as well as his putting. I think Rory would become more consistent if he would try to restrict his release on his upswing even though it likely would shorten his drives a little.
And what about their footwork. That has always been important to me in the golf swing. I think Ben Hogan, Peter Thompson, and Tom Nieporte had the best footwork I have ever seen on the PGA Tour. But Scottie Scheffler–WOW! I call it “the Scottie Shuffle.” As soon as he hits the ball, he quickly drags his right foot back and forward more than a foot! And his left foot rolls to the outside and spins left. It looks like that would be hard on your golf shoes. I wonder of Scottie wears out golf shoes as fast as those NBA basketball players do.
If Scottie Scheffler wore metal spiked shoes like we did, I don’t think he could do that. They would keep him more “grounded.” On the other hand, if he could still do that, Scottie would be clawing turf all day! Talk about leaving your mark.
I don’t think that with Micael Jackson’s fast moves on the dance floor, that even he could have done that! I wish they would get preeminent swing instructor Butch Harmon on TV to analyze Scottie Scheffler’s footwork. It could be quite an education.
As for me, Scottie Scheffler’s footwork makes me feel like I don’t anything about the golf swing. I guess that adage, The Swing’s The Thing, is right, so that in golf The Feet Are Not The Thing.
[Scottie Scheffler is a prominent member of the PGA Tour Bible study. He often speaks publicly about his Christian faith and how important it is to him and his family.]
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