Scottie Scheffler shot a 4-under par 67 today at East Lake in Atlanta, Georgia, to win the Tour Championship by four strokes over Collin Morikawa, who shot 66. Scottie had started tournament at 10-under par, according to the PGA Tour’s scoring system for the year, with a two-stroke lead over Xander Schauffele. And it made Scheffler the winner of the season-long FedEx Cup as well.
Scheffler Wins Seven Tournaments This Year
Scheffler therefore won seven PGA Tour tournaments this year, one of them being the Masters, plus he won the Olympic Gold Medal. It was the first time anyone has won at least seven PGA Tour tournaments in a year since Tiger Woods did so in 2007. It now remains to be seen if Scheffler will win the end-of-year Player of the Year award. It is possible that it could go to Xander Schauffele because he won two majors this year: the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open.
Scottie Scheffler has been the #1 golfer in the world according to the Official World Golf Rankings for over 100 weeks.
Scottie Scheffler also is the most prominent member of the PGA Tour Bible Study, which meets weekly on the PGA Tour, which I cofounded in 1965 and am writing a book about it.
Scheffler’s Strange Footwork
The tournament’s television broadcasters, like most viewers, again expressed their bewilderment about Scottie Scheffler’s strange footwork in his swing, which is accentuated on his long shots. They are so mystified about it because Scheffler continues to be the #1 player in the statistic greens-in-regulation (GIR), which establishes who is the best ball striker from tee-to-green. It has commonly been thought in golf that the game starts from the ground up, so that to excel in shotmaking, a player must have was is considered to be good footwork during the swing. But at first glance, Scottie appears to have about the worst footwork on Tour.
What does he do? On his forward swing his right foot moves forward and backward about a foot, and it does so very quickly at about the moment Scheffler’s club strikes the ball and right after it. And I mean it is a very fast move. For a long time, as a swing analyst myself, I was mystified, too, about this. But months ago I think I figured it out, which I mentioned in a previous post.
Scheffler’s Athletic Move
Scheffler’s foot action is a very athletic move. It is sort of like he’s playing both golf and soccer at the same time! On his forward swing, his left foot rolls sideways so much that it appears he could injure his left ankle. Then the turn of of hips causing his left foot to also rotate on the ground until it finishes almost aiming at his target. At the same time, as I said above, his right foot moves forward and backward about a foot.
All of this shows that Scottie Scheffler has a very quick and huge weight shift toward his target. I believe that is one of the keys that makes Scheffler an excellent and consistent ball striker. A big weight shift from the back foot to the front foot has been, IMO, an under-appreciated facet of playing great golf.
The other key to Scheffler’s success with his swing is that he has very little wrist cock, especially when he makes ball contact and thereafter. And he works hard at keeping his grip on the club so that his hands don’t move around at all in his swing.
Those two features of Scottie Scheffler’s swing are what I think are keys to his success.
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