Scottie Scheffler answered some questions on his placing this week.
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Shockingly, it had been 51 weeks since Scottie Scheffler final gained a golf match.
In the time since Scheffler triumphed on the Players Championship, the World No. 1 racked up boatloads of top-10s, introduced dozens of programs to their knees together with his ball putting and dazzled together with his contact across the greens.
But he simply couldn’t get his putts to fall.
Scheffler got here to Bay Hill, armed with a brand new, mallet-style putter, and whereas he didn’t get the outcomes he needed in a first-round 70, he caught hearth on the weekend. He one-putted his first two greens Sunday to cap a career-long streak of 9 consecutive one-putts and made each putt inside 15 toes.
He was in cruise management as he fired a final-round 66 Sunday to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational by 5 strokes over Wyndham Clark. It’s the biggest margin of victory on the occasion since 2012 and it’s Scheffler’s second profession victory at “Arnie’s Place” after he gained there in 2022 within the lead-up to his Masters title that yr.
“I try to be as consistent as possible out here,” he stated. “It’s a difficult thing doing that week-to-week out here on Tour. The golf courses are really tough, the competition is really tough, and I try to be as consistent as possible and bring the right attitude each week. So I’m definitely proud of the results over the last couple years, how consistent I’ve been and it’s nice to get a win this week.”
Scheffler solidifies his place atop the Official World Golf Ranking. World No. 2 Rory McIlroy pale Sunday to a 76 whereas World No. 4 Viktor Hovland completed T36. Meanwhile, the now-seven-time PGA Tour winner dominated.
Much was remodeled Scheffler’s placing struggles final summer season and into this season, though he completed outdoors the highest 12 in simply three occasions in the course of the 2023 season and gained the PGA Tour’s Player of the Year Award.
“Part of the problem is just trying too hard. It’s frustrating to not have the best of myself, just because I know that I can putt really well,” he stated. “It’s not like I’ve been a bad putter my whole career. I’ve just gone through a stretch where it’s been tough.”
In the autumn, Scheffler began working with famend placing coach Phil Kenyon after which this week, after Rory McIlroy instructed he play one in an interview, confirmed up with a brand new mallet putter and went to work.
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He misplaced a stroke and a half on the greens throughout Thursday’s opening spherical, however the swap flipped on Friday when he shot 67 to surge right into a five-way tie for the lead. He led the sector in placing in the course of the remaining spherical and completed fifth for the week, the primary time he’s been top-10 in placing for every week since his first PGA Tour win on the 2022 WM Phoenix Open.
“Thursday, I think, was a really important day for me,” Scheffler stated. “I got off to a horrible start with the putter. I hit a really bad putt to start the day and I missed a couple other makeable ones on the first few holes. When I got to the practice range after, the discussion was not what are we going to fix. It was how well that I did. And that all goes back to the process that we’re working on and it’s not results-based.”
That’s not to recommend his usually otherworldly ball putting stats had been any lower than that this week. He completed first for the week in each SG: tee-to-green and SG: off-the-tee.
Nothing may part him Sunday as he posted one of many few bogey-free rounds of the day at Bay Hill, which performed as the toughest course to date this season on Tour. He was the one participant within the prime 5 to break 70 Sunday and had the very best spherical of the day by two photographs general.
Even when his ball plugged within the bunker on the troublesome par-3 seventeenth. He shortly stepped up and blasted his ball to inside three toes.
But the crescendo got here two holes earlier on the fifteenth inexperienced when he drilled a 35-footer for birdie to open up a five-shot lead.
“This is the best way to stop questioning to somebody about your putting,” NBC Analyst and placing guru Brad Faxon stated. “People are going to ask him next week why are you putting so good.”
Faxon was proper. For a minimum of this week, nobody will ask Scheffler why he’s placing so badly. He’s not.
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