Scheffler approaches : fat side pin high

Ross_Albatross · July 22

We often see threads about agressive, conservative play, birdie chasing, bogey avoidance, etc. to lower scores and players often misinterpret how good scores come about... thought I'd just post info I got from Fawcett, on Scheffler's last round at the Open (mind you, he had it setup for conservative play, but still) : he had ten attempts from the fairway or tee, starting surfaces where he has the most control. ALL 10 of those ended up on the fat-part of the green. You can also see, in the image below, how good his distance control was. It followed a consistent theme all week of Scottie rarely being in trouble and never giving back shots.

getitdaily · July 22

That's exactly what you'd expect...4 shot lead. Let the others make mistakes while trying to catch you.

I'd love to see these graphs by round. Especially rounds 2 and 3.

iacas · July 22

His shots even when he's not in the fourth round with a comfortable lead look almost the same.

One of his more outlier rounds? The Olympics, when he trailed by a decent margin but came from behind to win gold.

golferdude54 · July 22

He has the most consistent arc (left arm and club very wide) and his plane is steep enough that he can hit right down on the ball in the rough and get it out better than anyone; at the same time it’s not steep enough to cause a bad pull/pull-hook or pull-slice on normal shots. Very formidable combo.

Pepperturbo · July 22

He plays a slightly different game than other pros, starting with clear thinking, self-control, and ball control.

iutodd · July 23

10 hours ago, getitdaily said:

That's exactly what you'd expect...4 shot lead. Let the others make mistakes while trying to catch you.

I'd love to see these graphs by round. Especially rounds 2 and 3.

Scottie pretty much always plays this way.

His distance control is impeccable and he almost never gets himself into a tough spot because he chooses "safer" targets. And yeah he hits a lot of "darts" - but he also hits an incredible number of boring shots 25 ft pin high right of a tucked left pin.

And he shot 68-64-67-68 for the week so it wasn't like round 4 was some tame scoring round - that final round 68 also had a double.

You can go to the Open Championship website and they have all the rounds charted out. He birdied the 1st hole 2 out of 4 days. Let's look at them real quick.

Round 1: Tee shot went to "native area" with a back pin; his approach was 60 feet short into the front of the green, 2 putt.

Round 2: Fairway, 169 to a back left pin - he hit it 7 feet right and made birdie.

Round 3: Semi rough off the tee with a tight front left pin: he hit it 34 feet right pin high, 2 putt.

Round 4: Semi rough to a dead middle pin - only 143 yards in. He hit it to 18 inches.

That pretty much says it all. First day he didn't get too aggressive and just took his medicine, second day he utilized his amazing distance control from the fairway but still kept it on the "fat" side. Third round he again took his medicine on the "fat" side, 4th round with a middle pin he just went right at it, he probably had a good lie in the semi-rough.

He's the best golfer in the world because he has amazing distance control AND he almost always makes the "correct" play. Tiger did the same damn thing and just wore everyone out.

PedronNiall · July 23

4 hours ago, iutodd said:

Scottie pretty much always plays this way.

His distance control is impeccable and he almost never gets himself into a tough spot because he chooses "safer" targets. And yeah he hits a lot of "darts" - but he also hits an incredible number of boring shots 25 ft pin high right of a tucked left pin.

And he shot 68-64-67-68 for the week so it wasn't like round 4 was some tame scoring round - that final round 68 also had a double.

You can go to the Open Championship website and they have all the rounds charted out. He birdied the 1st hole 2 out of 4 days. Let's look at them real quick.

Round 1: Tee shot went to "native area" with a back pin; his approach was 60 feet short into the front of the green, 2 putt.

Round 2: Fairway, 169 to a back left pin - he hit it 7 feet right and made birdie.

Round 3: Semi rough off the tee with a tight front left pin: he hit it 34 feet right pin high, 2 putt.

Round 4: Semi rough to a dead middle pin - only 143 yards in. He hit it to 18 inches.

That pretty much says it all. First day he didn't get too aggressive and just took his medicine, second day he utilized his amazing distance control from the fairway but still kept it on the "fat" side. Third round he again took his medicine on the "fat" side, 4th round with a middle pin he just went right at it, he probably had a good lie in the semi-rough.

He's the best golfer in the world because he has amazing distance control AND he almost always makes the "correct" play. Tiger did the same damn thing and just wore everyone out.

As did Homa when he was winning, and likely is what he's trying to get back to. Good golf will almost always be boring golf because it's played by the numbers and the numbers say if you want to gain strokes, you need to be on the green in regulation and let the birdies come where they do, not chase tight pins and end up with bogeys instead of pars.

Tiger did almost all of his scoring on par 5s, going for it in two any time he could. One of a few good reads on it.

https://www.pgatour.com/article/news/latest/2020/05/21/tiger-woods-dominance-par-5s

And a concise WRX blurb on it with a chart from Stagner.

https://www.golfwrx.com/664535/tigers-scoring-average-by-year-shows-the-key-statistic-to-how-he-dominated-golf/

For his career he's over par on the 3s including at most Majors, which I believe is the Tour norm, right around par on the 4s, and consistently under par on the 5s, having lead in par 5 scoring almost every year during his peak.

Interestingly Scottie at times gets a lot of his birdies on 3s, but even when he does it's because his putting is on or he's taking advantage of placements that favor a good, conservative shot, not because he goes flag hunting.

Edited July 23 by PedronNiall