What’s that saying? “As certain as death and taxes?”
That’s what we can say about the current state of Scottie Scheffler’s game over the past 3-plus years. The level of consistency is downright biblical, and from a golf IQ and stat perspective, it’s something we might analyze for decades to come.
Let’s be clear here — he is in no way a bomber. He doesn’t overpower courses like a Rory or vintage Tiger. He’s not an all-time putter like Jack or Tiger. But what Scottie is, is efficient as hell. His bag speaks to that in three key ways. We have the obvious stats that live at the top of the sheet like Strokes Gained: Total (No. 1), SG: Tee to green (No. 1), SG: Off the tee (No. 2), SG: Approach (No. 1), Greens in Regulation (No. 3) and Scoring (No. 1).
All of those add up to a dominant player, but where can we identify those certain superpowers he has? Where does he really take advantage? Here I’ll break that down and explain the key clubs that make it possible.
1. His miss is RIGHT almost all the time: Great players know their miss off the tee. Scheffler is 1st in right rough tendency vs. 95th in left rough tendency. This shows me that when he has a driver or 3-wood in his hands he rarely misses it left. This speaks to a few things when thinking about his driver setup. For starters, the TaylorMade Qi10 he plays is set up to hit cuts all day. It’s in an upright lie angle, has a heavier shaft (Ventus Black 7X), is primarily back-weighted for spin and the face sits very square. The whole build screams fade.
The other cool stat here is total driving efficiency, which speaks to how much meat Scheffler is leaving on the table either on purpose or for other reasons. Scheffler sits at 113th in this department, which says one big thing: he doesn’t focus on hitting bombs. In simple terms there is a faster setup for him from a carry and ball speed perspective, but he doesn’t look at it that way. The best player in the world wants to hit fairways, and when he doesn’t he wants to ensure that he’s not walking left and right to find his ball.
2. He’s really good out of the rough AND the fairway: You don’t see this too often, but Scheffler is 2nd in proximity to the hole from the fairway and 3rd from the rough, making him 1st in the proximity to the hole category. For context, Sepp Straka is 2nd in total proximity while he’s 1st from the fairway and 71st from the rough. This means Scheffler is playing with plenty of loft to focus on control, and for this he needs proper sole design to complement his impact conditions. Not a ton of attention is paid to this but it’s one of those things that can really help any golfer. The set you choose — in this case it’s TaylorMade’s P7TW — must perform out of the fairway and the rough to truly be optimized. (Yes, it helps hitting it like Scottie and having Ted Scott to assist, but nonetheless this matters.)
3. Going from a blade to a mallet was HUGE: It’s been over a year since Scheffler swapped into TaylorMade’s Spider Tour X. At the time he was struggling on the greens, but since the swap he’s won nine times in 25 events with 20 top-10 finishes. He sits at 23rd in SG: Putting, and with as well as he hits it, if Scheffler continues to climb up in that category he will be even harder to beat. The high MOI Tour X has given Scheffler two things: more speed control, and his alignment is substantially better vs. his previous blade.
Scheffler’s exact bag setup
Much of Scheffler’s bag setup remained unchanged for his Memorial win, although he did briefly swap out the 7-wood he won the PGA Championship with last week at the Charles Schwab Challenge for his 3-iron. For this week at Muirfield Village, the 7-wood went back in the bag to increase stopping power.
Shaft Choice: Scheffler’s dominance also underscores the dominance of the Fujikura Ventus shafts in his woods. Scheffler was part of the 39.7 percent of the field this week at the Memorial who played Ventus shafts in their driver, and Scheffler’s Ventus Black model was the most popular choice. The next closest competitor was at 26 percent. Scheffler also played Ventus black in his two fairway woods. At the Memorial, 38.68 percent of the field used Ventus in their fairway woods, beating out the next closest competitor at 27.4 percent. So far this season, Ventus shafts have been the No. 1 most-played shaft on Tour. They have been the most-used shafts in 24 out of 25 events, and Scheffler and Rory McIlroy have collected the year’s first two majors using Ventus Black.
Driver: TaylorMade Qi10 (DOT) 8 degrees @ 8.25˚(FCT Sleeve: STD Upright 1.5˚ sleeve), Fujikura Ventus Black 7-X (45″ EOG, Tipped 1″, D4)
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10 15 degrees @ 14.75˚(Lie: 58.25˚), Fujikura Ventus Black 8-X (42.3125″ EOG, Tipped 1.5″, D3)
7-wood: TaylorMade Qi35 21 degrees @ 20˚ (Lie: 60˚), Fujikura Ventus Black 9-X (41.375″ EOG, Tipped 2″, D4)
Irons: Srixon ZU85 (4), TaylorMade P7TW (5-PW), Nippon N.S. Pro Modus 3 Hybrid Prototype 10 X (3), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (4-PW)(Length: +.25″, Lie: 1 degree upright)
Loft Progression: 23/26/30/34/38/42/46
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM8 (50-12F, 56-14F), SM10 (60-06K), True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue S400
Putter: Spider Tour X (Loft 3˚, Lie 72˚), L-Neck, Full Line, Pure Roll insert, 35 1/2″ EOG, Golf Pride Pro Only grip
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