Let’s file this under a story that wasn’t a story four years ago but makes perfect sense now.
It was the start of the 2021 season, and at the time, a young free agent, Scottie Scheffler, was a player of promise but not yet one of world domination. He had an open bag that consisted of a Ping G400 LST driver, Callaway Mavrik 3+, Srixon UT, ZX7 (4), 5-PW TM P730, and some Artisan wedges.
It was a pretty stylish bag for a free agent, but from a specification perspective, it was quite a wild scene.
Why? Because all of Scheffler’s irons were an inch over standard length. The swing weight was well over D6, which, for the non-gearheads, is like having a heavy weight at the end of a pencil. Plus, these irons were all slightly flat.
You see, the Scheffler we know today is one of the best iron players ever, but in early 2021, he wasn’t even in the top 75.
Then, a conversation took place among fitters, his coach, Randy Smith, and Scheffler at the WM Phoenix Open that might have been the most important gear conversation of Scheffler’s career: what can we do to improve this iron play?
The fix?
It was a significant change that would have been a massive adjustment for most but a seamless one for Scheffler, requiring little thought beyond a few general fitting principles. They shortened the entire set (3-LW) by 0.75 inches and bent them slightly upright to adjust the swing weights to D4. Simple. No different from what you’d see at your local True Spec.
The result?
Scheffler’s worst year in Strokes Gained: Approach since the switch was fourth, and he’s been No. 1 for the last three years.
What can we learn from this?
In simple terms, “go get fitted” is the easy answer, but this goes a bit deeper.
Scheffler was already a world-class player with irons that were too long and too heavy, but when he and his team were honest about where they wanted to go, it took an open mind from the player to make it possible. On Tour, it’s hard to tell a player, “Your irons are far too long,” since 99.9 percent of these players have been working with world-class fitters since they were in high school. My hunch is that with a talent like Scheffler, perhaps nobody considered addressing that part of the bag because, from the outside, everything seemed fine. This switch came about through a collaboration between a couple of Tour reps, Scheffler, and his team solving the problem together.
It’s funny how things happen on a PGA Tour range. Some tweaks may mean nothing, but this one may have altered history.
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