Why off-season work should help Scottie Scheffler succeed in 2025

“I got some good work in this off-season and yeah, excited to play a good four days of competition here and go home and then get ready for the season to start.”

Scottie Scheffler seems to want to keep it simple, at least in his explanation.

“After I take a bit of a break, it usually takes me a little while to make sure my swing's in a good spot,” he explained at his press conference at the Hero World Challenge.

As Paul Marchand, who used to ride herd on Fred Couples’ swing used to say, all players have tendencies. Those tendencies are usually small things that the player will go back to because it feels natural, but just because it feels natural doesn’t mean it’s going to produce the desired result. It can be an issue that causes problems. That’s the tendency that needs to be watched and managed and massaged into place.  

Scheffler explained it in his terms, which he called his habits.

“I wouldn't say bad habits, just make sure my swing is in the place where I like it and then continuing to kind of enhance the stuff I've been working on the last couple years,” he said.

The 2024 season went pretty well, he noted, so no reason to make huge modifications.

“Last year I had worked with Phil (Kenyon) right before the Ryder Cup, but I had a long break to get ready for this tournament and putting was a real emphasis for me,” he said  

Kenyon helped Scottie Scheffler get on the right track as far as his putting was concerned. 

They started working after the Tour Championship in 2023 and continued through 2024. Last year, Scheffler’s putting was noticeably improved. Without looking at stats, just by watching him play, anyone who knows golf could tell there was a big difference.  

According to Kenyon, in an article for the PGA Tour, he made some suggestions to free Scheffler up as far as his putting.

Kenyon pronounced the two-time Masters champ the most competitive person he’s ever met. (Has Kenyon not met Tiger Woods?)

Kenyon has a long pedigree of coaching top-level players. In 2024, Kenyon worked with Tommy Fleetwood, Justin Rose, Max Homa, Russell Henley, and Keegan Bradley in addition to Scheffler, to name but a few. In the past, he’s given an assist to Nick Faldo, Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Francesco Molinari, and Rory McIlroy, so he’s not an unknown to golfers although he may not have the same kind of name recognition in the U.S. as someone like a Butch Harmon.

One change Scheffler made was to go to a mallet putter, a TaylorMade Spider Tour X L-Neck putter to be exact. At least that’s what he had at the Tour Championship.

“I feel like Phil and I are on the right track in the stuff that we've been working on,” Scheffler added. “It's more of just continuing to improve on and enhance the things that we've worked on for years now.”  

And then Scheffler said perhaps the most important thing any golfer has said in a while.

“Getting better is not something that happens overnight,” he added. “It takes a lot of time, and I still feel like there's areas of my game that I can continue to improve without making drastic changes to the DNA of what I do.”

The takeaways are significant. First of all, it means that making any change takes time to reprogram the muscles – and the mind -- to make a new movement.

But when Scheffler references his own golf DNA, it means that Scheffler, unlike many players, is probably not going to fall into the trap that has doomed many a golfer who achieves success. That’s usually when they decide they want to play perfect golf. Or at least, they want to make changes to improve their swings. Or they want to make changes to chase distance. 

Often the search for perfection, a new and improved swing, or for distance is the end of a golfer’s stellar career. Tiger Woods is perhaps one of the few players to remake his swing twice and come back playing well enough to win major championships. Nick Faldo remade his swing and became significantly better. So did Mark O'Meara.  For most golfers, though, changing what made them successful, whatever their swing looked like and however unusual it might have been, just doesn’t work. It sounds like Scottie Scheffler already knows that. As Hal Sutton once said, you gotta dance with the one who brung you.