Matthew Fitzpatrick’s coach Mark Blackburn has lauded Scottie Scheffler and suggested what many people do not realise about his golf swing.
It has been an interesting start to the year for Scheffler. He won at The American Express on his first appearance of the season, but that remains his only victory of the year.
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Scheffler has now finished just outside the top 20 for the last two events. For any other player, that would not spark real concern, particularly at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and The Players Championship.
However, the world number one has set such a high standard over the last two years that it is difficult not to wonder what has happened to his form.
Scottie Scheffler backed to add to his major tally this season despite recent struggles
Scheffler has played down any concerns, adopting quite a prickly approach with the media in recent weeks. And it seems that many within the game are not fearful that the 29-year-old’s game is in decline.
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Mark Blackburn works with the likes of Fitzpatrick and Max Homa. And speaking on Dan on Golf about Scheffler’s current form, Blackburn insisted that he expects the four-time major champion to be back at his best very soon.
He also explained what he thought of Scheffler’s swing from a technical perspective.
“When you understand how the swing works and you start to look at the nuances of it, I haven’t looked at any data, any 3D data or any ground force reaction data, but I’m making some assumptions based on the knowledge I have. I think Scottie does some things that are incredible,” he said.
Photo by Ben Jared/PGA TOUR via Getty Images
“Obviously, Randy’s a phenomenal coach, one of the coaches I respect the most. He’s kind of a mentor of mine, he’s great. But he gets guys to play golf, he’s really good at dumbing things down to hitting golf shots. If you take a look, one of the things most people don’t appreciate, if you look at the stature of Scottie Scheffler, he is a big man, he’s a big human. So he’s got a big wingspan, he’s got a massive arc. He generates a lot of speed without having to do a whole lot. It’s not like he’s trying to absolutely smash it, doesn’t appear that way. He’s got that little cut shot he hits, and then he’s got a smash go-to. He’s very straight, he’s athletic, he’s got a big, high arc.
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“You notice his ground forces because his feet move around, but there’s some genius to that I think works well. He obviously has quite a lot of shift down the target line, but marries that really well with how his club moves a little bit left. To me, he’s got his own golf swing, but it works really, really well, and there’s a lot of pieces that make a lot of sense that are really smart. And if you want to send the ball a long way, you want to be able to hit it high, he’s got a very good action for doing that.
“He also has the ability that he can turn around and hit a lot of off-speed shots. Some of the shots I’ve seen him hit are just incredible, and the players I coach that played with him have gone, ‘I can’t believe he hit that shot. That shot’s just unbelievable.’ So he’s a shot-maker as well, so I think that comes from Randy. The technique might look a little bit unconventional by traditional standards, but it’s actually got a lot of really cool pieces in it that make sense that they work really well in unison.
“But I also think he’s probably the best golfer in terms of he plays the game. If you play Scottie at any sport, whatever it is, he’s ultra competitive. He wants to win. And I think he is just the epitome of getting the ball in the hole. Hit it, go find it and go play golf. And then you throw in [Phil] Kenyon, the little putting genius, my pal, unfortunately, he’s taught him to putt. So now you’ve got a real problem. You’ve got someone who can hit it well and he can putt.
“Obviously, at the moment people are like what’s wrong with Scottie? Well, he’s already won, he’s contending when he’s not playing well. I think there’s nothing wrong with him. He’ll probably win a couple of majors this year, wouldn’t surprise me.”
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Scheffler’s major record over the last three years deserves so much more praise
History does suggest that Blackburn may well be proven right when he backs Scheffler to win two majors in 2026.
He made a slow start to last season – albeit following an injury – before going on to win the PGA Championship and The Open Championship. It felt like he made his first statement of the year by finishing fourth at The Masters despite being well short of his best.
Remarkably, Scheffler has finished outside the top 10 at just two of his last 12 major appearances. Meanwhile, he has won three times in that run.
The Masters this year is going to be particularly intriguing. Johnson Wagner expects Scheffler to contend at Augusta National.
In truth, no one would be at all surprised if Scheffler did win his third green jacket next month.
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