Revealed! This tiny grip fix helped Scottie Scheffler win the Masters

Scottie Scheffler is a generational ball-striker. Statistically, the best since Tiger Woods.

And yet, during the week of his second Masters win last April, Scheffler’s golf swing didn’t feel great. It was only thanks to an in-tournament adjustment from longtime swing coach Randy Smith that put Scottie on the road to his second green jacket.

The revelation came in the PGA Tour’s newly-released documentary Scottie 24 when, after a deceptively good opening round 66, he shared his grim assessment with coach Smith:

“I got the absolute most out of my round that day. Randy asked ‘how’d everything feel?’ and I told him, ‘I cannot go another three days of this tournament with my swing feeling like this. We need to figure something out.'”

The Mistake

So, what did the pair figure out?

It all had to do with the way Scheffler gripped the club, specifically with his left hand thumb placement.

Scheffler is incredibly methodical with his grip during his practice, but as Smith explained in Scottie 24, Scheffler’s routine involves gripping the club while holding it up towards the sky, before returning it down to the golf ball.

You can see him doing it below.

Kevin C. Cox

The problem was that when Scheffler returned the club to the ground, his wrist would change positions slightly, which would cause his left thumb to move about an eighth of an inch, to a quarter of an inch, toward the top of the grip.

This almost unnoticeable adjustment gave Scheffler, in the words of the legendary Lee Trevino, a “short left thumb.” It would close the clubface slightly, and result in him missing shots to the left.

The Fix

After Smith identified the cause, Scheffler and his coach set about fixing it. Mainly by feeling a “long left thumb” that ran further down the grip when he placed the club on the ground. This prevented the clubface from closing.

You can see the pair working through the change here.

David Cannon

Scheffler’s consistent fade returned. He was no longer missing unpredictably left, and it gave him the confidence to return to the Augusta winner’s circle.

A fantastic tidbit in a wonderful documentary, which you can watch in full below.