Earlier this season, Peter Uihlein and his coach Jason Baile made an adjustment in Uihlein’s swing, experimenting with a different release pattern in hopes of building consistency.
It did not go well.
Uihlein, an original LIV Golf member and one of the league’s top performers in the first two seasons, was barely noticeable afterwards on the leaderboard for his new team, RangeGoats GC. Finally, after a tie for 38th in Andalucía, the two had a heart-to-heart chat. Their conclusion?
“We tried something different,” Uihlein acknowledged. “Just didn’t really work.”
Time to jettison the experiment and focus on getting Uihlein back in the groove. It didn’t take long.
After tying for 14th at LIV Golf UK by JCB, Uihlein blew away the field in last week’s International Series England on the Asian Tour, winning by seven shots. That ended a three-year winless streak – including four runner-up finishes on LIV Golf – and positions Uihlein to make some late-season noise as the 2024 season winds down, starting with this week’s LIV Golf Greenbrier.
“Obviously it was nice to kind of get over the hump and do it resoundingly,” said Uihlein, who finished third in season-long points in 2022 and 12th last year. “… It kind of builds some confidence going into the last three events in the schedule.”
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Uihlein rates among LIV Golf’s best putters (he currently is tied for seventh in putting average), but his fate often rests with his driver. Last week in England, his driver was on fire, so much so that he became increasingly aggressive off the tee after a couple of errant swings when he tried to dial it down.
“I felt like I was hitting my driver really well,” Uihlein said. “So, I was like, ‘I’m not going to take out my best club right now.’”
RangeGoats Captain Bubba Watson, who brought Uihlein over in the offseason as part of the lineup overhaul that also involved Matthew Wolff, was aware of the midseason adjustments Uihlein was attempting. He knew Uihlein, one of LIV Golf’s longest hitters, wanted to find more fairways off the tee.
But Watson always kept his distance, despite the discouraging results.
“I’ve never asked him what he was trying to do,” Watson said. “Obviously, try to hit fairways. They’ve been working really hard … I stay out of the way. I don’t want to hear what they are talking about. I just know they are here and after the practice round, they go work. Or before the practice rounds, they go work.”
Watson certainly had a vested interest in the International Series outcome last week, but it wasn’t simply because of Uihlein. Another of his RangeGoats, Thomas Pieters, also was in contention. And a former RangeGoat, Harold Varner III, was playing in the final group with Uihlein.
“You’re not going to pull against any of them, right?” Watson said. “You just want them to play great golf, and whoever wins, wins.
Still, he was happy to see Uihlein emerge as the winner. With Uihlein firing on all cylinders, Pieters also emerging and Wolff coming off a tie for sixth at LIV Golf UK (his third top-10 result of the season), the RangeGoats could be a dangerous opponent at the Team Championship.
“For him to win one, it’s huge for his confidence, and it’s huge for us because now us three want to back that up,” Watson said. “We want to be there with him because now we’re feeling he’s going to play good this week.”
Main image: Peter Uihlein. Supplied
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