LOS ANGELES — Scottie Scheffler never takes decisions on switching his equipment lightly. But his recent form on the green has been so putrid that he’s considering doing just that the week of a major. Scheffler practiced with a Scotty Cameron Newport 2 Plus on Tuesday and said he may bench his gamer for the 123rd U.S. Open at LA Country Club.
“You guys can find out Thursday,” he said with a laugh.
Scheffler, the world No. 1 player, won the Players Championship in March and hasn’t finish outside the top 12 in 13 starts this year. He put on ballstriking clinics at the Charles Schwab Challenge and Memorial, his two most recent starts, only to finish one stroke out of playoffs in each due to a balky putter.
“I think it’s strange that I’ve been struggling the past few weeks with my putter,” Scheffler said. “Putting is such a weird thing. Sometimes when you’re on the green and you feel good you feel like you’re never going to miss and then sometimes when you feel terrible you feel like you’re never going to make.”
Despite his recent frustrations on the greens, Scheffler has been proud of the way he hasn’t let bad putts ruin a round but his patience is wearing thin. He made a short-term putter change to a mallet head at the CJ Cup in October and finished T-45, and returned to his his Scotty Cameron Newport. Count NBC’s lead analyst Paul Azinger among those who think Scheffler’s putting will be fine.
“It’s a psychological battle. His technique is very repeatable,” said Azinger during a conference call with media last week ahead of NBC’s coverage of the U.S. Open. “Look, putting is the ghost. If you’re a player and you talk about your putting, it’s going to haunt you. That’s what I believe. If you talk about your putting when you’re putting great, it’s going to haunt you. It’s going to ruin you. If you talk about it when you’re putting bad, it’s going to ruin you. My advice to everyone who ever plays golf: First things first, never talk about your putting. How come? It’s the ghost, bud; you don’t want to do it. That’s what I would say.
“Same with Scheffler. It’s just like, let it go, you had a bad week, you should have won by five, but it didn’t happen. But sometimes those greens and the way your eye is, it’s just you’re just off, and you want to make it mechanical, but it’s just a little psychological battle or it’s just something just minuscule.”
“And you know it…
..
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Golfweek…