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Scottie Scheffler just won the 2024 Arnold Palmer Invitational and is heading to TPC Sawgrass to defend his PLAYERS Championship title next week. Although Scheffler had one of the best putting tournaments of his career at Bay Hill, his ball striking remains his main strength.
Scheffler is considered one of the best ball strikers in the world of golf (if not the best). For the player, the secret to his success lies in how he has trained his body for ball striking and also in his ability to control distance.
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Speaking to journalist Sean Martin of the PGA Tour News Service, Scottie Scheffler reflected on what he has done to achieve excellence in ball striking. Here's part of what he had to say (via pagatour.com):
"I think continuing to improve my body to make it move properly and then just refining the skill over time, like creating new shots. I feel like my distance control is probably what separates me the most from other guys."
"A lot of guys out here I think that can hit really straight, pretty much on command, but I think my distance control is something I practice. Distance control is kind where I extend myself a little bit and that's something that we've worked on a bunch."
Scottie Scheffler will arrive at TPC Sawgrass as the third player in history to hold both this and the Arnold Palmer Invitational trophies at the same time. The previous winners were none other than Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.
2024 PGA Tour season: Scottie Scheffler's ball striking stats
In golf, 'ball striking' refers to the generality of shots in which the player uses his full swing. Another way of looking at it is that it refers to shots in which the player uses his driver, woods, hybrids and irons.
A deeper way of understanding the term is that 'ball striking' refers to the player's ability to place the clubface in the exact position to achieve the desired shot. There are a number of statistics that measure this ability and Scottie Scheffler excels in most of them.
Considering the current 2024 season, Scheffler is the best player on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained (SG): Tee-to-Green (2.572), seventh in SG: Off-the-Tee (0.821), second in SG: Approach the Green (1.198), and first in Greens in Regulations (267 out of 342, 78.07%).
If we add to the above that, for example, Scheffler is also eighth in 'SG: Around-the Green' (0.553) and fifth in 'Scrambling from the rough' (14 out of 19, 73.68%), you can have an idea of why he is so successful despite his discreet performance in putting before the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
The result is that Scheffler is the best in the tournament in 'SG: Total' (2,497), Scoring Average (67.48), Birdie Average (5.48), Par Breakers (31.40%) and Bogey Avoidance (7.97%), among other statistics that are directly related to his consistently good results.
