Taylor Pendrith Joins Smylie Kaufman on Improvement in Putting

Watch Taylor Pendrith Joins Smylie Kaufman on Improvement in Putting - SportsGrid on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00But this past year, I was blown away at how good your putting stats were, your seventh in putting.

00:08For you, what was the big change this year? Why were the putts fallen? Was it something that you

00:14change in your setup, your stroke, putters? I always am interested to see why guys make a huge

00:21jump in a category. Yeah, I guess statistically, for my whole career, that's probably been the

00:31weakest part of my game, is on the greens. I switched to a center-shafted putter two years

00:40ago, maybe. I think it was my second year on tour, I switched to it. I don't know my stats

00:45from last year on putting, but I felt like I putted better, and I felt like I was close to

00:52putting good. I changed putters for this year. I'm using a center-shafted jailbird. I've been

01:04doing the same stuff though, same drills. Really, I guess, putting a little bit more work in on the

01:12speed of the greens each week, and really trying to dial that in, which I think has helped a lot

01:17in my feel. Three putts, trying to obviously avoid those is huge, but yeah, I've been doing the same

01:26stuff. I think just getting a little bit more confidence with the putter, and seeing some putts

01:32fall early, and seeing some putts fall in big moments can go a long way for the confidence,

01:38but I haven't really changed my practice or preparation. I've been doing the same stuff that

01:43I've been doing for 10 years, but a new putter, I mean, yeah, that putter, it seems to be working

01:49good this year. Well, when you start hitting that start line, that definitely makes a big

01:53difference when it starts kind of freeing up the rest of your game, right? When you can hit it to

01:5720 feet, feel like you can make a putt, that definitely makes a difference. When I look at

02:01your results too this year, Taylor, you have six top 10s on the year, and I think that speaks

02:06highly to what a hot putter can do for a guy, that when you're able to make putts, you turn

02:14those 25th to 30th place finishes into top 10s. It seemed like your good golf this year, you found

02:22a way to get yourself in position more often than not in the last four or five tee times on Sundays.

02:28I think, would you credit that to just your overall game just being that much better and

02:34just getting a little bit more confidence? Yeah, definitely. I think the second half of

02:40the season, I've played a lot of really solid golf and everything was, nothing was spectacular,

02:47but everything was really solid. I wasn't driving the ball great at the beginning of the year,

02:53and that was really bothering me. I switched shafts in Houston, and I was swinging a little

03:02slower then with my shoulder, and then it progressively kept getting better and better.

03:06And the last second or second half of the season, I was driving it how I was the previous two years,

03:13and I felt really good with it, could swing hard at it. And so the driving improved. The irons were

03:22just steady, solid. If I hit it good that week, I'd likely have a good finish because my putting

03:30was pretty solid all year, really. But yeah, I think my whole game overall was just really

03:39steady and solid this year. And then you mix in a really good putting week, and you got a top 10

03:47or a top five. So yeah, it's been, I've had a lot of really, really solid results, man, this year,

03:55and it's been awesome. I wasn't in the big events at the beginning of the year, and then after I won

04:00in Dallas, I got in the three remaining ones and a couple majors and was able to play some pretty

04:08solid golf in those events. And then the last three playoff events were good as well. So it's

04:14been a really cool year. Yeah, I didn't expect it at the start of the year, but obviously happy

04:20that I'm here.