00:00It is the one-year anniversary of Scotty's switch to the claw putting grip that won him the 2024 Hero World Challenge.
00:07I thought it was kind of cool going back to look at some stats since switching to the claw.
00:11Like, I remember the first year we did that pod, you know, large swaths of 2023 and 2024 as well.
00:18You're just looking at a sea of red in the strokes game putting call from Scotty.
00:22He has only had three negative strokes game putting performances since switching to the claw, which blows my mind that it was that much of a light bulb.
00:32And only one of those was more than a shot negative given away to the field at the 2025 Arnold Palmer Invitational.
00:39The other two, the Charles Schwab and the Scottish Open were like two tenths of a shot, three tenths of a shot.
00:43So it is insane how much he's changed here.
00:46This week, second in strokes game putting, I just want to know what report card grade are you giving Scotty for the year of putting with the claw?
00:53Oh, dude, A-plus from where he was, where he is now.
00:57You have to give not only Scotty credit, but his putting instructor, Phil Kenyon, a ton of credit to implementing it at the right time in the offseason before the Hero this past year and really just seeing his success right away.
01:12I think Scotty didn't have any clarity, I think, in what he was trying to do with his putting.
01:18He was changing his feels a lot, looking, searching for whatever the technical feel was to, you know, keep his mind at ease to where he felt comfortable when he's putting.
01:28And I think anybody that's listening that's gone through a putting spell where they're not comfortable and nothing doesn't look right and they're thinking about technique.
01:35You're not going to be that great at putting either, you know, and Scotty Shefford wasn't for a couple of years and he was chasing it.
01:42The ball and getting started on mine and what he's been able to achieve this past year, which I think the goal was to get better inside of 10 feet.
01:50You go look at his stats. He was, I believe, heading into this past season, I think, gosh, I think he was outside the top 125 inside of 10 feet and he enters, you know, I guess finishes the season off right around 30th inside of top inside of 10 feet.
02:08And then you go four to eight feet. He was right around 20th to 25th in that category.
02:12He was outside of 150 in that category the year before.
02:15And these are seasons in which Scotty won a bunch a couple of years ago.
02:20So we're just talking about how much he improved from one year to the next.
02:25And it goes back to a conversation that comes to my head that I had with Phil Kenyon.
02:28We were talking about Scotty and just what he was working on with his putting and just technically what he was trying to do.
02:35And it was initially about this, but he made a comment about Justin Rose and how, I guess, earlier in his career,
02:44maybe when he, before he had gotten to Phil Kenyon was, that was something that Justin was, you know, he was a good putter.
02:51He had, he had his moments. He was a little kind of inconsistent at times, but he's kind of played it.
02:57He's improved himself to where he's actually, you know, I think considered to be one of the better putters in the world.
03:04And it made me think about what happens if, if that happens to Scotty.
03:08And I think he actually believed that Scotty could do it too.
03:11He said, he's an incredible green reader.
03:14He's a, somebody that has a ton of feel.
03:16He's a really good lag putter.
03:18If his technique and his, his mechanics match up with his creative side in which he plays the game,
03:26in which he's such a visual player, he has such good touch and feel.
03:30If he's able to blend those mechanics in, in the stroke consistency, there's no reason why Scotty can't be a top 10 putter in the world.
03:37And I walked away with that conversation thinking that would be bad for everybody else.
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