Scottie Scheffler is the best and most consistent golfer on the planet, there is no question about that.
Scheffler has gone from strength to strength over the past two years, and has 10 PGA Tour wins to his name since the start of the 2024 season, in addition to an Olympic gold medal!
After a slow start to 2025, he has firmly established himself as the undisputed world number one over the past two months.
Scheffler has been the model of consistency on the PGA Tour this season, finishing inside the top-25 in all of the 14 events he has played.
The 29-year-old has 11 top-10s to his name as well, including three wins.
Scheffler has a couple of weeks off now, before heading over to the UK for the Genesis Scottish Open and The Open Championship.
And nobody will be surprised if he comes out and wins, or at the very least contends, in both of those tournaments.
Randy Smith once privately admitted what Scottie Scheffler’s one and only weakness is
The standout moment this season for the Dallas native was his PGA Championship victory at Quail Hollow in May.
Scheffler’s coach Randy Smith said his final round was the greatest 18 holes he has ever seen him play, and that’s quite the claim!
The three-time major champion actually managed to win that week without his best stuff during the first 63 holes of the tournament.
And he really struggled at the US Open earlier this month as well, despite ending up in a tie for seventh!
Photo by Ben Jared/PGA TOUR via Getty Images
Scheffler cut a frustrated figure alongside Smith on the driving range at Oakmont, as he struggled with his ball-striking all week long.
And it seems like the problem they were trying to fix has been the world number one’s weakness for a while.
Gary Koch was speaking on Claude Harmon’s Son of a Butch Podcast, and he shared his admiration for Scheffler.
However, he did point out one weakness in the 29-year-old’s game.
“Well, it’s amazing, would be my one word to describe it. It is amazing, just week after week after week, which does remind you of Tiger a little bit. You talk about a complete player. He is very close to that, in my mind. Again, I think his short game is somewhat underrated. I don’t think people talk about it enough, but he seems to be, you know, very adequate, more than adequate with his short game. I would say of all the players that I’ve watched through the Tiger era and now, you know, post Tiger, Scottie plays his irons closer to what Tiger did than anybody I’ve seen. He tends to hit the ball the right distance all the time.
“That was Tiger’s calling card. When he was at his best, you know, he hit the ball the right distance all the time. And to me, that’s something that you can’t teach. I mean, you’re a wonderful teacher. You’re a great teacher,“ Koch said to Harmon. “You can’t teach that. That’s an innate thing that some people have that others don’t. I mean, you can have the greatest technique in the world, but if you don’t have that innate feel and ability to visualize the shot that’s going to go the right distance. And a lot of times, it’s a matter of taking just a little bit of speed off to make the ball go four yards shorter than it normally does. You can’t teach that. You either have that or you don’t. Scottie does. Scottie has that. And you see it time and time again that he hits the ball the right distance with his irons.
“His putting has gotten better, no question about it. The work he’s done with Phil Kenyon and going to the claw grip or whatever you want to call it, on the shorter putting, he seems to be better with that, which was probably his biggest concern in the last two years ago. Can he get better?
“It’ll be interesting to see because he does have a tendency, which every player, as well as I do, every player has tendencies. He has a left miss, and you see it when he’s a little off. The ball wants to start left and then kind of hang left or maybe even go a little farther left.
“And when you’re trying to play a cut shot most of the time, a lot of times that’s not a good thing. And talking to Randy Smith about it, he said a lot of times it’s in his setup. You know, he just gets set up a little cockeyed and, you know, the ball starts left of where he wants and the face isn’t open enough to get the ball to come back to the right.
“But, you know, and I think that was on full display at Oakmont on Saturday afternoon. And at the PGA on Sunday too, on the front nine, he was missing everything to the left. Can you maybe minimize that tendency? It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Scottie figures that out”
Breaking down Scottie Scheffler’s driving stats and what they mean
So, is the evidence there to back up what Koch said about Scheffler’s driving? You bet there is.
Overall, Scheffler is the best driver of the golf ball on tour, but this season, he has missed fairways to the left more regularly than 116 other players have on the PGA Tour.
Here is how his driving stats look in 2025:
CategoryTotalRankDriving distance303.368thDriving accuracy63.8533rdLeft rough tendency14.31%117thRight rough tendency9.72%3rdStroks gained off the tee+0.7071st
The left miss off the tee is clearly something that has plagued Scheffler this season, and he will undoubtedly be working incredibly hard alongside Smith to fix it.
When players set up to hit the fade off the tee, a slight pull when coming over the top of the golf ball is a fairly common miss, and the world number one has done that far too regularly for his liking this season.
As Koch suggested though, Scheffler is the best player in the world for a reason, and he will most likely figure out the root cause issue sooner rather than later.
