Many challenged Scottie Scheffler today at the Players Championship. Min Woo Lee made a birdie on the seventh hole to get within two strokes. Then Tyrrell Hatton birdied the last five holes to post 12-under and sit just two behind Scheffler. The 2022 Masters champion, however, brushed all of them aside with a birdie run started by a chip-in on the eight hole and culminated with a nifty up-and-down at the short par-4 12th to make it five birdies in a row, leading to a comfortable win and a return to world No.1.
For Scheffler it marked the 10th time he had been in a final pairing since 2020, and the familiarity with the atmosphere was evident. Although some, including Lee, eschewed driver on many holes, Scheffler comfortably used his TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus driver as a weapon. Scheffler ranked first in driving distance at 279.7 metres (305.9 yards) and ranked second in strokes gained/off the tee, gaining more than five shots on the field.
Scheffler’s driver is an 8-degree head with an actual loft of 7.9 degrees and a lie angle of 59 degrees. His Fujikura Ventus Black 7X shaft is cut to 45 inches, tipped an inch for added control. The weights on the sole of the club are a 19-gram backweight and an 18-gram moveable front weight placed in a neutral position. His grip is interesting as the Golf Pride Tour Velvet 58 he uses has a reminder rib, and he uses six layers of tape underneath, according to TaylorMade.
Often overlooked in the bag of the winner is their golf ball, but Scheffler knows the value of his Titleist Pro V1.
“I feel like you’re always playing a different type of shot,” he said via Titleist. “Rarely am I just hitting a straight up stock shot, you’re always trying to do a little something with the golf ball. And so having that consistency and knowing that golf ball’s going to react the way I need it to react when it comes off the face and when it goes into the green – especially when you get in a tour setup where the greens are crazy firm, the wind is blowing – you got to have total control over where that golf ball is going to go.”
Scheffler also led the field in greens in regulation with his TaylorMade P7TW irons, but perhaps just as important was his work with the wedges. Minimising mistakes is paramount at TPC Sawgrass, and Scheffler made only five bogeys all week – thanks to getting up and down 13 of 18 times, ranked fourth (which does not take into account some sporty short-game work that led to birdies).
Scheffler uses a 60-degree Titleist Vokey SM9 WedgeWorks model that he uses almost exclusively around the greens. That Scheffler has such a solid short game is no surprise. As a youngster he often would get hand-me-down clubs from tour pros such as Justin Leonard at his home club of Royal Oaks in Texas. Among them was a wedge Scheffler practiced with so much that the grooves were completely eliminated from the centre of the face.
And now Scheffler joins Leonard as a winner of the Players Championship. Talk about coming full circle.
The clubs Scottie Scheffler used to win the 2023 Players Championship:
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Driver: TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus (Fujikura Ventus Black 7X), 8 degrees
3-wood: TaylorMade Stealth 2, 15 degrees
Irons (3-4): Srixon ZU85; (5-PW): TaylorMade P7TW
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM8 (50, 56 degrees); Titleist Vokey SM9; WedgeWorks prototype (60 degrees)
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Special Select Timeless Tourtype GSS prototype
