Tour Coaching

It's been inspiring to watch Scottie Scheffler see results from all the work he's put in with putting coach Phil Kenyon. One of the more common questions I get is about what goes into work like that with a Tour player like Cheyenne Knight (above). There's no question it IS work—making the adjustments to not only roll the ball better but also building the trust and confidence to go with it under the pressure of tournament play. My role as the coach comes in both in the initial work on those adjustments and then as a set of eyes to make sure things don't drift. Whether you're a major-winner on one of the professional tours or a weekend player, it's hard to "see" yourself. Things in your setup and grip can change without you realizing it, and those things compound to produce bad results and often a crisis of confidence.

I experienced it in my own game, and that has informed my coaching. My best competitive season came in 1993, when I was playing mostly on the Nike (now Korn Ferry) Tour. I was working with Fred Griffin down at Grand Cypress, and he had a system he ran with Dr. Ralph Mann where he compared what I was doing to my "model" swing. Throughout that season, I could fly to Orlando and immediately see where I was relative to my model. I don't think it was a coincidence that I won early in the season and finished third on the money list—which got me back to the PGA Tour.