[PHOTO: Michael Reaves]
With a win at the Memorial Tournament, Scottie Scheffler became the first player to notch five wins before the US Open since Tom Watson in 1980. That’s when Sansabelt pants and persimmon woods were the order of the day. Although Scheffler’s equipment is decidedly more modern, his winning score of eight-under-par was old-school, matching that of 1980 Memorial winner, Australia’s David Graham.
Muirfield Village Golf Club was at its testing best. Still, Scheffler knew the final day was going to require some fortitude.
“This is one of those places where there’s certain holes where you just got to step up and hit a great shot,” said Scheffler after the third round. “There’s a lot of spots out there where if you play too conservative, you can get into some pretty tough spots pretty quick, so just do your best to execute and when you need to, just really hit great shots.”
One of those great shots was a 16-foot par putt at the par-3 16th hole that kept him one in front of Collin Morikawa, who must be getting tired of facing Scheffler on Sunday (see: Masters, RBC Heritage). Scheffler changed to a TaylorMade Spider Tour X X1 mallet putter from his Scotty Cameron blade at the Arnold Palmer Invitational after doing extensive testing at home and has been on a tear ever since. The putter is half-an-inch longer than his previous model and has an L-Neck hosel and TaylorMade’s True Path alignment aid on top with a full line sightline on top. The putter has 3 degrees of loft with a lie angle of 72 degrees. The insert is an 80/20 TaylorMade Pure Roll insert and the grip is a Golf Pride pistol.
Although Scheffler putted well enough to post positive strokes gained/putting numbers (picking up almost two shots on the field), the approach game was more quintessential Scheffler as he ranked first in strokes gained/approach the green, gaining a remarkable 13-plus strokes on the field. He also topped the field in greens in regulation.
Scheffler’s TaylorMade P7TW irons are based on Tiger Woods’ muscleback blades and have True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 shafts and Golf Pride Tour Velvet grips.
Muscleback blades? Maybe Scheffler is more 1980s-like than we think.
What Scottie Scheffler had in the bag at the 2024 Memorial:
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Driver: TaylorMade Qi10 (Fujikua Ventus Black 7X), 8 degrees
3-wood: TaylorMade Qi10, 15 degrees
Irons (3-4): Srixon ZU85; (5-PW): TaylorMade P7TW
Wedges: Titleist Vokey SM8 (50, 56 degrees); Titleist Vokey WedgeWorks prototype (60 degrees)
Putter: TaylorMade Spider Tour X X1
