- 24/06/2025
In this video, Joe 'The Pro' Ferguson talks you through how to shape the ball in every direction - just like the world no.1 and newly crowned FedEx Cup Champion Scottie Scheffler does so easily! One of the things that makes Scheffler such a dominant force in the game is his ability to find fairways by tailoring the shots he hits to the shape of the hole and the conditions he's playing in. After watching this video to the end, you'll have the advice you need to be able to pull off the same type of shots - high, low, draws and fades - which should help you find more fairways and shoot lower scores.
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00:00Now Scotty Scheffler is playing some most incredible and most consistent golf
00:03we've seen for many many years. Now there's a lot to like about his game but
00:07the thing I've really noticed and stands out to me the most is his driving. One of
00:12the most creative drivers of the golf ball in the game, not afraid to move it
00:15left to right, right to left and varied trajectory to make things a little bit
00:18easier for himself. I want to know how he does it so I've come to the magnificent
00:23Royal Liverpool Golf Club host of last year's Open to find out and give you
00:27some tips and pointers on how you can drive the ball more like Scotty
00:30Scheffler. One of the things that impresses me most about Scheffler is the
00:34bang for his buck he gets out of his speed. Now he's by no means slow but he's not
00:38the quickest on tour and he's disproportionately high up those
00:41distance standings and how I believe he does that is he factors in
00:45conditions and he alters his trajectory to maximize that the most. So for example
00:49I'm on the driving range here at Royal Liverpool and we've got a nice helping
00:53breeze so one of the first things Scheffler would do is try and increase that
00:57launch angle, increase the peak height, get the ball in the air for longer and
01:00maximize that assistance from the wind. That sounds really easy but how does he
01:04do it? It's as simple as a ball position change he's very much manipulates that
01:09ball position to create the flights he wants. For example if I'm just making my
01:13normal swing here I might be kind of just inside my left heel might be my
01:18standard ball position and generally speaking that gets me hitting up on it
01:22slightly which is great and that gives me the nice neutral flight that I want but I
01:25want to launch this into the stratosphere so I'm going to alter that at least half a
01:30ball to a ball further forward in my stance so I want to see that more off my
01:34left toe so what that does straightaway is it puts me my stern and my head more
01:39behind the golf ball and increases that attack angle which will help me launch
01:44the ball up into the air. Now the other thing you want to do here as well as
01:47changing that ball position is don't be afraid to give it a good whack we need
01:52speed to be able to generate height and distance and we've got a forgiving wind
01:56here we slightly miscue it and it goes left or right that wind downwind tends to
02:01help to straighten the ball flight up rather than accentuate any miss so don't
02:05be afraid to put some extra oomph into these ones when you're trying to launch it
02:08into the air so like I said ball position forward feel like it's off that left toe
02:13for a right-hander sets me up behind the ball and then I'm in a good position to
02:18just give it a ride so that's exactly what I was hoping for staying behind the
02:27ball increasing that launch angle and really giving it a good whack has really
02:31increased that peak height and that can be a really strong weapon downwind now
02:36conversely to downwind obviously for every hole you play down when you might play
02:40one back into the wind and not only in windy conditions when the ground's firmer
02:44I've seen Scheffler bring that ball flight down that peak height comes right
02:47down to maximize that forward momentum and that run so again how does he do
02:52that similar but opposite to the high shot so the ball goes fractionally back in
02:57the stance but not too far back a lot of people make that mistake of thinking I'm
03:01going to keep this ball down get the ball right back in the stance and that
03:04brings the attack angle right down which actually increases the spin so it's a
03:08very subtle move back maybe half a ball in the stance so again from my normal
03:13position which might be inside my left heel maybe half a ball closer to the
03:18center of the stance that just reduces that attack angle slightly without it
03:22becoming excessive and the next thing you need to do which might be
03:25counterintuitive when you're trying to maximize your distance just slow that
03:29swing down to a more comfortable pace the less momentum we put into that the
03:33less spin we're likely to generate this is all about taking spin off so a nice
03:38comfortable smooth motion with the ball half a ball back should all things being
03:42equal just come out a little bit flatter less spin when it hits the deck it just
03:46wants to go forward so again got a slightly lower t-peg as well than the
03:51last one because we don't need that launch we're trying to encourage a flatter
03:55launch angle so instead of being off the left heel I'm going to move it back in
03:59my stance just a fraction and all I'm going to do is make my normal swing but just
04:06to the slightly smoother what feels like 80% motion to me
04:14exactly again as I was hoping for just taking that pace off the swing having the
04:18ball slightly back in the stance that's come off so much flatter and I would
04:22imagine five to six hundred revs less spin so when that hits the deck it's going
04:26to want to bounce and run and run and run and the wind barely touch that so that's
04:30a really useful weapon just altering tee height ball position and swing pace and
04:35you can create a completely different flight which is really useful another
04:39thing I love about Sheffler's driving is how he's not afraid to start moving the
04:43ball from right to left and left to right at will he's not one of those one
04:46dimensional players who just repeats the same shot and the reasons I like that
04:50twofold it makes fairways wider so all of a sudden if you're shaping the ball with
04:56the contours of a fairway with the curve of a fairway all of a sudden the
05:00angles are much more suitable to hit those fairways and create more accuracy so
05:05you'll see him a lot on right to left right to left dog leg holes like the
05:0810th Augusta for example the hooks he was hitting around there and the
05:12masters were absolutely spot-on similarly 11 you'd see him fading the ball
05:16around the corner so within two holes into completely different shapes of shot
05:20which is to open up the angles and make it easier to hit those fairways but
05:24also on the tour I've seen him do it to maximize distance all of a sudden if
05:27you've got a slope off the right and you've got that ball hitting the deck and
05:31it's coming more down the slope with a right to left shape you're going to get
05:34some more roll out and again you really maximize that distance he really gets the
05:38most out of his output so how does he do it so for the right to left one from my
05:43point of view and for those of you at home it's probably best to keep it really
05:46simple some people like to feel things through impact with rolling of wrists etc I
05:51think most simplistic way to change ball flight is just through setup it's a
05:55simple path and face relationship so if I want the ball to start right and
06:00curve to the left simply put my face needs to be pointing left of my path at
06:04impact so I preset a right path by aiming a little bit further right than I
06:09ordinarily would and I just feel like the club head is towed in a little bit
06:13and then all I want to do is continue to swing out what feels to right field
06:18over there but with my clubface pointing a little bit left of that the
06:21fake the face being left of the path will create the spin axis to turn the
06:25ball right to left so it's as simple as that body aims right face toed in a
06:30little bit swing up your feet line
06:35so perfect my path is out to the right face was a little bit left of it all
06:41started right holding against the wind just turned over slightly and that's
06:44exactly what I was hoping for okay so left to right as opposed to right to left as
06:49you would imagine it's just a mirror image we do the opposite we want the
06:52ball to start left so I'm going to move my feet and my body alignment to the left
06:56and I'm going to have my face slightly open to that target so we're creating the
07:00face-to-path relationships that's going to make the ball spin and do what we need
07:04now another thing Scheffler does on these left to right shots you see really
07:07varies the tee height so he's got kind of a keep the ball in play shot that I see
07:12him using an awful lot where he pegs the ball down quite significantly it just
07:16creates kind of a more squeezy impact that just tightens that dispersion knows
07:21it's going to go left to right so you can be really comfortable with a left
07:24start line so I'm going to do the same way I just peg it down I'm going to open
07:28my stance and my body up down the left hand side about where I want to see it
07:32starting leave the face a little bit open and I'm just going to swing along my
07:36body line as before
07:45so that's exactly what I wanted to see so again similar to the right to left I
07:50preset that path to the left so the ball started left the face being open to that
07:54it's created the spin we needed and it's just bled a little bit to the right at
07:58the top of its flight so all of a sudden if you know what curvature is going to
08:01come you've got a much better idea of where you need to start the ball and
08:05what's going to and you can use it on certain holes to suit the topography to
08:08suit the shape and really open up a whole new world of possibilities there
08:13you have it four really simple ways to dramatically alter ball flights both from
08:17a left to right and a high and low perspective now a lot of people think
08:20that's just for elite golfers but I hope I've shown you just a couple of really
08:24simple alterations to set up can make all the difference and maybe you can start
08:29driving it a little bit more like Scotty Scheffler
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