Why You're 3-Putting (And It's Not Your Stroke) with Golf Legend, Scott Fawcett
Colin and Ross sit down with Scott Fawcett, the brain behind the DECADE Course Management System and the man who caddied for a then unknown Will Zalatoris when he won the Texas Amateur and the US Junior back in 2014. Scott has worked in some capacity with roughly a third of the PGA Tour, holds three quantitative degrees, and once played pro golf himself, which is how he discovered the unromantic but inconvenient truth that the lads at the very top are not just better ball strikers, they are also far better thinkers. He brings all of that to a conversation pitched squarely at the two sides of the par.
Things kick off in the most heretical place possible: putting. Scott makes the case that leaving some putts short from fifteen feet and beyond is not a sin, it is maths, and that speed control alone fixes the vast majority of bad putting rounds. From there the conversation opens out into the full DECADE philosophy. Why the flag is the biggest distraction in golf, why bogey avoidance drives lower scores far more than chasing birdies (the fractional bogey idea alone is worth the price of admission), how Ross genuinely saved shots by swapping driver for a five wood off one tee at his home course, and how big your shot pattern actually is when you are honest about it, even on a Tour pro's sand wedge.
The chat rounds out with strategy from the trees (Scott's lovely framing of adversity versus opportunity), why nearly every Tour player now owns one shape off the tee rather than working it both ways, and the mental side of all of this, including Scott's confession that he used to be the worst hothead in professional golf. He finishes with his single biggest tip for the twenty plus handicap brigade, and it is simpler than you would expect.
Episode Highlights
🟢 Scott explains the maths of capture size and why hitting a putt two feet past the hole actually makes the cup 55% smaller, with stories from his Friday wolf game to back it up
🟢 The two foot circle drill: Scott's go to speed control practice routine from 20 to 30 feet, and the college player who fixed his three putt problem in a fortnight by doing nothing else
🟢 The Will Zalatoris hole in one at the US Open, where Scott was less interested in the shot itself and more interested in the fact that the flag was not Will's target. Seven yards right was
🟢 The fractional bogey theory: why a double is two and a half times worse than a bogey, not twice as bad, and why Scottie Scheffler's run of wins came mostly from bogey avoidance rather than extra birdies
🟢 Ross's real world example of swapping driver for a five wood off the back tee on a 340 yard par four at his home course, going from half a shot above par to making pars on average
🟢 Scott's one tip for higher handicappers in the closing minutes: have a very clear, visualised intention on every single shot, and be willing to say it out loud
Gear & Resources Mentioned
🟢 Scott Fawcett's DECADE Course Management System: https://decade.golf
🟢 DECADE Golf on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/decade_golf
🟢 The DECADE app (available in the App Store)
🟢 DECADE Breaking 90, Scott's upcoming app aimed at 15 to 25 handicappers
🟢 Will Zalatoris, PGA Tour player and Scott's original guinea pig back in 2014
🟢 Mark Broadie's book Every Shot Counts, the foundational text on Strokes Gained
🟢 Raymond Floyd's book The Art of Scoring
🟢 Lou Stagner, Scott's go to source for amateur golf data
Chapter List
00:00 Welcome and intro to the show
00:34 Scott Fawcett joins Colin and Ross
01:25 Why leaving putts short isn't a sin
04:26 The college putting problem and capture size
07:18 The two foot circle drill for speed control
11:09 Cam Smith and the mindset of not trying to make putts
12:48 What DECADE actually stands for
16:14 The cardiologist analogy: is DECADE only for elites?
20:19 Course management for the mid 20s handicap
20:51 Why the flag is the biggest distraction in golf
25:07 Ross swaps driver for a five wood and saves shots
26:28 The fractional bogey theory
31:42 Should different handicaps approach the same pin differently?
34:33 Shot patterns and the 20 yard circle
37:39 Owning one shape off the tee, and the Rory question
43:06 Strategy in the trees: adversity or opportunity
49:01 The mental side of course management
55:18 Scott's one tip for the higher handicapper
58:48 Where to find Scott online
