Phil Kenyon, Gary Woodland’s putting coach, is an instructor to many of the top players in the world, including Rory McIlroy, and has developed quite the reputation as being one of the best putting coaches in golf. Kenyon’s stature continues to build with Woodland’s US Open victory, with a résumé that will speak for itself. Except, on Monday after his pupil’s victory at Pebble Beach, he took to Twitter to send a burn to a Twitter user who criticised him in May.
Woodland credited his work with Kenyon, and how he simplified Woodland’s approach to his putts, which helped him reduce the tension in his pre-putt routine and lessen his anxiety. That helped Woodland gained an insane 8.2 strokes/putting on the field at Pebble Beach. Kenyon was having none of the criticism of one social-media egg, despite the burn coming long ago.
https://twitter.com/SwashPutting/status/1140598258886205440
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Kenyon’s work helped make Woodland a more complete player, as the 35-year-old has always struggled on the greens relative to his world-class ball-striking. Woodland had only three US PGA Tour titles to his credit previous to his US Open breakthrough, and Woodland converted on a 54-hole lead for the first time in his career.
The big-hitting Kansas native made putt after putt to save pars throughout the week at Pebble, with some huge pressure putts on Saturday and Sunday. Woodland credited his work with Kenyon (and coaches Butch Harmon and Pete Cowen, too) for that improvement, and Kenyon, with his tweet, is obviously making sure others are aware of his prowess.
We certainly are – and we’ve learned – you’d better not come at Kenyon. He’ll remember the haters.
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