Scottie Scheffler is sneaky good at one weird skill. You can learn from it

Scottie Scheffler does a lot of things well (obviously) including one thing nobody talks about.

He doesn't miss to the right very often.

Scheffler misses the fairway 37 percent of the time, and when he does, here's how his left-right rough misses break down:

• Left rough tendency: 14.38 percent (108th least on tour)
• Right rough tendency: 8.95 percent on tour (least on tour)

In short he's missing fairways to the left almost twice as often as he's missing them to the right. And while yes, he's still missing to the right more than 8 percent of the time, by tour standards that's not very much. He's one of the most one-sided players on tour.

His overall left miss bias, as measured by the tour, is 62 percent to the left—second only to Akshay Bhatia (who is a lefty, which technically means his bias is different than Schaeffler's).

And this is interesting because Scottie's stock shot off the tee with his driver is a fade, and generally speaking, the go-to miss for players who prefer fades is to the right.

Better a wipey shot that fades too much than a dreaded double cross, which doesn't go the direction you want, the thinking goes. It's why when you look at the players who miss to the left the least on tour, you've got guys who aren't short but are very straight hitters (Aaron Rai and J.T. Poston) and have a strong fade bias (Collin Morikawa, Si Woo Kim, Viktor Hovland, Daniel Berger):

1. Aaron Rai (6.29 percent left misses)
2. Collin Morikawa (7.71 percent)
3. Si Woo Kim (8.68 percent)
4. Viktor Hovland (9.09 percent)
5. J.T. Poston (9.13 percent)
6. Daniel Berger (9.45 percent)

My theory on this is that because Scheffler grew up hitting draws for most of his life, and had lots of success that way in junior golf, left misses don't spook him as much (because that's the traditional miss for draws).

Either way, Scheffler's left miss (I'd call it a pull, but in reality, it's more like a fade that just doesn't fade) makes sense in his golf swing. He tends to get the club a little steep in transition right here.

That's generally a makes-the-ball-go-left move, but he matches it up by pulling his body back up later in the downswing—that's why his feet slide back. Scheffler describes it as a body release, and either way, it's releasing with his body that prevents the clubface from flipping and sending the ball left.

It creates a pretty simple A or B situation: When he doesn't release his body hard, the ball goes left. When he releases his body hard, the ball goes where he wants.

The specifics of Dustin Johnson's golf swing were very different than Scottie's, but his golf swing's match-ups worked in a similar way: DJ's bowed left wrist is inclined to send the ball left; his big body release is inclined to send the ball right. The two offset each other, and when his body doesn't release, the ball goes left.

Anyway, enough of the nerding out. There are a few things we can learn from it for our own game.

Lesson 1: Don't fix things by going slower

Notice how in both the Scottie and DJ examples, it's the body releasing hard that stops the ball from going left. That's because a lot of coaches prefer match-ups that avoid having to move parts of your golf swing slower, because our natural instinct is to go faster.

Here's an example: Let's say you're a golfer who gets your arms stuck behind your body on the downswing because your hips spin out too fast (what young Tiger called his "olé!" swing move). Rather than trying to slow your hips down, you'd work on getting their arms to move faster.

Mind you: This isn't really something to DIY with your own golf swing—talk to a good coach first—but it's a principle to keep in mind. A lot of golfers fall into the trap of trying to fix things by moving slower, then the second they get nervous or excited, they speed up—and the old flaws come roaring back.

"We're constantly tweaking Ludvig's setup to help him get the shot we want," Hans Larsson, Ludvig Åberg's longtime golf swing coach, explains. "If he's struggling to hit a fade, we may flare his lead foot out more, which will allow his body to rotate more and allow him to keep the clubface open."

Lesson 2: Knowing your miss is more important than knowing your good shot

If you've ever taken a lesson before, your coach has probably asked some variation of: What's your miss?

Knowing your miss is incredibly important because, frankly, it's easier to work backwards from what's causing your miss than trying to decode what you did well on your good shots. So pay attention to what the ball is doing as it flies. For that, you'll need to pay extra attention to two things:

1. Where does the ball start?

2. How does the ball curve?

A push and a pull-slice, for instance, may both end in the same direction—to the right—but take very different routes to getting there. A push flies mostly straight out to the right, whereas a pull-slice starts left and curves right. As a result, they're caused by different things.

Here's a handy chart from GOLFTEC that breaks down the reasons for the various misses.

Lesson 3: Practice your opposing miss

Let's say you're struggling with a slice. Sure, you want to hit the ball straight. But the next time you're on the range, don't try to hit the ball straight. Try to hit a hook. The biggest hook that you can. If it goes straight, don't declare victory. Keep trying to hook the ball.

This is called the fight-fire-with-fire method, and it's one of the most underrated tools the rest of us can use to get more control over our golf swings.

As coach Dr. Luke Benoit explains here, our brain works best when we give it parameters. When you let it know what a slice-resulting golf swing feels like, compared to a hook-resulting golf swing. When you know both those things, steering clear of both becomes a little easier.