KENYON DISCIPLES
MATT FITZPATRICK Made 52 percent of putts from 10 feet (11th, PGA Tour, 2025). Matt Fitzpatrick has a fast, up-tempo putting stroke and has worked with Kenyon since Fitzpatrick was a teen. For swing technique, he has worked extensively with coach Mark Blackburn. “Trying to avoid decelerating is a big myth,” explains Kenyon, who believes that peak acceleration should happen at the end of the backstroke. “The best putters actually move more towards decelerating the putter at impact. It can be much more difficult to control pace when you’re rapidly accelerating the putter through impact.” One of Swash’s key principles was smooth acceleration during the stroke. Kenyon built on that principle by quantifying it. He measured where in the stroke acceleration takes place and what changes in the body when it does. It’s how he developed the coin drill. Place a coin on the back of your putter and try to heave it off on your backstroke. If you can do that, you’re applying the right amount of force at the right time. It’s a staple of Fitzpat- rick’s putting practice. In seven full seasons on the PGA Tour, Fitzpatrick has ranked inside the top 30 in SG: Putting five times.
TOMMY FLEETWOOD Sank nearly 10 percent of putts from over 25 feet (second). Tommy Fleetwood’s putting stroke was solid, but he needed help with green reading. In 2016, Fleetwood had fallen all the way to 188th in the world in no small part because he over-estimated the accuracy of his eyes. So, he hired Kenyon, who taught him AimPoint, a system developed by Mark Sweeney where golfers use the feeling in their feet to calculate the degrees of slope underneath them. You’ll see Kenyon and Fleetwood per- form an intricate dance with a level tool before many rounds. Fleetwood reads the putt then heads to the ball. Kenyon checks it using the level then follows him. Fleetwood then sets up. Kenyon gets behind him, using the level’s edge to see where he’s aiming. After Fleet- wood hits the putt, he reveals his read and aim. Kenyon determines how cor- rect he was. It takes about a minute per putt, and the pair usually do it for 15 minutes before the first tee. For full swing, Fleetwood worked with Butch Harmon in the run-up to his 2025 season. He has finished inside the top 30 on tour in SG: Putting in three of his last four seasons, won the FedEx Cup, and ascended to World No. 3.
JUSTIN ROSE Converted 97.5 percent of putts from four feet and in (sixth). Justin Rose, a Blackburn full-swing client, hired Phil Kenyon in 2016. Just prior to doing so, Rose had met with golf statistician Mark Broadie and asked him to reverse engineer a strat- egy to get him to World No 1. Broadie looked at the numbers and found that while Rose could make marginal gains in all areas of his game, the biggest gain he could make was on the greens, spe- cifically, on mid-range putts around seven feet. Rose ranked 122nd in SG: Putting at the time. Kenyon discovered that the thumb of Rose’s right hand would move subtly towards his right forearm at the start of the downstroke, a movement in the wrist known as a radial deviation. It was a reliable feature of his full swing, but when he applied this force via his wrist on the greens, this subtle move- ment would twist the putterface open. Unlike with his full swing, Rose didn’t have time to roll his wrist back over, so he’d miss putts right because of an open clubface, or occasionally overcompen- sate and pull them left. Kenyon convinced Rose to adopt a claw grip. With his hand position more on top of the club, any movement
92 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
MAY 2026
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