B BODY / SWING ANALYSIS
FADE ON COMMAND Matthieu Pavon is an emerging star after recent swing adjustments By Luke Kerr-Dineen
significant. In addition to winning on the DP World Tour for the first time last Oc- tober, he captured his first PGA Tour title at the Farmers Insurance Open in Janu- ary, one of three top-10 finishes in his first four starts as a tour member. Pavon carried the momentum to June, finishing fifth at the US Open at Pinehurst. “By removing the left side of the course, it gave me confidence in my game,” he says. “That’s pretty big, because if you’re confident in yourself, you can do pretty much whatever you want on the course.” Pavon’s previous tendency was to get his right elbow too far behind his body on
MATTHIEU PAVON IS USED to playing a lot of curve, espe- cially with the driver. The
31-year-old Frenchman and PGA Tour rookie hits his patented left-to-right fade about 95 percent of the time off the tee, says his South African swing coach, Jamie Gough. “Moving the ball left to right is really big for me,” Pavon says, “because I want to take away the left side of the course.” It wasn’t until last year, however, that Pavon had the fade consistently dialled in, the result of several years of hard work with Gough. The payoff has been
PHOTOGRAPHS BY DOM FURORE
110 GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2024
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