Philly Mick's mixed bag: Bomb & Gouge: Golf Digest

Philly Mick's mixed bag

Sunday, August 20, 2006 Comments

BOMB: Greetings from Medinah, where the weather is hot, the golf hotter and Phil Mickelson is up to his old tricks again with his bats. Yep, one thing you can always count on from ol’ Lefty is that he’ll be doing something with his equipment. Two drivers at Augusta, a 64-degree wedge at Winged Foot. So what did Phil do next? How about using two drivers AND the 64-degree wedge at Medinah. And it’s not like he’s being Lawson Little and carrying 26 clubs. Phil simply left his pitching wedge and sand wedge out of the bag. Although I don’t really recommend not having a pitching wedge, I gotta hand it to the man. No player on tour in my mind so expertly matches set to course. Sure, some cynics, maybe even you Mr. Gouge, may say he’s over-thinking things, but I truly believe every player out there could learn from him by reviewing what clubs they do and do not hit on their home course during a round. Yesterday Mickelson said he hit each driver seven times and plans to stay with the pair all week because, “the two clubs I took out, the PW and SW, are clubs I really don’t need here.” And even you can admit that if you’re not going to use them, there’s really no use in carrying them with you.

GOUGE: You can praise Philly Mick all you want. In fact, logically all that you say makes some degree of sense, maybe even a greater deal of sense. Too many amateurs have stuff in their bags that does nothing other than take up space—and I'm not talking about that rotting banana from last Tuesday. The 14 slots in your quiver account for some dang valuable real estate, so if any of them aren't producing, it's time to get the plow out and grow a new crop. That means get rid of your long irons, check the spacing on your wedge gaps and maybe switch out that 3-wood (only tour players can consistently hit 3-woods off the deck) and sticking a 4-wood in its place. But let me throw something else out at you and Phil’s celebrated bag of tricks: Could it be that he is violating the spirit and intent of the rules, specifically the rules of the USGA and R&A about equipment. We've heard this all before at the Masters, but by incorporating a second driver into the mix, Phil reportedly can get two different results from the same swing by switching drivers. He's directly running counter to at least the words produced in the USGA-R&A Joint Statement of Principles. In part that statement reads: "The purpose of the rules is to protect golf's best traditions, to prevent an over-reliance on technological advances rather than sill, and to ensure that skill is the dominant element of success throughout the game." I'm not saying Phil doesn't have skill. They all do. But using equipment to achieve specific ballflight objectives (not unequivocably related to the swing you athletically produce) just seems wrong, like having a hole-seeking gyroscope in your golf ball. Yes, it requires skill to hit the driver with a square clubface at 120 miles per hour. I think the case can be made, however, that it requires the skill the game actually originally demanded, however, to make the ball draw off the tee on one hole and fade on another. The Joint Statement of Principles was an interesting document. Whether it’s actually an action plan remains to be seen.

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Comments

Archived Comments (4) Click to expand

Just so I'm clear, are you guys seriously recommending that average golfers have numerous golf clubs in their trunk, just so they can match up with course conditions?

Isn't that a huge handout to the equipment industry? And shouldn't players, instead of being encouraged to purchase more and more equipment that they probably can't use effectively, instead spend that money on range balls and rounds? In other words, spend that money on practice?

All of this equipment discussion is ultimately absurd if you don't have a good swing. Sure, Tiger can tell the difference between this driver or that driver; can the average player? Really? Of course not.

GOUGE responds: Seriously? Yes, we are. A huge handout to the equipment industry? That's pretty funny. How about wanting to maximize your potential? On a windy day, do you really think a hybrid 4-iron type club is better than a traditional 4-iron? The idea is to give the competent player options to best attack a particular golf course. As for spending the money on practice instead, well, that's just pathetically inept logic. It's not an either/or proposition. You better commit to optimizing your skills through practice and lessons, but without the proper tools (custom fit on a launch monitor, by the way), you might as well be using that time walking around in nature to go hunting instead.

Posted by Sam Wilkinson August 28, 2006 10:27 PM

I enjoy reading this blog. You guys should update it more frequently.

I have one comment about Gouges statement that phil is violating the spirit of the USGA rules by having two drivers that produce different ball flights. I find this statement quite idiotic. Just because they are both called drivers does not mean they can be called the same club. His two drivers actually have two different degrees of loft and one is shorter than the other. The only way this argument could even be close to valid is if both drivers had the exact same dimensions and loft with the only difference being one had a draw bias and the other fade.

Please don't come up with stupid ideas to criticize great players who are thinking outside the box.

GOUGE responds: Stupid ideas. Right. I talk to the people who make Phil's special clubs. And every tour player's special clubs. There's a lot of tweaking that goes on well beyond length and loft changes. The internal weighting on some of these heads are geared to fight a particular weakness in a player's swing. Sometimes even face angles are massively altered (Vijay's driver is five or six degrees open to avoid the hook, for example.) It's legal certainly. Still don't feel it's right.

Posted by Mitch September 1, 2006 7:06 PM

Re: But let me throw something else out at you and Phils celebrated bag of tricks: ....... Phil reportedly can get two different results from the same swing by switching drivers.

Don't you get two different results by the same swing with a 9-iron and Pitching wedge ? Why would the pair of clubs (2 drivers) be illegal and the pair of clubs (9-iron and PW) be legal ?

GOUGE responds: I'm not talking different distances. I'm talking different directions. To make the ball go left or right, should require physical swing adjustments, not club adjustments. Just one man's opinion.

Posted by Bobby September 21, 2006 2:00 PM

i agree with gouge. I also believe that something has to be done, in terms of rules, that will protect "golf's best traditions." I find it repulsive that the world's best golfer had to resort to changing his equipment just to 'keep up' with the 'young guys'(see Tiger Woods' HOW I GOT MY POWER ADVANTAGE BACK under Tiger's driver sequence article). Not only a longer, lighter, bigger driver, but also a prototype ball? To me that is an "..over-reliance on Technological advances..." Club manufacturers are marketing their new equipment as more forgiving and easier to hit; Heck, who couldn't hit a 460cc club. Sure manufacturers are the business of making money, but, please, not at the sacrifice of the game. I'm not saying that today's players aren't talented, but Hogan, Miller, Palmer, Nicklaus and the like scored just as well as players today, without the equipment; now that is skill.

GOUGE responds: A fair theory, but that's not to say golfers of the past didn't try to advance the technology of their tools. Alan Robertson and Old Tom Morris made clubs. Nicklaus tweaked his shafts. Arnold Palmer has a club workshop that's the size of a Home Depot, and for crying out loud, Ben Hogan had his own golf company. We're just better and faster today at advancing the art form.

Posted by Brady Harnage October 2, 2006 1:50 AM