Phil Mickelson is, for lack of a better phrase, not Ben Hogan. But, for lack of a better phrase, Ben Hogan was no Phil Mickelson, either. (I can't exactly envision a scenario where the Hawk would be sitting around swapping stories with a room full of people who claim to look like him while TV cameras rolled.)
    But it's a new era in golf and nowhere are those changing times more apparent than watching how Mickelson is attempting to bring the once mighty monster that was Colonial to its knees. He is doing it with an aggressiveness off the tee that is equal parts Hulk Hogan and Stephen Hawking. It is long range ballistic missiles with precision accuracy. It's like Dresden comes to Baghdad before the Green Zone. And it may be redefining how to play venerable Colonial with modern equipment technology.
    Mickelson's one-shot lead is impressive stuff, not because he's rising to the occasion at a tournament that he personally (and commercially) is trying to revitalize, but because he's brought a thinking man's approach to the Bomb & Gouge mentality of his younger PGA Tour brethren. Mickelson is beating the band as the tournament sponsor's primary endorsee (I'm not sure how much air time he got on Saturday, but his Q-rating doubled by 5:30), but winning and for all intents and purposes serving as the unofficial host would be an impressive double.
    More impressive, though, is the education he's providing to the rest of the golf world, providing they're willing to pay attention. It goes like this: You use all the tools at your disposal to win. That includes changing up your bag by playing five wedges because that's the way to attack the golf course. Too bad, few of his playing competitors have that kind of courage. Or smarts.
    Mickelson's program for Colonial includes a 47-, 50-, 55-, 60- and 64-degree wedge. But it works. While it's admirable that the shorter hitting Stephen Ames and Rod Pampling are just a shot back of America's biggest TV star, they are playing a different and, one might argue, inferior and outdated game. They are playing the angles and working the ball around corners. They are laying back short of bunkers. One of them is even playing some holes with a 2-iron off the tee and a 4-iron into the green. Good luck to them. Even Ames was wistful about Colonial under seige Saturday evening.
    "There is certain holes where if you fly it 270, 275, yes, the hole becomes obsolete," said Ames after his well-crafted 64. "You got a lob wedge in there. That's the unfortunate thing with this golf course.  Some holes have become that way. You can take the trouble out of the way by bombing the driver over. It's not that kind of golf course where you have to shape it off the tee and land it in between the traps. That's the unfortunate thing. Back in the old days it must have been a hell of a golf course, playing with a Persimmon head. It must have been real fun."
    Mickelson meanwhile is using five wedges because that's how you score, and scoring, not finesse and majestic 2-irons, is how you win now on tour.
    "My scoring takes place around the greens," Mickelson said in his Saturday post-round press conference, "so I want to have as many options as possible to tackle the different lies and the different shots that we encounter in some of these conditions."
    When I suggested his approach was unique, the pro of a thousand quips slickly replied, "But who is here talking to you?"
    It was a little Hogan-esque, now that I think about it. And since Mickelson has played Colonial some days without a 3-wood and some days without a 6-iron, he may be more like Hogan than we've given him credit for. After all, it was Hogan who once said of leaving a certain club out of his bag at Merion, another venerable layout cowering in the onslaught of a great champion: "there are no 7-iron shots at Merion." For Mickelson, there are plenty of wedge shots at Colonial, and that's why he's carrying five. Does it matter? He's leading and he's playing more aggressively smart than anyone else. His average approach shot is 16 yards shorter than his next two nearest rivals tomorrow. I like his chances. With those odds, you can leave some of the longer clubs at home and add to your short club arsenal. Funny, no one else thought of that. Except maybe Ben Hogan.

GOUGE: I'm spending the weekend in Fort Worth watching Phil Mickelson do his best Ben Hogan impression. A thought occurs to me:
    The prevailing wisdom is that Colonial Country Club, venerable site of this week’s Crowne Plaza Invitational, is like one big gallon of three-week-old milk. It has reached its expiration date. It is, the talking heads of golf expertdom suggest, a victim of golf equipment technology. Its unique charm and challenge lie in I-Am-Legend-like ruins in the wake of 350-yard drives. Its trees and angles and Perry Maxwell rolls and bunkering are nothing more intimidating than a trilobite. In short, a fossil.
This may be true. Still, it is alarming to those of us who remember Colonial as something more historically significant than the TPC of Scottsdale that the course that drew the greatest of respect from Ben Hogan has been beaten into submission by virtual nobodies with regularity in recent years. Johnson Wagner, who is not to be confused with Hogan, shot 63 on Thursday to mark the sixth straight year somebody opened the Colonial tournament with a sub-64 round. Those six players, of course, have won nothing more remarkable than an NEC Invitational.
    But when you go out on the golf course, you wonder. Especially, when you take a trip around the anachronism’s third, fourth and fifth holes, affectionately known to locals as the “horrible horseshoe.” More than a thousand yards of irritable bowel syndrome, the combination of the 467-yard par-4 third, the 252-yard par-3 fourth and 472-yard par-4 5th can bruise more than a few courtesy car-fed egos. These three holes are not the longest in the world, they do not scream contrived peril like the nefarious 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass, and they do not force a player to do anything other than play great shots with a mind stronger than six-way forged carbon steel. Do each of these holes play shorter thanks to a better golf ball, jacked up irons and hot-face drivers? Sure. Do they play any less difficult? I wonder. Midway through round 2, the field played each of them slightly over par. But this is merely an exercise in statistics. We already know hey are hard holes. For long hitters, the dogles on Holes 3 & 5 are uncomfortable in all the right places. Those less long can cut corners, but only after their respective courage has been firmly affixed to the sticking post. 
    But there are hard holes everywhere, even at my 5,784-yard home course. What gives me pause, what turns me in two directions is what I see at Colonial’s easiest holes. For instance, let’s look at No. 2. It’s a 387-yard gentle dogleg right with framing bunkers and trees at 260 on the inside corner and 290 or so on the outside corner. I just went and checked, and by day’s end on Friday just four balls ended up short of those bunkers and another seven went in one of those bunkers. That means 115 or so players played the hole as if those “hazards” weren’t even there. This isn’t a good thing, is it? In the afternoon three-ball of Anthony Kim, Jim Furyk and Justin Leonard (one bomber and two guys not ranked in the top 160 in driving distance), no one had more than 81 yards in (Leonard missed the sweet spot on his tee ball apparently), and Kim and Furyk were closer than 50 yards. This seems a little wrong, like Bob Hope Chrysler Classic wrong. Until you realize that half-wedge shots to a tabletop green are not a gimme. Their scores: 4, 4 and 4.
But is that enough to make Colonial still relevant? With major championship courses approaching four-and-a-half miles in length, some of golf’s decision-makers would say a course of Colonial’s 7,000 yards of length is no longer worthy.
    You decide. I truly don’t know if it’s time to retire Colonial or give it a raise. Either way, if the tour has outgrown a course that forces decision-making and courage like Colonial, then it’s probably growing in the wrong direction.

GOUGE: I don't know about you, but I'm going to see Speed Racer this weekend. Might even bring the kids. But all the speed talk has me delving into the PGA Tour's stats warehouse, which has been noticeably enhanced with the inclusion of new data from the ballflight monitoring wizardry of Trackman. For the uninitiated, Trackman uses high-tech radar and unique software to track ballflight characteristics on tour, including among others launch angle, ballspeed, spin, smash factor and something called total distance efficiency, which reflects the ratio between swing speed (or technically, clubhead speed) and distance. So in other words, you can swing relatively slower than average but still get good distance and therefore produce pretty good total distance efficiency. For instance, 2.7 is excellent, 2.6 is top 30 and 2.539 is tour average. Anything below 2.45 ranks in the 190s on tour, and you'll never guess who one of the worst is. Although you might want to check Golf World next week. Post surgery, I believe mine is right about 2.0.

But here's what really struck me. The average swing speed on tour is now 112.2, which is fairly neat in and of itself, but is important in light of some changes the USGA made to its golf ball testing procedure back in 2004. Among the changes, which included switching to a titanium driver with a spring-like effect at the current limit, was a big bump in the clubhead speed. It went from 109 mph to 120 mph. Now you can argue that 120 is higher than realistic (not really, given that there are 30 players averaging more than 117 mph already), but you can't argue that while 109 might have been about right for 1976, it ain't in the ballpark no more. In fact, more than 75 percent of the players on tour swing it faster than 109 right now. In short, 120 may be rapidly on its way to the new tour average. It makes you wonder what the biomechanical limits of human potential are, though. Before his latest knee surgery, Tiger Woods was swinging it at 124.627 mph, which I believe was fast enough to win the Indy 500 in the 1930s. But they're not growing any more slow swingers. Average age of the top 30 fastest swingers is 31.9; average age for the 30 slowest swingers is 38.4. Even more telling, the slow swingers don't have a win among them all year. But you have to like the fact that Corey Pavin is still trying to get it done, swinging 23 mph slower than Tiger Woods.

BOMB: You? Speed Racer? I've seen you drive (both in cars and on the golf course) and somehow that strikes me as the last movie you might see. But enough about you. What really strikes me about this is that swing speeds are clearly getting faster, but average driving distance on the PGA Tour has been flat for the better part of three years. That makes no sense because we all know that distance at tour-player swing speeds increases about 2 yards for every mile-per-hour. So what gives? Perhaps they're swinging at it fast but launching it like crap despite all those hours on the launch monitor.

But it is disturbing that those at the bottom not only don't have a win, they haven't really had a whiff of one except for Heath Slocum at the PODS. But again, golf is a SPORT. The bombers should have an advantage. Instead we talk about it like it's dirty, disgusting thing like gas at $4 a gallon. But it's not. A high swing speed is a beautiful thing. You should try it sometime.

BOMB: With a little digging, here's the full text of the R&A/European Tour survey of tour players on grooves. The questions, undiluted, are even more loaded than we originally thought.

GOUGE: And just as clueless.

BOMB: Here you go. I love how they put forth the USGA and R&A findings in the intro and then expect to get unbiased answers? What a crock.

GOUGE: Well, it's generally been proved that U-like grooves do spin the ball more from the rough than V-like grooves.

BOMB: But that's the point. Why poison the survey with that information stated at the top in big letters? Why couldn't they ask them that without putting forth what their research shows.

GOUGE: Good point. And like I've said before how valid are these opinions if most players have never played with V-like grooves, certainly not grooves that would approach what the new rule proposes? Ad seriously, what do we suppose the R&A plans to do with the answers to Question 12 (Leave the grooves alone.)? If the overwhelming majority strongly agrees with Question 12, does that mean the proposed rule is dead? If the overwhelming majority strongly disagrees with Question 12, does that the mean the proposed rule has the green light? I'm sure all of this paperwork has a purpose, but since the R&A isn't answering questions about the proposed rule (they're just asking them, as it turns out), I guess we won't know until it's too late. Again, grooves is a difficult and complex subject, but this survey doesn't make it any easier.

BOMB: Maybe we should let the questions speak for themselves. Although if the most common answer to Question 15 is "Don't know," we may have a different problem on our hands. Here's the full survey, including the preamble.

European Tour Player Survey
       
Introduction & Background

Clubs are currently permitted to have V-grooves or U-grooves (also known as “square” grooves). 

The R&A and USGA have proposed a change to the regulations controlling grooves on the face of irons and wedges.  Extensive research has shown that square grooves used with modern construction golf balls allow a higher level of spin to be maintained when hitting shots from the rough.

The proposed change would make it necessary for clubs to have grooves whose performance characteristics would be similar to V-grooves. 

For the purpose of this survey you will be asked to compare the performance of V-grooves to U-grooves (or “square”).      

1.    V-grooves make shots from the rough more challenging.  (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

2.    Having to play V-grooves only would make me try to stay in the fairway more than I do today.  (choose one)   
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

3.    Having to play V-grooves would make some of the longer hitters try to stay in the fairway more than they do today.  (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

4.    Square grooves add significantly more control on full wedge shots from the rough.  (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

5.    Square grooves help a lot on short wedge shots around the green. (choose one)         
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

6.    Square grooves help a lot out of the rough on short iron shots. (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

7.    Square grooves help a lot out of the rough on mid-iron shots. (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

8.    Square grooves help a lot from the fairway on mid-iron shots. (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree   
  5=Strongly Disagree

9.    Square grooves help a lot out of the rough on long-iron shots. (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree   
  5=Strongly Disagree

10.    Square grooves help a lot from the fairway on long-iron shots. (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

11.    Making V-grooves mandatory would make play on the European Tour more challenging.  (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

12.    If it was up to me, I would leave the grooves alone. (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

13.    If it was up to me, I would require all irons and wedges to have V-grooves as soon as possible. (choose one)
  1=Strongly Agree
  2=Somewhat Agree
  3=Neither Agree nor Disagree
  4=Somewhat Disagree
  5=Strongly Disagree

14.    How many years have you played on the European Tour?    ___________

15.    Do you use U-grooves or V-grooves in your irons?
  1=U-grooves
  2=V-grooves
  3=A mixture
  4=Don’t know

BOMB: Well, say this about the way the R&A and USGA are going about their work on grooves—it's inexhaustible. Latest project: A 15-question survey on grooves asked of players at this week's Open de Espana on the European Tour. Although neither the R&A nor European Tour would provide the questions asked, I got the following from a tour rep who spoke to one of the players interviewed. But get this: it was a verbal interview with the questions asked and answers written down by Mike Stewart of the European Tour. I mean, is there a reason the players couldn't write down their own answers?

Not that Chris Matthews has to worry about losing his job on “Hardball.” Not with questions such as these:

    What type of grooves do you use?
    What do you think would be fair in terms of which grooves?
    What do you like about square grooves
    Do you think it would be harder to play shots with V-Grooves from
the: -
        Rough?
        Fairway?
        Sand?
        Tight, bare lies?

    Where are the biggest benefits of square grooves seen:
        Rough?
        Fairway?
        Sand?
        Tight, bare lies?

I’m sure you have more than a thought or two on this.

GOUGE: Here's my take: We're talking about potentially the first rollback in rules in 75-plus years and you've got one of the two organizations charged with effecting this rule asking questions that someone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the rule in question would dismiss as laughably useless. How is this moving the debate forward in any meaningful way? Besides, you're asking players about something they have no chance at all of understanding. How would they know what the proposed grooves might play like? And by the way, are you asking them could a different type/length of rough create the same level of difficulty? And, really, what do you suppose the answers might be to the ill-phrased question, "What do you think would be fair in terms of which grooves?" You might as well ask them, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" Every golfer in creation thinks it would be fair if the rough was a penalty. You need a survey to answer that?

The issues are clear about what grooves can and can't do in terms of spin. What remains less clear is how they might affect play, if at all. You don't need any more knowledge or data to make an informed decision about this, unless you're just afraid to step up and stand your ground. I don't know what answer makes the most sense about grooves, but I do know that a verbal survey is a complete waste of time, given that your survey group is certainly likely to be an ill-informed collection of tour players (and only those dumb enough to stand still and answer questions from some tour flunkie). At some point, you have to stop and say why are these things being done now, let alone at all. Important decisions require courage, even the courage to decide not to do something. They require intelligent discussion by people with a clear sense of not only the game's history but its future, as well. Half-witted surveys, as the Monty Python boys used to say about a dead parrot's plumage, don't enter into it.