Phil's Open

When a right-brainer brings in a left-brainer to help with strategy, debatable choices may follow. Phil Mickelson's consultation with Dave Pelz, and Phil's resulting decision to remove the driver from his bag, brought plenty of heat from our readers, who wrote even as Tiger and Rocco were still fighting it out.

Isn't it time to expose the fact that (Dave) Pelz has ruined Mickelson's golf game? How many tournaments has Pelz won? No driver, 5 wedges, extreme strategizing- how about just PLAYING!!! Where's the feel and instinct needed? Pelz is in his head & he's not PLAYING golf!! A thrill to watch Rocco PLAY!!!>

Larry Guli, Thousand Oaks, CA

Some things never change. Phil is still "such an idiot" when it comes to US Open course management.

Bill Hulbert PGA

Yorba Linda, CA

Phil Mickelson has to be the dumbest great golfer of all time.

Richard Bruno

Waterford,CT 06385

Harsh words, gentlemen, though no harsher than Johnny Miller and company over the weekend. Miller argued, and who could argue with him, that if you can't hit fairways with a 3-wood, you might as well hit the rough with a driver, 30 yards closer to the green. Here's Phil's view:

PHIL MICKELSON: It didn't feel far off. It really didn't. I didn't feel like it was off, I felt like I was close the whole week and just a fraction where balls were kicking in the bunkers or just going in the rough where I had a tough play. But it wasn't as far off as the stats will show. It's just, just didn't quite get enough in the fairway though.

And his plans for the British:

PHIL MICKELSON: What I take away is I have three weeks off. I'm going to take three weeks off and get ready for a stretch of the run through the rest of the year. I'll leave for the Scottish Open in preparation for the British Open and I'm going to try to -- I'll have some work with Pelz and some work with Butch to get as sharp as I can in this, in these next couple of weeks. So when I do come back and play nine out of 12 weeks I'm playing as well as I possibly can. Because we still have two majors left, we have the FedExCup, we have the Ryder Cup, we have a lot of big events and I want to get my game sharp for that. It didn't feel far off, I think today's score was evident it's not that far off. But I just got to put it all together. >

Phil hit 25 of 56 fairways for about 45 per cent.

--Bob Carney