"They're all long. There's no cool short one."

A few interesting bits from Phil Mickelson's pre-Firebore press conference:

Q. You had a couple pretty well-chronicled issues this year where you went with five wedges in one and you went with no driver and it didn't turn out so well. I wonder, when you're going through your setup for a week, how do these ideas germinate and who all is in on the discussion as to whether it's a green light or whether it actually happens? How do the ebb and flow of clubs in and out of the bag sort of transpire?

PHIL MICKELSON: It's kind of a variety of different ways. Sometimes when we just play a course we realize we haven't used a certain club. Other times it'll be a computer program that we'll use to identify what element of the game is more important. If you improve one area by 10 percent, it lowers your score the most. I mean, this is an interesting statistic, I think, that I'll share with you, that I've found is that if you increase any statistical category 10 percent across the board, it lowers scores. Okay, 10 percent fewer putts, obviously lower scores, 10 percent more greens, 10 percent closer to the hole, 10 percent more fairways, every one lowers scores except longer driving distance. Longer drives does not equate to lower scores on any course in America except one. There's one golf course in America where 10 percent longer driving equates to lower scores, and what would you think it would be? Augusta National.

So we'll do stuff like that. That will be fun and interesting and a different perspective.

Q. That's Pelz' program, software?

PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah.

And this is really encouraging to read that players are noticing these kinds of course setup details, and better yet, sharing them. Not that it'll change what Rees does! On Oakland Hills:

Q. It plays long?

PHIL MICKELSON: I wouldn't say it played long, no. I thought it played a good distance. It has a good mixture of holes. There's some short par-4s you can hit short clubs in and there's some long ones. The par 3s are a little monotonous. They're all long. There's no cool short one. 13 used to be a cool short one and they moved the tee back so it's 190. But they're just tough 3s. You just want to make a 3 on those holes.

Comments

[kudzu]

Cool software! Do you think Dave Pelz was enrolled in one of those Exxon math and science programs?

[Otey2]

Fascinating about ANGC. Let me chew on why that might be the case.

But a methodological question. How does Pelz know this? What sort of controls is he using?

[Smolmania]

Sounds to me as if there will be a new Pelz book coming out. . . having read his prior efforts, I look forward to that. Dave gets a lot of grief for his attempts to turn golf course management into science, but a lot of what he has figured out makes a great deal of sense to me (if you play the same course all of the time, try his lay up from over 200 yards experiment some time. . . you'll be amazed at the resulting lower scores).

[86general]

Smols you are so right about Pelz. He gets lots of grief because he talks like an engineer. He doesn't look cool or athletic like some of the swing coaches and ex-pro gurus and announcers, which doesn't help his image, either.

Yet he figures stuff out, by doing simple things like counting, and experimenting.

What amazes me is that Pelz is often criticized for being too "technical" or otherwise 'out there,' yet quasi-scientific babble like "The Golfing Machine" and its offspring are treated as if they are some sort of Newtonian revelation for golf.

In my opinion he's one of the sharpest golf minds of this generation, or any generation, probably.

[Curmudgeon]

Pelz is like Leadbetter:

If good for you, great, if not poison

Lead-poisoning or death by Peltz-ing.

Your choice

[Tighthead]

I think Pelz is good if you take it with a grain of salt. You don't have to adopt everything he says, but it is good food for thought. He is more about scoring than technique.

I've always thought the Ray Floyd and Tom Watson books were good for that as well.

[Chita R.]

Let's not forget "101 Supershots" by the true shortgame maestro, Senor Rodriguez.

[jason]

Is someone playing circus music in the background every time Phil opens his mouth about this stuff?

[Ky Laffoon's Ghost]

Smols and the General are absolutely right about Pelz. After I started almost always laying up from about 220 yards I played those 5-pars considerably better: Two wedges are more accurate for most of us than one 5-,3-wood/hybrid. Unless you roll the ball everywhere. But none of Shack's crew does that! Curmudgeon is right, too: You have to pick and choose your Pelz. Much of the Short Game Bible is useful...the putting bible, not so much. Tighthead, could you have a talk with my 16-year-old about scoring? He is much more interested in hitting a beautiful looking shot than getting the ball in the hole.

Nevertheless, I have to agree with some critics that Phil might be better off playing by the seat of his ample pants.

[Smolmania]

Just because I'm a believer in Pelz doesn't mean I think that everything he says or does is gospel. And I do agree that his attempt to reduce golf to mechanics would seem to be better suited for a guy like Tom Kite, than a guy with superb touch and feel like Phil. On the other hand, it's hard to argue with the results Phil's had in majors since he started working with Pelz. I don't think you can blame the two drivers or no drivers on Pelz, and if Phil hits the strong 3-wood in the fairway 12 times a round at Torrey Pines, he's a freakin' course management genius.

And as for his "smarts," Pelz was aware enough of his own shortcomings while at Indiana University to realize that the fat guy from Ohio State could beat him like a drum, even on Pelz's best day. . . which is why he went into engineering.

[86general]

The difference between Pelz and Leadbetter - and just about every other "name" golf instructor - is that Pelz doesn't teach or advise anything that he doesn't figure out in some rigorous, quantitative way. He measures things, he counts, he collects data, and he tells you what the data are. He advises, and then he keeps or discards according to what works.

I get the feeling that most other teachers are advising people moreso on their biased, anecdotal observations, and building swing theories around them. It's easy to look like a genius when you help a talented tour pro build a swing for 3 years, but are the concepts you espouse really valid? Did Faldo improve because he "tightened up his lower body" or whatever it was, or did he improve because he ruined a few marriages practicing 20 hours a day?

Same thing with Tiger Woods. One guy has him swinging upright and fading the ball, the other has flattened him out some and has him drawing more, and he's dominated both ways.

I'm not saying that Butch Harmon or Stacky and Tilty and whomever else might not be correct with their theories. But nobody knows, for sure, if they are.

At least when Pelz says something, he can tell you why, and in general it's not too difficult to understand.

Tell me who will help your game more: Someone who points out that hitting 2 wedges instead of a long club will take an average of 1.8 strokes off your score, or someone who tells you you need to "get width" in your swing or use "the big muscles"? My money's on the first man.

have a philosophy or idea or hypothesis about the swing that he builds