Notebook

Where Mickelson Flopped
Wedge Worries

Everyone considers Phil Mickelson to be a virtuoso of the flop shot, which has become a staple of the modern game. He is legendary for his circus shots on the practice range, where he can gently flip his ball just over another pro's shoulder into a hat that player is holding, or take a full rip and hit a 10-yard shot that spins back five. "Phil does things that nobody else even tries," says Skip Kendall. That's why it's so startling to hear Mickelson say, "I've known for years that my short game has deteriorated."

Since his rookie year in 1993, Mickelson has been mostly abysmal in the Tour's scrambling statistic, which measures how often a player makes par or better after missing a green. Four times he has ranked 114th or worse. Here's why: Instead of sticking with the 60-degree lob wedge he used so effectively as an amateur, Mickelson switched in 1994 to a wedge he helped design for the company whose irons he's paid to play. This season he switched back to the club he used in his formative years.

The wedge he had been using as a pro, made by Yonex, had less bounce than his old club, a 1988 Ping Eye2 L-wedge. (Bounce is the degree of separation between the leading edge of the clubhead and the end of the flange on the back of the club.) More bounce helps a club ride through sand and grass without digging in. Mickelson has always said that the key to the flop shot is to hit slightly behind the ball and let the club glide under the ball. The trouble with the Yonex was that it sometimes grabbed the grass. "I thought they were identical, but they didn't perform the same," he says. "I would still hit some good shots and hole out my share, but the consistency wasn't there. I had to change my technique to get the club to perform, and that hurt my short game."

Because he wasn't getting the ball as close to the hole from off the green, Mickelson was leaving himself more putts in the difficult six-to eight-foot range. That contributed to a loss of confidence in his putting, which led to crucial misses, like those at last year's U.S. Open and Ryder Cup.

Mickelson wishes he had returned to his old wedge earlier. He didn't for two reasons. First, he experienced a problem common among U.S. pros who play Japanese clubs. "It was difficult, with the factory in Japan, to have the clubs properly altered," he says. Second, out of loyalty to his sponsor, he did not want to admit the club was causing him trouble. "Because I was so involved with the design of the wedge, I felt an obligation to play it," he says. "So I stayed with it and just kept hitting it over and over."

Last year, though, Mickelson did not win for the first time in his seven seasons, and that caused him to take stock. One of the missed shots that stuck out came in the Open at Pinehurst, where he excelled because he was the only contender with enough skill and nerve to use a 60-degree wedge from the tight turf around the greens. However, he says, "the shot I was mostly playing there was a low skipper in which I put my hands ahead and caught the ball first, so the [club's] bounce didn't make any difference."

On the 70th hole Mickelson was leading Payne Stewart by one when he tried to hit a 20-yard shot from the greenside rough that required sliding the wedge under the ball. He left the shot 10 feet short and missed the putt to drop into a tie. "That was one where the club dug in as opposed to scooting through," he says, "and a perfect example of the problem I was having. It cost me."

So in the off-season Mickelson put the well-worn Eye2 back into his bag. (He also replaced his Yonex pitching wedge with a Ping and his 56-degree sand wedge with one made by Titleist) "The change came overnight," he says. "I've stopped giving a thought to whether the club is going to dig. I've been getting up and down left and right. This lets me go back to attacking pins."

On such small adjustments big comebacks are made.