Jeff Rude’s “I Hate To Be Rude” column appears on Golfweek.com on Friday, the same day as his video show of the same name.Phil Mickelson has gone to the laboratory with the scientist. They brought along one club, the putter.
Talk with just about any PGA Tour player and they’ll tell you they’d like to putt better. Rare is the player, like Kenny Perry circa 2003 and ’08, who gushes about putting better than ever.
You’ve seen this snapshot of a Tour player over and over: He misses a 35-foot curler and he drops his putter and puts his hands on his hips and puts on a face that expresses disbelief or the dying of his longtime dog.
In Mickelson’s case, he just had a season most touring pros dream of: two victories, eight top 10s and 19 top 25s in 21 starts. He found consistency but not enough victories to satisfy him. He also found ball-striking consistency but felt he came up short too often, particularly in major championships, because of his putting.
So he and putting guru Dave Pelz went to work with the 2009 Masters in mind. Their sessions included time on camera in the Callaway Golf putting studio.
“I actually struck the ball quite well in every major, but I did not putt anywhere near as well,” Mickelson said the other day on a conference call to promote the Nov. 29-30 LG Skins Game. “I didn’t putt the way I normally have the last six, seven years.”
Mickelson ranked 118th on Tour from 10-15 feet, 80th from 15-25 and 69th from 5-10. But he says he and Pelz have identified “why the last year or so has been a struggle for me on the greens. If I can get this putter fixed, I think ’09 is going to be a great year.”
• Mickelson will play the Skins Game but again skip Tiger Woods’ tournament, set this year for Dec. 18-21. Why the conspicuous absence?
“I need to take two months off to get physically ready for the upcoming season,” the lefthander said. “So unless the date of the tournament changes, it’s difficult for me to play in those months.”
• I like the idea of bringing Paul Azinger back as U.S. Ryder Cup captain. Count Mickelson among those who concur.
“Zinger gave us a great model for success,” Mickelson said. “Rather than stray from it, I think it would be a great idea for us to have him return and give us that same model for success.”
In other words, why would you fire Charlie Manuel after his team wins the World Series?
• For those of you who tuned in last week, Tim Finchem asked Tour bon vivant Tommy Armour III to talk with Nationwide and Q-School graduates at their annual orientation next month.
So just what wisdom will TA3 dispense?
“I’ll tell them this job is more than just hitting 5-irons,” Armour said. “I’ll tell them to act right. We’re entertainers. So they need to go out and entertain.”
• Two-time PGA Tour winner J.P. Hayes disqualified himself from second stage of Q-School last week after using a nonconforming ball. He said he has no idea how a Titleist prototype ball he had tested got in his bag.
Unfortunately the answer is sloppiness. It shouldn’t be too much to ask someone to ensure the clubs and balls he puts in his bag conform.
• For years some people have screamed that the ball goes too far. But apparently the little dimpled sphere is slowing down.
Tour driving distance champion Bubba Watson’s average has fallen the past two years, from 319.6 yards to 315.2 to 315.1. What’s more, 13 players averaged at least 300 yards; that’s half as many players who did so in 2005 and the fewest since ’03 (nine).
I’m thinking Jack Nicklaus doesn’t mind all this but still isn’t prepared to party over it.
• Tour veterans complain that there’s not enough prize money on the Nationwide Tour. I went to one of those gatherings last year and two old pals who had fallen off the PGA Tour went out of their way to moan to me about low purses.
Well, the Nationwide was formed as a developmental tour, not as a place to earn an upper-class living. But as this year proved, some can carve out a nice living there. To wit: Three players earned more than $400,000, 28 cashed $200,000 or more and 66 made six figures.
• Little Jeff Sluman again showed why he has been a cash cow for so many years. On a Champions Tour where the average up-and-down percentage was 53.7, Sluman led at 68.6 percent.
It’s just the latest reminder to grab your wedges and putter and head to the short-game area.
• Another prodigy is upon us.
Jason Hak, 14, a Hong Kong native who lives in Lake Mary, Fla., on Friday became the youngest player ever to make the cut in a PGA European Tour event.
Amazing game, no? Some people, like Hak, are such quick studies. Others spend a lifetime hacking away and never learn how to break 100.
Posted: 11/21/2008
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