Dear Damon,
Unfortunately, I was out of town for the Easter holiday and flew home Sunday, arriving around 7 pm after the Masters concluded, so I didn't get to watch the apparently fabulous "Phil and Ernie Show." I am not at all surprised that Phil uses the fall line in getting his bearings for a putt, as his coach for the past six years is Rick Smith, who has been a reader of my website and a contributor to the Flatstick Forum in the past. Also, it may be nothing but coincidence, but Pelz recently has done a Golf Channel segment on what he calls "the spider" pattern of breaks to a hole, whereas I believe I am the only person in golf to write about "Seeing the Spider" for reading breaks. Pelz's TGC segment sort of missed my point, though, because he focused on having the golfer make sure he missed on the low side of the spider -- something that would be abhorent to a putter like Bobby Locke, who thought it foolish to even entertain the notion of missing a putt. So IF Phil was using the fall line for his reads, he may well have come by it from my website. It may be nothing more than just viewing the putt from behind the hole. Who knows?
As to using one or the other putter, the Futura or the heel-shafted traditional blade design, there are two separate stories here. Phil personally has commented that his stroke sometimes takes on a little inside-going-back action, and instead of worrying about it or fighting it, he just prefers to roll with it and use the old-style blade putter he used so well before taking up the Futura. Apparently, Phil's stroke between January and April was cycling thru these changes three or four times. The alternative account was presented by Dave Pelz yesterday on the Golf Channel, wher he said that Phil had been switching putters and asked him about it. Pelz said he advised Phil to test out which putter was sinking the most putts for him, and go with that. Then Pelz said it appeared to him as a result of testing that Phil was better at some distances with the blade and at others with the Futura, but he didn't explain how that was a factor in the decision to use the blade at Augusta.
My sense of all this is that Phil has it right, and Pelz's testing didn't help advance the ball any, since Phil's stroke seems to cycle in an out of a little gating going back. It just happened to be the case that the blade felt better to Phil for the stroke he had when the first event in April came upon him.
My reading of the news accounts of Phil's putting during January, February, and March of this year, combined with Pelz's statements, leads me to read between the lines that Pelz really hasn't had a lot to do with Phil's putting technique. Pelz said he and Phil worked for about a week total in January-February this year. Phil putted great at the Hope before then and didn't putt all that well in other events in February and March, missing putts inside 5-8 feet. All the news accounts stress Pelz's work on Phil's chipping and close-in wedge work, not his putting (see the stories in my Putting Digest in the News section since January). The main thrust of the work was to get Phil's "short game" shots so he didn't have to putt outside 5-6 feet.
In the Masters, Phil ranked a mere 23rd in putting (117 total putts). He won the Masters by being 1st in Greens in Regulation (53), as usually is the case with the winner. In contrast, Els hit only 45 and was T18 in GIRs. While it's true Mickelson had a great putting round on the back nine at Augusta on Sunday, overall for the four days his putting was unspectacular, and doesn't even rate in terms of
top putting performances at the Masters. Even by
Phil's personal putting standards at the Masters, this year was very average. Only two players of the top 12 finishers had more putts than Phil.
In terms of strengths and weakness of his technique, he has a superb form in his thru-stroke, with his lead arm extended well and his hands not altering orientation while the shoulder lifts the putter square to its finish without twist of the putter face. I don't think his tempo is all that smooth, as his stroke looks a little abrupt and curtailed at the end. This action, I think, harms his touch, especially on short or delicate putts, in the same way that fat fingers harms dialing a phone -- it makes his speed control a little blunt. This doesn't hurt much on long putts, but on short and delicate breaking putts, like downhill sliders, this tightness in the finish can make him too strong sometimes and sometimes too short. It's really only important at about the 3% level, but at the top ranks of the PGA Tour, this flaw can easily spell distaster down the stretch. A quarter-inch lower on the putt at number 12, and Mickleson would have been in a playoff. As it was, the ball was giving out of steam too early but just luckily managed to snag the cup on the way by.
I also think Phil doesn't use his eyes well in targeting from beside the ball. He seems to minimize this problem for the most part by having grown use to the way he balances targeting from behind the ball with targeting from beside the ball, but still he could get better at this.
Cheers!
Geoff Mangum
Putting Theorist and Instructor
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