MICKELSON CARRIES BIG STICK
‘Phrankenwood’ may supply major edge at Masters
AUGUSTA, G A. Less than two weeks before Phil Mickelson won the Masters in 2006, he concocted a strategy to put a pair of drivers in his bag: one he could fade and one he could draw.
Seven years later, Mickelson is bringing another bold experiment to Augusta, replacing his driver altogether with a special club made by Callaway and marketed as the “X Hot Phrankenwood.” “It’s an enhanced 3-wood,” he said. Whether it enhances Mickelson’s chances of winning a fourth Masters remains unclear. He has never used this exact club in tournament play. But as of Tuesday afternoon, Mickelson indicated it would be his de facto driver this week and said he was pleased with the results in practice rounds.
“If you watch, you’ll see a lot of the shots off the tee that I hit have a lot more scoot on them,” Mickelson said. “Tee shots on (No. 9) are getting down to the bottom of the hill, and I haven’t been able to do that in years.
“Tee shot on (No. 10) is getting another 15 to 20 yards, giving me a club or two less than I’ve had in years. The tee shot on (No. 15) is getting down to where I’m getting one or two clubs less in because it comes off fast, as well as low-spin. So it’s running, which is exactly what I wanted here.”
The genesis of the experiment dates to Mickelson’s win in the Waste Management Phoenix Open more than two months ago when he used Callaway’s X Hot 3-wood, claiming he hit it just as far using it as he did with his driver. In subsequent starts, Mickelson struggled off the tee, tying for 60th at Pebble Beach and missing the cut in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, though he did sandwich in a third-place finish in the World Golf Championships-Cadillac Championship in March.
Mickelson responded by using the 3-wood more often in his last two starts but wanted to “just put it on steroids,” he joked, asking Callaway’s engineers to build the same clubhead technology into driver specifications. The result is a club 45 inches long with 8.5 degrees of loft, which he said gives him “optimum spin” for a course such as Augusta.
“This is my driver,” he said. “It just looks like a 3-wood. It’s a 3-wood technology.”
The tee-shot experiment is one of two major unknowns this week for Mickelson, who finished two strokes out of the Bubba Watson-Louis Oosthuizen playoff last year despite triple-bogeying the fourth hole of the final round.
Mickelson traditionally has played the tournament the week before the Masters but skipped the Valero Texas Open last week because he didn’t think a tight, windy course would be the right preparation for Augusta’s wide-open layout.
“Having that open week, I’m a little bit nervous,” Mickelson said. “But I had some great days here. I came out here and spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday and got some good work done and got to spend a lot of time on the golf course. The course is very close to tournament setup, and so I’m hopeful that I’ll get off to a good start and take that preparation and shoot a low score.”