APPLIANCE OF SCIENCE
Short game guru Pelz believes Mickelson has all the tricks to tame Carnoustie next week
Saturday July 14 2007
GOLF might not be rocket science but 15 years working on the US space programme at NASA certainly helped Dave Pelz solve one of the greatest sporting conundrums of our time.
Short game guru Pelz is the guy who persuaded Phil Mickelson that the appliance of science would help him break his confounding duck at the Majors.
Less than four years and three Major Championship victories later, Pelz believes Mickelson now has the game to contend at The Open and that next week's venue, Carnoustie, should suit him to a tee.
In Ireland yesterday to announce he's building the first 'Dave Pelz Scoring Game School' outside of the USA at the new Killeen Castle course in Co Meath, the 6' 5" American reveals that Team Mickelson was delighted with Carnoustie during their three day visit there this week.
"Carnoustie's a very good course for Phil," Pelz insists. "That's not because it's easy. It's because Carnoustie has lots of chipping areas, run offs where it will take a lot of talent to get the ball up and down.
"Probably in the three rounds Phil played there last Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, he missed the green five or six times and the ball ran down into a hollow and then onto a slight upturn.
"That left him with a downhill lie, trying to hit a high soft shot and stop it near the pin and Phil can probably do that better than anyone else in the world.
"It's not that he's going to try and miss the green. I'm saying he can afford to go for the pin there because he can still get it up and down if he misses, where most of the other guys can't," adds Pelz.
Mickelson's history at The Open is unimpressive. Just one top-10, his third place at Royal Troon in 2004, in 14 visits is well below expectations for the world's second-best player.
Yet Pelz believes that three years helping Mickelson develop the low ball-flight necessary for approach shots into the rock-hard putting surfaces one traditionally encounters at seaside courses can now pay off.
"When I started working with Phil (in December 2003), he hit only high, hard shots because that's what he grew up doing," Pelz explains. "Though I wouldn't exactly say he has mastered it, he's done very well in developing a three-quarter swing and a low shot into the greens.
"Yet you have to know which holes they are going to work on because Carnoustie does not encourage you to run it up to every hole," Pelz adds, underlining why, from the outset, he insisted that he and Mickelson perform an intensive reconnaissance of the venue the week before every Major.
At first, it took some persuading to convince Mickelson of the benefits of a recce at Augusta the week before the 2004 Masters . . . but donning that Green Jacket for the first time the following Sunday week made a believer out of Lefty and he's done it ever since.
"We had to work very hard on every hole at Carnoustie and it took us three full days, up to 12 hours a day, to do it. We didn't leave the course until 8.30 some evenings," says Pelz. So Mickelson is once again well equipped to play the percentages next week instead of gambling on his outrageous shot-making skills.
"Phil's very open-minded," Pelz adds. "If he doesn't agree with something but you prove it's true, he'll switch to the proven way to do it. He's going with the statistics now and becoming a better player.
"I learn more from Phil than he learns from me," Pelz modestly insists. "I'm a research scientist. I've never hit a shot that's counted for him. I take no credit for him winning a single Major. He's the talent. He's the man."
Yet Mickelson's round scores at the Majors have improved by a one and a half stroke average since they linked up.
But for a persistent problem with his driving, which led directly to that incredible final hole meltdown at last year's US Open and persisted into Augusta this April, Mickelson's Grand Slam tally would be higher.
Anyone who enrols at Pelz's school when Killen Castle opens next spring will discover he only works "from 125 yards in". In Mickelson's case, anything longer is the responsibility of Butch Harmon, Rick Smith's replacement as swing coach.
"The main reason for Butch (coming on board) is that Phil's driving statistics simply are not what they need to be," says Pelz. "He's in the bottom quarter of driving stats on tour. If, as a result of his work with Butch, Phil Mickelson starts driving it in the top third, then I don't know how anybody can beat him.
"Rick Smith's a great guy and a good friend. It wasn't any problem with him. Phil just needed to get the ball more in the fairway and who's a better teacher than Butch Harmon."
Mickelson drove the ball so badly at Winged Foot, hitting just two fairways that bloody Sunday and 12 in all, Pelz believes his implosion on 18 was an accident waiting to happen.
So why did Lefty take driver? Recalling the fantastic final tee shot which set up Mickelson's 2005 PGA victory at Baltusrol, Pelz explained: "Great players always believe 'I can do it if I need to'."
The only question mark over Mickelson next week is the wrist injury he aggravated during the US Open though Pelz is delighted that Carnoustie's rough will be nowhere near as punitive, deep, or "as dangerous".
- Karl MacGinty
