Knowing Club Selection In Advance
Heres what Phil Mickelson had to say about his club selection on 18 at Winged Foot while meeting with da medja in Chicago:
Fortunately what I have found has helped me play well or have that type of performances these past years in the majors is that I've done the prep work beforehand and I know what club selection I'm going to hit off each tee, given weather conditions, whether it's raining, whether it's hot or not. I already know and have known for weeks in advance what clubs I'm got to hit off each tee, so it's helped me approach the tee box with confidence knowing what club I'm going to hit.
It helped me when I hit the driver on 18 at Baltusrol on the last hole and ended up making a birdie. It helped me at The Masters knowing what club and what driver I was going to hit off each tee, and it helped me at the U.S. Open. Unfortunately I didn't execute the way I wanted to.
But it has erased a lot of the doubt as to the decision-making, what club am I going to hit, what club should I hit. I already know weeks in advance, and it helps me hit those shots and visualize those shots in practice before I ever show up the week of The Open.
Now, we have debated Phil's two-driver concept at Augusta here and here and here.
But I'm wondering if his ability to select clubs in advance says something about the state of the game.
This is not a technology question, but I believe one about the state of course setup and course design.
Is there something wrong with setups and designs when a player of his magnitude (and others like him) know what they will be hitting on holes well in advance of tournament time?
Or to put it another way, is the golf more interesting and testing if the design and setup create decision-making situations that can not be made in advance?
Wind and the player's philosophy play a role in this, but isn't there something seriously wrong when some spontaneity is missing from the major championship equation?
I was both elated and troubled by Mike Davis's decision to announce the alternating of tees during the U.S. Open. Elated that he was doing it, troubled that he was giving everyone advance notice.
Don't we learn who is most skilled by finding out who can handle a club selection and playing strategy question under pressure?
Enough rambling...your thoughts?
Wednesday, July 5, 2006 at 07:30 PM 16 Comments | in Architecture, Phil Mickelson, State of the Game
Reader Comments (16)
But in general I agree with you. Golf should be something more vague than a game broken down by the stats wizards and game theory geniuses. I hope so, since I am neither of those, my brain can barely handle adding the score up. ;-)
For someone engaged in competition, particularly near the end of the round, the greatest consideration must be: Where do I stand? I'd call it the van de Velde Principle, which should require no explanation.
Ironically, the great shortcoming to Phil's approach was that it left him unprepared to make prudent choices - to adapt to changing circumstances. Even though his driving was horrendous on Sunday (so he could have anticipated a terrible drive on 18), most observers felt his fateful decision came on his second shot. By opting for a semi-heroic play rather than a conservative one, his poor execution proved fatal rather than merely problematic.
On the other question, I agree that the USGA shouldn't determine or announce tee/pin positions in advance. For me it's not a matter of challenging the players to think "on the fly" so much as ensuring that they're forced to think a lot, period. Because a course changes daily with wind, turf, and green conditions, there's no sense in setting it up until the last possible moment. The challenge shouldn't lie in the difficulty of the shots per se but rather in the variety of shots required from hole to hole and round to round, and you can't maximize this until you know the day's conditions.
Perhaps the predeposition to hit driver wasn't the problem, the real problem was that because he wasn't carrying a 3-wood, the 4-wood wouldn't travel far enough so he was left with no alternative but to hit driver ...
...so I guess I could have saved a lot of bandwidth by leanin' forward in my rocking chair, firin' out a wad of chaw juice into my spitoon, and saying "Phil ain't no Hogan".
It is also golf lore that in later years Hogan said his biggest regret was that he didn't fire at more pins.
I think this criticism is unfair. Why? Because I doubt there is any evidence for the conclusion. This is where I think guys like Dave Pelz can be excellent. Pelz asks why. And as I said in my post above, we don't know exactly what they have discovered looking at the numbers. The "for ages" argument doesn't hold water. Just like looking at the numbers proved how stupid some baseball myths were, looking at numbers might make some golf theories look dumb. Or maybe not. The thing is, we don't know for sure and taking 3 wood out of the bag may have been a very good decision. You can't tell from the result on 18. You may be right, but maybe not. I doubt you can prove this one way or another, I know I can't.
But I also must weigh in on the no 3 wood / should have hit a 4 wood debate. I think he did the right thing. He selected clubs to optimize his scoring. On the 72nd tee, he had to believe a driver in the fairway all but sealed his chance to win. He figures if he misses in the rough then bogey is in play and par is not ruled out. His error was club and shot selection after the first miss. And maybe that is where all his planning came back to haunt him, because he hadn't planned on having that shot.
Poor guy, he didn't have any back-up, 'cause he'd decided he wanted a 60-yard gap in his bag. Dumb.
Lefty, take that 4-wedge system out to sea, and give it the burial it richly deserves.
And what if his chances of hitting a ridiculously narrow target with a 3 wood had been shown to be 1.5% greater by pelz's math? And the stroke difference was probably .07 or something. What then? I don't know if they looked at that, but what then?