"Hey, thanks for looking after my buddy for me."

mickelson_harmon2.jpgOh how I love when overpaid swing instructors clash. Golf World's Jaime Diaz shares some great firsthand observations of the budding Rick Smith-Butch Harmon catfight over who gets to tell Phil Mickelson he needs to stop obsessing about distance. And great Dom Furore photo too (left).

Highlights:

Smith made it clear how he feels about Harmon’s forays with Mickelson when he saw Harmon on the practice putting green at the Masters and said, sarcastically, "Hey, thanks for looking after my buddy for me."
And Smith, more blunt: 
"[There has] probably been a lack of communication," said Smith Saturday, acknowledging that the partnership had stalled. “After awhile, the same message doesn’t get through as well. This morning before the round it got a little tense on the practice range because he was hitting the driver poorly and got confused. Finally, he sort of snapped at me, ‘Could you just give me one thing?’

Awkward!