Dorman: Callaway's Investigator Learned That The House Doesn't Always Win, At Least In Phil's Case
Buried deep in his analysis of Rory McIlroy's equipment switch and the initial criticism is this nugget from Larry Dorman, former Callaway SVP.
It involves the longtime rumors of Callaway paying off Phil Mickelson's purported gambling debts, and is preceded by an apology from Dorman for inserting himself into the story, who then explains what went into vetting Mickelson before his signing with Callaway in 2004.
If this doesn't put those rumors to rest...
Phil had won 15 tournaments, including the 2004 Masters, during his successful affiliations with Ping and then Titleist. He was ranked No. 4 in the world on the Official World Golf Ranking, his Titleist contract was expiring, and he was considering his options with other manufacturers. The month before the Ryder Cup was to be played at Oakland Hills, he signed with Callaway, swayed by the company’s new golf ball and driver combination. The surprise signing and the proximity of the Ryder Cup combined to cause quite an uproar in the media.
Baseless rumors arose in some quarters, questioning Mickelson’s motivation for signing. When I say baseless, I mean totally unfounded, manufactured rumors alleging gambling debts that had no basis in fact. Mickelson did like to gamble at the time, but he had zero outstanding debts and his betting patterns -- a stat that Vegas casinos keep -- had him even, to slightly up. All the information was checked out by Callaway’s head of investigations, a former head of counterintelligence for the U.S. Army, and no evidence was found to support the claims, either of gambling debt or any other charge.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 02:02 PM
Reader Comments (24)
As a potentially inflammatory yet irresistible aside, I would suspect many regular readers of this site are unwilling to accept as dispositive the findings of anyone in any way related to our government's intelligence community.
Phil's first tour win was in fact with Ping....but he was in college after all ;0)
Getty Images is amazing, they still have pics on the site from that event in 1991. There's a Jan 1992 pic that clearly shows him swinging the TaylorMade Pittsburgh Persimmon with the Flex-Twist shaft. I must admit that twice in my life I have tossed a club in a lake and one of them was that exact driver into the lake at 12 tee by Payne's place....my playing partner said "damn dude, that was a good shaft, I'd have like to have had that".
So apparently Callaway's S-2 offered no opinions as to the veracity of Phil's other alleged co-favorite extra-curricular activity?
In fact have you ever met anyone who hasn't lost in Vegas?
Wow, sounds like Callaway as more to hide than PM.
I have never been a club thrower. I had a LH T/M Spoon/TT S300, and hit it dead straight, and very low (I am a low baller to begin with) and always 30 yards shorter than I intended.
That "Ely Callaway paying off Vegas" story was always ridiculous.
It's not the intelligence gatherers, even when they miss the plot. It's their political bosses who use the intelligence to fill their preconceived/misconceived frames...
I once gently tossed a TaylorMade 200-Steel driver at my golf bag after hitting my default high push-slice into a creek. The club hit the bag at the perfect attitude and the head snapped off about 10 inches up. The jagged shaft then stuck itself right in the ground, vertically, with the head staring back at me. I think I heard it laughing; something was. I next heard one of the novices in the group whisper to another companion, "Did be just break his driver?" That member of the group, who worked at the Salk Institute for three years (3 am to 2 pm "shift") so he could spend every afternoon at Torrey Pines for about $6, just nodded "yes" to keep from losing it. Went the rest of the way around using a Titleist persimmon 4-wood off the tee. And the next day at work I was greeted by everyone as the golf club slayer. Funny, in more ways than one. I have the remnant and use it as a paper weight, 12 years later.
http://www.samefacts.com/2013/01/uncategorized/program-evaluation-using-randomized-experimental-designs/
Basic thrust of the comments is the same everywhere. LOL.
I was a pretty low torque cat back then. I even dropped in an EI-70 Tour Stiff at one point to match my driver but to no avail. That thing was shut, shut, shut. Never should have upgraded from the old one with the dimples in the undercarriage.
The only other time I ever threw a club in a lake was at World Woods. I had a Ping putter that acted up unlike any other putter before, or since....just horrible. After a couple of really glaring transgressions I dragged it down the cart path some....which only prompted it to act up even more. Upon completion of the round a couple of my playing partners swore the loft had been adjusted, but I'm just not so sure, those stainless Pings were very tough to bend, very tough. As we were leaving the club calmly asked the driver to stop the car, I got the putter out of the trunk, and tossed it in the lake....I mean WAY into the lake ;) We then went down the road and got a huge tub of boiled peanuts and at least a few Budweiser's and headed back toward Orlando, all was well...
It occurs to me there are only 2 lakes on the entire Bethpage property, neither of which offer much of a challenge...one of them really hardly even qualifies as a pond....
Personally, that's one of the reasons I preferred Kizer; far fewer impediments to aerial operations.
I then threw another Pelz wedge up there to try to knock it down, while my playing partners/"friends" were on the ground laughing. I at one point had 4 wedges in the tree. I tried standing on top of a cart, using a ball retriever, to knock them down. I eventually got two back, and left two up there (always wondered if anyone had been injured when those wedges finally fell out of the tree -- those things were pretty heavy, and fell from quite a height).
Ever since then I have not totally bought into the it's not the club argument. Sometimes it is the club.
All my friends who frequent Vegas are break even too ;)
The most alarming discovery of this is that Callaway has a head of investigations department