Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson two highest earning athletes
SI has come out with their “Fortunate 50″ list for 2010. Once again the top to highest paid athletes are golfers! #1: Tiger Woods has been the highest paid athlete for seven years in a row, despite a drop in $22 million last year. Boy how much could you do with an extra $22 million per
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Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson two highest earning athletes
2010 US OPEN – Graeme Mcdowell is champ
Graeme McDowell is the 2010 US OPEN champ A few thoughts before I hit the hay from a long weekend of golf, Father’s Day and the US OPEN. Nobody seemed to want to win this thing. Everyone melted down. It seemed that the person who wanted to lose this thing the least won. Gregory Havret was impressive and
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2010 US OPEN Graeme Mcdowell is champ
Happy 40th Birthday Phil Mickelson
HOG sends best wishes and a happy birthday to Lefty, Phil Mickelson. I’m betting a win this week at Pebble Beach in the US OPEN would be a good birthday present.
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Happy 40th Birthday Phil Mickelson
Rory McIlroy’s winning 62 at Quail Hollow was impressive
What would it be lie to win a PGA Tour event before you even need to shave? No choke factor. No Sunday gag. No melting down in the stretch. 20 year old Rory McIlroy shot an amazing 62 yesterday to win the Quail Hollow Championship over 2nd place finisher Phil Mickelson and 3rd place Angel
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Rory McIlroys winning 62 at Quail Hollow was impressive
Odyssey to Offer Limited Edition Phil Mickelson Blade Putter
April 29, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Golf Equipment
On the night that Phil Mickelson won the 2010 Masters, I wrote in detail about his custom-made Odyssey blade putter . As I noted that evening, Phil's putter is not currently in Odyssey's lineup. But Odyssey recently announcement that 82 right-handed and 82 left-handed models of the Mickelson-inspired ProType 82 blade putter will be made available to the public. Beginning May 10 at 11:00 AM ET (8:00 AM PT), those interested in owning one of these limited edition putters can sign up to be eligible for purchase on a first-come basis at OdysseyGolf.com . Each of these 164 individually numbered, limited-edition putters features a green highlight on the sole, a nod to Mickelsons win at Augusta earlier this month. According to a release, the ProType 82 features a face insert that is identical to the insert in the White Ice family of putters, a tungsten weight in the rear section and a single white alignment linejust like Mickelson's. The putters will come with special headcover and a Black Series grip which is identical to the one Phil used at Augusta. Each of the putters will be numbered and sold for $500. “I'm very excited that the designers at Odyssey have produced this limited edition putter with the same design as my gamer,” Mickelson said in the release. Austie Rollinson, Principle Designer for Odyssey Golf said in the release, “Phil came to us a few years back to develop this particular model and hes obviously had great success with it on the PGA Tour. The ProType 82 Putter was developed due to the large number of requests we receive from people interested in the product that Phil uses on the games biggest stage.” Don't be surprised to see more ProType putters released from Odyssey in the future. See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Odyssey and Callaway , and schedule your fitting with GolfTEC. Related: Follow David Dusek on Twitter | ClubTest 2010: Putters
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Odyssey to Offer Limited Edition Phil Mickelson Blade Putter
Odyssey to Offer Limited Edition Phil Mickelson Blade Putter
April 29, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Golf Equipment
On the night that Phil Mickelson won the 2010 Masters, I wrote in detail about his custom-made Odyssey blade putter . As I noted that evening, Phil's putter is not currently in Odyssey's lineup. But Odyssey recently announcement that 82 right-handed and 82 left-handed models of the Mickelson-inspired ProType 82 blade putter will be made available to the public. Beginning May 10 at 11:00 AM ET (8:00 AM PT), those interested in owning one of these limited edition putters can sign up to be eligible for purchase on a first-come basis at OdysseyGolf.com . Each of these 164 individually numbered, limited-edition putters features a green highlight on the sole, a nod to Mickelsons win at Augusta earlier this month. According to a release, the ProType 82 features a face insert that is identical to the insert in the White Ice family of putters, a tungsten weight in the rear section and a single white alignment linejust like Mickelson's. The putters will come with special headcover and a Black Series grip which is identical to the one Phil used at Augusta. Each of the putters will be numbered and sold for $500. “I'm very excited that the designers at Odyssey have produced this limited edition putter with the same design as my gamer,” Mickelson said in the release. Austie Rollinson, Principle Designer for Odyssey Golf said in the release, “Phil came to us a few years back to develop this particular model and hes obviously had great success with it on the PGA Tour. The ProType 82 Putter was developed due to the large number of requests we receive from people interested in the product that Phil uses on the games biggest stage.” Don't be surprised to see more ProType putters released from Odyssey in the future. See-Try-Buy: Learn more about Odyssey and Callaway , and schedule your fitting with GolfTEC. Related: Follow David Dusek on Twitter | ClubTest 2010: Putters
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Odyssey to Offer Limited Edition Phil Mickelson Blade Putter
Phil Mickelson’s Unique Odyssey Blade Putter
April 12, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Golf Equipment
More than almost any golfer on tour, Phil Mickelson is willing to experiment and tinker with his golf equipment. He won the 2006 Masters using two drivers and the 2008 Colonial carrying five wedges. He broke out a 64 wedge at Winged Foot for the U.S. Open in 2006, inspiring other players to carry super-high-lofted wedges.
He’s also used a wide variety of putters over the years. Notably, Mickelson was the first player to use a Scotty Cameron Futura in a PGA Tour event. It wasn’t pretty, but Mickelson made it work.
While he’s also used a variety of mid-size mallets and heel-toe weighted Anser-style putters, these days Mickelson is using a classic blade putter, a White Hot XG Blade, made by Odyssey, the putter-arm of Callaway Golf. Unfortunately for Mickelson fans, his blade is not a part of Odyssey’s current line, so it’s not available to the public.
There are a few things that make Phil’s old-school putter unique.
“[Manufacturers] have never been able to put a line on a blade putter,” he said at Colonial in 2008, a week after spending some time at Callaway’s testing facility in Carlsbad, Calif. “But with the way they can grind it now, they were able to put a line in it. I can align it so much better.”
While his current blade has a darker finish than the one he used that week, Mickelson still has Odyssey grind a line into his putter to assist him with alignment.
There is an insert in the face of the putter, but that’s a variable he can change. An Odyseey rep told me that the company has supplied Phil with several identical putters that feature different inserts, some being firmer while others are softer. Based on the ball he’s playing and the speed of the greens, Phil changes putters accordingly.
The same thing goes for the lead tape you see in these photos. On slower greens, like those found on the West Coast Swing or in Europe, he often adds weight. On faster greens he uses less or removes the weight entirely. There was no lead tape on Phil’s putter at Augusta National.
Another unique thing about Mickelson’s blade is the amount of loft he uses. The standard loft on most putters is between 3-4. But Mickelson’s putter has slightly more because of his stroke. He recently told Golf Digest, “The amount of loft you have on your putter is going to be dependent on your hand position and ball position. My hand position is ahead, so I need more loft. Sometimes I have 5 or 6 on my putters.”
So will a blade putter like Mickelson’s help you drain more putts like his 20-footer for birdie on the 12th hole Sunday? That all depends on your stroke and how consistently you can hit a solid putt.
A blade putter is ideal for golfers who swing the club on an arc, taking it inside the target line on the backswing and follow-though. If your putting stroke goes straight back and then straight through the ball, a blade-style putter is probably a poor fit.
When you strike the ball in the sweetspot of a blade, it will perform wonderfully. But with almost no perimeter weighting, putts hit near the toe or on the heel will be short and offline. Forgiveness is not a blade putter’s strong suit.
2010 Masters Sunday Blog
3:57: Tiger Woods just holed out on #7 for eagle. He was so beaten down all he could do was smile and hold his arms in the air after the ball dropped. Fred Couples hit a 327 yard drive on #8 and has a green light special. Westwood pulled his drive on #7 and is
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2010 Masters Sunday Blog
Phil Mickelson Playing Two Drivers at Doral
March 11, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Golf Equipment
MIAMI With the wind gusting well over 30 miles per hour, defending WGC-CA champion Phil Mickelson has decided to add a second driver to his bag.
Butch Harmon, Mickelson’s swing coach, told me on the driving range, “One hits it higher and the other hits it lower; that’s really the only difference.” However, he added that the lower-hitting driver is also slightly shorter.
Mickelson has been playing a Callaway FT-9 Tour Authentic driver with a Mitsubishi Fubuki shaft for more than a year. The driver he added today is a Callaway FT-5 Draw with a Mitsubishi Diamana White Board shaft (right).
According to Harmon, the two-driver strategy is being employed because of the windy conditions. “The lower-hitting one is more for crosswinds and into the wind. The high-hitting driver he probably won’t hit as much. Maybe on 1, 2 and 5 because he can carry the bunkers with it.”
Harmon said that the lower-hitting driver doesn’t go as far, but Mickelson controls the ball very well with it.
“He was asking me about it when we got started,” continued Harmon, “and I said, ‘Hey, you won the Masters using two, so that’s fine with me.’ Then I told him that its a lot better than using any!”
Chuckling at his reference to Mickelson’s decision not to play a driver in the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, he said, “I won’t tell you what he said to me after I said that, but it started with an F.”
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Phil Mickelson Playing Two Drivers at Doral
Gear Notes: Anthony Kim’s Nike Putter, Phil Mickelson’s Callaway Irons, Steve Stricker’s Titleist Hybrid
February 8, 2010 by Editor
Filed under Golf Equipment
Callaway Phil Mickelson decided not to go with the Ping Eye2 wedge at Riveria, but he did carry a Callaway Tour Authentic X Forged 4-iron instead of one of his prototype hybrid clubs . Mickelson uses Callaway's X-Proto irons with Project X shafts . The main difference between the two irons is the X Forged has perimeter weighting that helps get the ball airborne more easily while the X-Proto is a muscleback blade that allows players to shape shots more easily. Nike When Anthony Kim had his breakout season in 2008, he did it using 12 Nike clubs. The two non-Nike sticks were an Adams hybrid and a customized Scotty Cameron putter that said “Boomer Sooner” on the flange as a nod to Kim's alma mater, Oklahoma. This season, Kim is playing 14 Nike clubs. The hybrid club was replaced by a Nike SQ Dymo fairway wood , and Kim is now playing a new Nike Method 001 putter . TaylorMade Paul Goydos added new TaylorMade TP wedges with xFT to his bag at Riviera, but not until they were extensively modified. According to the company, his 54 and 60 wedges were bent in two areas of the hosel to create offset. An e-mail from TaylorMade said, “We bend it extremely strong at the lowest point of the hosellike 6. Basically as much as we can without damaging or ruining the look of the hosel. Then we go to the highest point of the hosel and bend it back to its original loft. The result is a wedge that has a lot of offset.” TaylorMade reps say the wedges with added offset look similar to Ping Eye2s in the playing position and help Goydos get under the ball.
