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Have you ever wondered why Tiger Woods is better than Phil Mickelson? I can sum it up in two words: better mechanics. Phil is a great player who plays far beyond what his swing should produce. To put it simply, Phil has poor mechanics. Without going into detail for this piece let’s just say that Phil’s swing puts so much pressure on his hands to time the release that it only works sometimes. And while that is a truism for every player Phil is on the side of “hey, that guy shouldn’t be that good”. And. if you look at his swing, the question arises “how does he hit it so good” when most people are asking “how does he hit it so bad?”
My premise here is that Mickelson is the guy who should be challenging Nicklaus for most majors won in a career. Mickelson is more talented than Tiger Woods. How can I say that? Well, if you look at what each has accomplished in their careers you would have to say that while Phil has one of the top twenty resumes of any golfer in history (5 majors, 42 wins) his record is dwarfed by Tiger’s, which is beyond ridiculous (79 wins, 38 European Tour wins, 14 majors, 17 World Golf Championships, 3 U.S. Juniors, 3 U.S. Amateurs). But, if you look at their respective golf swings, you see Tiger constantly changing and improving, and Phil not doing much of anything with his swing. Mickelson has not improved his swing in 25 years, and it may go back further than that. As smart as he is he has never tried to improve his flawed swing, and he has paid dearly for that with substandard ball striking at the most crucial moments, not to mention the overall bad play in many of the most important tournaments. Mickelson’s swing is so grossly inferior to Tiger’s that I think it is a miracle that Mickelson’s record is as close as it is to Tiger’s. It certainly is a testament to Mickelson’s sheer talent and ability to play the game that he has amassed such a record in spite of his lack of attention to his golf swing.
Now, it would be well to remember that I am not dissing Mickelson as a player. He is far and above most every player alive other than Tiger. I am simply saying that he should be the one that people are talking about as the potential “greatest player ever”, not Tiger. Or at least he should be right up there with Tiger in every category. He has the hands that just know what to do with the clubs. But when you look at his swing you see that he steepens the club in the downswing and backs out of every shot with his knees buckling forward and his left hand practically coming off the club as he hyper-rolls the face in the release area. Yikes. The fact that he can do this and win majors, and pull off a performance like he did at Muirfield, is one of the more amazing things in all of sports. The guy is a genius, but he won’t fix his swing. I think it has cost him, but it’s all speculation and who knows?
The real debate revolves around the question of whether he should mess with it. One thing is for sure, he’s not looking for information that would lead to change. Why do you think he chose Butch Harmon as his teacher? He knew Butch wouldn’t try to change it. Mickelson is no dummy. He chooses to ignore his transition move and not try to change it. What, you don’t think a player of Phil’s ability could change the angle of the shaft in the downswing? A guy with hands as good as Phil’s? He could do anything he wanted with his swing. He has to know it is not the best technique. Why wouldn’t he try to improve it? I certainly can’t tell you the reason, although I suspect that it’s just not in Phil’s nature to question what he is doing and to try to do anything different. He is happy getting by on conventional swing ideas, which you know is what is going on when Butch is standing there on the practice tee watching him. I would love to talk to Rick Smith about his time working with Phil. I often wonder why in the world Phil changed teachers. Still doesn’t make sense, other than perhaps Phil just wanted to work on less and change less, and Butch tells better stories.