C'mon Phil......Ball spin really?

[Spitfisher]

Phil had diarhia  of the mouth yesterday, giving a reason for the poor play of he and tiger in 2004 RC as not being prepared to play and test Tigers golf ball that is "higher spin" versus his low spin ball. 

Plausible only with Phil.  4-5 hours??? Puh-lease.

I have been involved in 3rd party testing of golf balls and i can actually say that Phil is full of Sh*t here. The overall difference in spin from tour caliber golf balls, rememebr we are going back to to 2004, the diference is insignificant off the driver, from eight iron on down to wedges the spin characteriscs averge out  from one one spinny tour ball to and the next low spin tour ball is less than 5%. in other words a 5000 RPM wedge shot with the higher spin ball would be 4750 RPM at the worst case scenario.  Remember these are 20o3-04 golf balls, the TA and PV1 are just a couple of years old at this point.

Phil likes to talk, I get that, I like the guy, but please just shut up about ball spin and admit you ( and tiger) played badly, too much limelight for both is much more plausible. Two thumbs up for Hal  Suttons response too.

 

In alternate shot, you play with one ball, and that was the issue, Mickelson said.

"[Woods] found out the year before when we played at the Presidents Cup in 2003 that the golf ball I was playing was not going to work for him," Mickelson said. "He plays a very high-spin ball and I play a very low-spin ball, and we had to come up in two days with a solution.

"So I grabbed a couple dozen of his balls, I went off to the side, and tried to learn his golf ball in a four- or five-hour session on kind of an isolated -- one of the other holes out there trying to find out how far the ball goes. And it forced me to stop my preparation for the tournament, to stop chipping and stop putting and stop sharpening my game and stop learning the golf course, in an effort to crash-course and learn a whole different golf ball that we were going to be playing.

"In the history of my career, I have never ball-tested two days prior to a major. I've never done it. It doesn't allow me to play my best. What allows me to play my best is to learn the course, sharpen my touch on the greens, sharpen my chipping out of the rough and ball striking and so forth.

"Instead, I'm taking four or five hours and I'm out trying to learn another ball to allow us to play our best. Had we known a month in advance, we might have been able to make it work. I think we probably would have made it work. But we didn't know until two days prior."

[MacDutch]

Yes, that sounds like BS. Why not experiment a week (or two) earlier? Why not pair up someone with Tiger who did not have this problem. And if true it was amateuristic preperation.

[Wally Fairway]

Maybe Phil wouldn't have had to work so much if he hadn't changed his equipment to Callaway the week before the Ryder Cup.
I wonder why Phil didn't address that issue?

[GolfLug]

I guess, we are to assume ALL of his other foursome partners throughout the years played a ball to his liking and also the foursome ball selection must be a unique issue affecting him only.

[Patch]

I think a lot of times that male cow fecal matter, and explanations given by high profile tour players when they play poorly, usually go hand in hand. I think they are trying to baffle the masses with this "BS". Philly Mick is one of the better ones at doing this.  

Edited September 29, 2016 by Patch

[DaveP043]

7 minutes ago, Patch said:

I think a lot of times that male cow fecal matter, and explanations given by high profile tour players when they play poorly, usually go hand in hand. I think they are trying to baffle the masses with this "BS". Philly Mick is one of the better ones at doing this.

So Phil and Tiger lost the fourball Friday morning (playing his own ball) and lost in singles on Sunday (playing his own ball) because he missed out on 4 hours of normal practice? Seems a bit lame to me.

[Patch]

5 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

So Phil and Tiger lost the fourball Friday morning (playing his own ball) and lost in singles on Sunday (playing his own ball) because he missed out on 4 hours of normal practice? Seems a bit lame to me.

Wasn't this back when they didn't like playing together? 

[Wally Fairway]

Well that 16-19-1 record isn't going to explain itself away, now is it?

[billchao]

44 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

So Phil and Tiger lost the fourball Friday morning (playing his own ball) and lost in singles on Sunday (playing his own ball) because he missed out on 4 hours of normal practice? Seems a bit lame to me.

Clearly what happened is that he spent 4-5 hours learning Tiger's balls and it adversely affected him playing with his own balls 

[Golfingdad]

Not really a defense of Phil here but ...

He wasn't really being asked to make excuses for his past poor play, but rather he was talking about how he felt about his current captain.  He then felt the need to compare him to a few past captains that he wasn't as fond of (preparation-wise, at least) and that is when that example came up.

So, I believe that his point could still stand - it's probably not a wise thing to set pairings two days before the event between two guys that weren't expected to play together - because the two things aren't mutually exclusive.  Hal Sutton made a tactical error and, more importantly, Phil and Tiger didn't play well.

Of course, I agree with most above that it certainly was unnecessary of him to bring it up.  You can praise DLIII easy enough without having to be nasty towards previous captains.  Just say he's doing things really well and then shut up and go practice. 

[chilepepper]

If Phil is hanging on to this butt hurt so long perhaps he needs some counseling. Get over yourself and move on. 

[mchepp]

Phil is being a politician here, by that I mean a selective memory. The ball may have been something he struggled with, but the fact that he COMPLETELY changed all of the clubs in his bag wasn't? Come on!

Those of us with good memories will remember that in 2004 almost RIGHT before the Ryder Cup Phil switched from Titleist to Callaway clubs. 

So the ball was an issue? How about ALL of his clubs being new was an issue. 

Sorry Phil, 2004 was on you, not Tiger's ball.

Here is the article, check out the date:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/sports/golf/a-puzzling-change-for-mickelson.html?_r=0

[Golfingdad]

26 minutes ago, mchepp said:

Phil is being a politician here, by that I mean a selective memory. The ball may have been something he struggled with, but the fact that he COMPLETELY changed all of the clubs in his bag wasn't? Come on!

Those of us with good memories will remember that in 2004 almost RIGHT before the Ryder Cup Phil switched from Titleist to Callaway clubs. 

So the ball was an issue? How about ALL of his clubs being new was an issue. 

Sorry Phil, 2004 was on you, not Tiger's ball.

Here is the article, check out the date:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/17/sports/golf/a-puzzling-change-for-mickelson.html?_r=0

Good memory.  But just to be clear - the article says he changed driver, fairway woods and ball ... not irons.

Quote

When Mickelson tees off with Tiger Woods for the United States in the morning's feature four-ball match against Europe's Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington, he will be using a Callaway driver and hitting a Callaway ball instead of the Titleist driver and Titleist ball he used in winning the Masters and finishing second in the United States Open, third in the British Open and tied for sixth in the P.G.A. Championship.

Mickelson will also have a Callaway 3-wood and 4-wood in his bag, but he will still be using his Titleist irons and putter.

Still, pretty dickish of Phil to fault Sutton for him having to spend time learning a new ball when his "current" ball was only one week old.

[RussUK]

I think there is an apt saying here. "A bad workman always blames his tools" or in the case of phil blaming Tiger "a bad workman blames a complete tool" (ok, i suppose Tigers not THAT bad).

[mchepp]

7 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Good memory.  But just to be clear - the article says he changed driver, fairway woods and ball ... not irons.

Well...I am getting older. guess my memory isn't as good as I thought. I remember it as all of the clubs, but driver and ball are pretty big to change one week before the tournament. Then 12 years later blame Hal for partnering him with someone who used a different ball and not even mention the change he made.

[Spitfisher]

3 hours ago, MacDutch said:

Yes, that sounds like BS. Why not experiment a week (or two) earlier? Why not pair up someone with Tiger who did not have this problem. And if true it was amateuristic preperation.

Now that right there would "proper planning" by Phil. Besides how many balls do you have to hit to make a determination of Tigers ball over your own???

The 5 Ps- something I have subscribed to.....

Proper planning prevents piss poor perfromance

[boogielicious]

3 minutes ago, Spitfisher said:

Now that right there would "proper planning" by Phil. Besides how many balls do you have to hit to make a determination of Tigers ball over your own???

The 5 Ps- something I have subscribed to.....

Proper planning prevents piss poor perfromance

6 Ps?? Unless piss-poor is hyphenated. 

[Spitfisher]

Just now, boogielicious said:

6 Ps?? Unless piss-poor is hyphenated. 

7 Ps  Proper planning prevents piss poor perfromance probability