Why Phil Mickelson's Game Might Be The Best It's Ever Been

I’ll admit it, I was a doubter.

Phil Michelson began the 2009 season looking as if he had not picked up a golf club all winter.

Michelson began the season with a missed cut at the FBR Open, followed by a tie for 42nd at the Buick Invitational and finished 55th at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am.

Finishing outside of the top-40 in each of his first three events was far less concerning than the way in which Mickelson was struggling with every single aspect of his game, including his legendary short game.

Then, out of nowhere Michelson won the Northern Trust Open.  Certainly a major step in the right direction, but that was not convinicing enough to believe he was back on track.

At Riviera, Michelson opened with a 63 which he then followed with a 72 the next day. 

On moving day Michelson again blistered Riviera Country Club with a 62 which was good enough to give him a four shot cushion heading into the final round.

Mickelson could have made a convincing case for having officially found his game by going out on Sunday and confidently closing out the tournament.

But, this is Phil Mickelson we are talking about. Part of what makes him so intriguing to watch is that nothing ever seems to come easy for the guy.

Michelson’s four-shot lead at the start of the day turned into a two-stroke deficit with just three holes to play.

So, as he has done so many times before, Michelson somehow pulled himself from the depths of defeat and birdied two out of the last three holes before calmly sinking a five-foot par put on the 72nd hole to edge out Steve Striker by a stroke.

Winning any PGA Tour event is a big deal, particular a tournament with as strong a field as the Northern Trust Open. 

But, I was still not convinced that Mickelson had found his top form.

Mickelson played well the next week at the Accenture World Golf Championship, finishing in a tie for ninth before moving onto Doral for the WGC-CA Championship.

There, he absolutely convinced me that he is indeed playing some of the best golf I have seen from him in a very long time. Maybe the best ever.

The fact that Mickelson won at Doral only slightly contributed to why I believe Mickelson is now as good as he’s ever been.  Mickelson could have finished tenth at Doral and I would have still believed that his game was at its top form.

Besides having a well known tendency to waver under the pressure of big-time events, Michelson’s Achilles heel has been his incredibly erratic driver.

His erratic play off the tee bit him at the 2006 US Open and has played a central role in his struggles over the past two years, particularly at the majors.

From 100 yards in there are few players better than Mickelson and around there greens you would be hard pressed to find anyone better than Mickelson. 

Michelson’s main problem has been his inability to hit the fairway off the tee, resulting in his beginning way too many holes at a marked disadvantage.

Now, as if Callaway has not given Michelson enough through massive multi-million dollar sponsorship deals, they may have actually saved his game.

And quite possibly his career with the creation of their new FT-9 driver.

For the first time in a very long time, Phil Mickelson does not look like a deer in headlights on the tee box. 

For a player that analyzed his tee shots so much he used to actually carry two drivers – one for a draw and one for a fade – Mickelson feels confident enough in his new FT-9 driver to have taken all thought out of the process other than literally just gripping it and ripping it.

Despite getting off to a very slow start in 2009, we always knew that Mickelson’s short game and iron play would eventually come around; he is simply too talented of a player for it not to.

However, what no one expected was that Mickelson would actually begin driving the ball longer and straighter than he ever has before.

Prior to the WGC-CA Championship, Mickelson was averaging 291 yards off the tee.  Through four rounds at Doral last week, Mickelson averaged 303.6 yards off the tee and hit very few of those outrageous drives that were so far off line they have his caddie, Jim ‘Bones’ Mackay, wishing he had a Sky Caddie to figure out a yardage he would have never even thought to anticipate.

Mickelson still hit just 51.79 percent of fairways off the tee at Doral last week.  However that statistic is somewhat misleading, as his wayward drives were rarely as far off line as we have become accustomed to seeing from Mickelson.

So, why is Phil Mickelson better right now than at possibly any other point during his illustrious 17-year career?

Well, you now have a player that is absolutely bombing the ball long and straight off the tee and combining that with a great short iron game and arguably the best short game in the world.

Mickelson has always had the strong short iron game and magical short game.  What he has very rarely been able to do is combine those aspects of his game with a consistent level of accuracy off the tee.  

Phil Mickelson bombing drives and hitting short irons that appear to be GPS programmed to track the flag stick will, without question, be a force to be reckoned with at Augusta in a few weeks.

But, then again, as we all know, Mickelson’s game can come and go from shot to shot, let alone week to week.  So, we could very well see a vastly different Phil Mickelson at the Masters in a few weeks.

But, for now at least, he has me convinced that he might have just found some distance and accuracy off the tee that is capable of once again carrying him to the upper echelons of the game.