When he gets going about the intricacies of the game of golf, there’s nobody better the listen to than Phil Mickelson.
And when he gets going about Augusta National—a place where Mickelson has won three green jackets, and finished inside the top 5 in 40 percent of his appearences—you know he’s about to drop some serious knowledge.
That’s what happened during Lefty’s pre-tournament press conference ahead of this week’s LIV Golf: Miami event.
Asked by media members in attendance about how he shares knowledge with other players at a place like Augusta National, Mickelson gave a fascinating answer about how the course plays differently for left-handers in some subtle but important ways, as he explains.
“There’s little subtleties, nuances that allow that course to play different for Bubba and myself than John. And then they can be aggressive on certain spots where we have to be a little bit more careful and vice versa.”
(This is something we actually explored in more detail in our latest Game Plan video, which you can watch right here)
Interestingly, one example Phil highlights is how the greenside bunker shot on 10 is more penalizing for lefties than righties…
“When the pin is on the right, when it’s front, right, or even back, right when the pin is back, right? If you go in that bunker and a right-handed player comes in there and opens the face on his sand wedge and hits a nice high soft shot with little cut spin, it cuts back into the slope, checks up quick, pretty easy up and down. I’ve been in practice rounds where I’ve seen the guys throw it up there two feet, no problem. But for a left-handed player, if you go in that bunker and you open up that face, you hit that ball out there with cut spin, it’s working with the right to left green, the ball doesn’t stop. The best I can do is maybe eight feet and 10 feet is a pretty good shot. And so that bunker is much more penalizing for me than it would be for right-hand players.”
On the crucial 12th hole, though, lefties have a big advantage, as Phil explains:
“Another example would be 12, where it sits along our shot dispersion for lefty. So if we aim over the bunker and we pull it a little bit, it goes longer, right? And we can get to that back right pin. If we come out of it, it goes short left and still catches the green. So 12 as a whole where we get aggressive. Bubba and I we’re thinking too, and we’re getting after wherever the pin is, where as a right-handed player where it sits opposite their shot dispersion, they’ve got to be a little bit more cautious on that shot.”
It’s a fascinating nuance of Augusta National’s design, and one that, the more you go looking for it, the more you discover about it.
