"I think you should call Dave Stockton."
/This can't bode well for Dave Pelz's future as part of Team Mickelson...from Doug Ferguson's notes:
Maybe Phil Mickelson should give a bigger chunk of his Tour Championship winnings to longtime caddie Jim "Bones" Mackay.
Turns out, it was Mackay who urged Lefty to get a few putting tips last week from Dave Stockton, the former PGA champion renowned for his advice on the greens.
"I said, 'Bones, I've been kind of floundering here, not having the right direction. I want you to think about it,"' Mickelson said. "He came back the next day and he said, 'I think you should call Dave Stockton. You guys putt the same. You've talked to him in the past and he had some great ideas."'
Stockton was at Torrey Pines last week for an LPGA Tour event, and Mickelson set up a meeting. The result: Lefty was persuaded to go back to a style he and Stockton both find more comfortable, in which the hands are pressed slightly forward ahead of the club and the stance is slightly wider than conventional wisdom.
"He was the first one to articulate (about) my hands getting ahead," Mickelson said. "Other guys can putt other ways, but this is the best way to putt. Once he said that, I said, 'Yeah, that's right, I've always believed that.' So I went back to it, and it's been like a night and day difference for me."
Bob Smiley thinks he has the lowdown on Phil's teaching family tree.