"They're all long. There's no cool short one."

A few interesting bits from Phil Mickelson's pre-Firebore press conference:

Q. You had a couple pretty well-chronicled issues this year where you went with five wedges in one and you went with no driver and it didn't turn out so well. I wonder, when you're going through your setup for a week, how do these ideas germinate and who all is in on the discussion as to whether it's a green light or whether it actually happens? How do the ebb and flow of clubs in and out of the bag sort of transpire?

PHIL MICKELSON: It's kind of a variety of different ways. Sometimes when we just play a course we realize we haven't used a certain club. Other times it'll be a computer program that we'll use to identify what element of the game is more important. If you improve one area by 10 percent, it lowers your score the most. I mean, this is an interesting statistic, I think, that I'll share with you, that I've found is that if you increase any statistical category 10 percent across the board, it lowers scores. Okay, 10 percent fewer putts, obviously lower scores, 10 percent more greens, 10 percent closer to the hole, 10 percent more fairways, every one lowers scores except longer driving distance. Longer drives does not equate to lower scores on any course in America except one. There's one golf course in America where 10 percent longer driving equates to lower scores, and what would you think it would be? Augusta National.

So we'll do stuff like that. That will be fun and interesting and a different perspective.

Q. That's Pelz' program, software?

PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah.

And this is really encouraging to read that players are noticing these kinds of course setup details, and better yet, sharing them. Not that it'll change what Rees does! On Oakland Hills:

Q. It plays long?

PHIL MICKELSON: I wouldn't say it played long, no. I thought it played a good distance. It has a good mixture of holes. There's some short par-4s you can hit short clubs in and there's some long ones. The par 3s are a little monotonous. They're all long. There's no cool short one. 13 used to be a cool short one and they moved the tee back so it's 190. But they're just tough 3s. You just want to make a 3 on those holes.