Wednesday PGA Championship Clippings

Jeff Rude fittingly kicks things off with a summary of where the wacky year in golf leaves us on the eve of the PGA and asks:

What will Phil do next to his bag? One can worry himself nauseous trying to guess the configuration. After all, Lefty has played majors with five wedges, two drivers, no driver and a driver that kept going left.

Can a junior set be far off?

On that front, Steve Elling files an interesting piece with insights from other players on Phil's club tinkering, with plenty of assuredness from Dave Pelz about the Team Mickelson thought process.

"He wouldn't be Phil Mickelson if he didn't change clubs and try new theories," said Geoff Ogilvy, a fellow member of the world top 10.

Welcome to golf's version of saying, "That's Manny being Manny."

Bob Harig says Kenny Perry is using criticism of his red-blooded American ways to uh, well, show up at Oakland Hills this week in his final preparations for the Fall Finish. Randall Mell (here) and Craig Dolch (here) also ponder Perry's place in the game.

John Huggan reports that Luke Donald's wrist isn't any better and that he's contemplating surgery.

Titled "Another successful surgery for the Open Doctor" or something silly like that, I feared that Jerry Potter was going to celebrate the Oakland Hills rees-tore before it's even seen one tournament round, but far from it:

Phil Mickelson finished 18th, shooting 6-over-par on a course he had played since he was a junior golfer. During the Bridgestone Invitational last week in Akron, Ohio, Mickelson was asked about Jones' work.

"Not a big fan," he answered.

Asked what he would do if he were Jones, he answered, "I would try to not be so monotonous."

Ohhhh, I think Rees will be hunting a certain Lefty down!

Doug Ferguson offers notes on Tiger telling ESPN radio that he won't be back for at least 5 months (and he's not watching much golf, which makes two of us, only I can get to the bathroom without it being a chore). And Ferguson shares this on the Olympic golf movement, where Phil seems to be reading off a script.

"Having golf an Olympic sport is exponentially more important to the game of golf than the majors," Mickelson said Tuesday from the site of the season's final major, the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills. "The reason for that is it would bring in 168 different countries and their Olympic foundation and all those revenues and that would be going towards the growth of the game."

Hunter Mahan (sadly) apologized for his comments about how players perceive the Ryder Cup (too many cash cow parties for the PGA of America!). Seems he was called into the principal's office.

“They took it personally, and I don’t blame them,” Mahan said after meeting with PGA president Brian Whitcomb and CEO Joe Steranka. “I deserve what I get. I take full responsibility for what I said.”

Alan Shipnuck's always fun Hot List features Oakland Hills, Ben Hogan, and this on the "business model of golf":

Ratings for Firestone and the Women's British were microscopic, and sponsors on every tour are pulling back in these lean economic times. Most ominously, neither Van Sickle nor Shipnuck traveled to the British Open.

Don't worry, 72-holes of stroke play in 2016 at some stalwart like Medinah will change it all, Alan.

Okay, to the important stuff. Your pool picks. Golfweek's staff issues their selections, this time actually more than 24 hours prior to the start of play. Ed Sherman weighs in here.

PGA.com's staff offers sleeper picks while PGATour.com's Fantasy Insider shares his thoughts on who might win. And finally, Tod Leonard chimes in with his likely contenders.