Phil Mickelson reveals Augusta’s national tactic that made that champion Masters

Master veterans take all kinds of Augusta’s national wisdom along the way.

Ben Hogan would aim for the 11th green right, seeking to avoid opening Corner with a spraying and a pebble. Nick Faldo has spoken of the importance of, in the case of lost shocks, ensuring that you leave yourself a sharp return if you can wrap your head around that strategy. Tiger Woods can tell you everything about RAE’s Creek’s effect in the way balls break through the property.

on Livi’s event in Miami On Wednesday, Sergio Garcia, winner of the 2017 green jackets, said a light trap in which players fall during masters week loving him Many and leaving that strong desire to shine them when things don’t get their way. “You have to reorganize,” he said.

Sitting next to Sergio Garcia was his steady steady, Phil Mickelsonwho has three emerald coat. You will be forgiven for thinking Mickelson, who will make his 32nd career masters next week, there can be nothing new to say about Augusta National, but that will never be the case. The man has more history than the Grimm brothers, and on Wednesday he was in a particularly reflective mood – to the point that he was easily separated with some of his Enlightenment Augusta.

For Mickelson, learning how to win at Augusta National went down not so much to calm his nerves or carry two drivers (something he has tried), but more about his access to a specific hole: par-5. “I would force the matter.”

This is an easy thing to do in Firethorn, which has historically played as the second easiest course hole with an average note 4.77.

Bobby Jones, the co-founder of the Angc, believed that all Par-5 course should be accessible to skilled players, and the 15th, which even after a last extension extends to only 550 yards, is no exception. A car on the road ridge leaves only a medium iron (the longest hit) in the hybrid (shorter tap) in a green and long water. The eagles are foolish. Ordinary birds. Pars acceptable. But bogeys or worse? They should be avoided at all costs.

In the second round of the 1998 masters, Mickelson Bogey 15. A year later, in the opening round, he made a double in the same hole, one of his only slides along the way to a T6 end (five back of Joséa Olazábal). In 2000, again in the hunt, he rejected 15 Sunday before connecting to the 7th. Lesson learned? Of course it looked that way. During his next three gentlemen, Mickelson did not throw a single blow to 15, playing the hole in an eight cumulative under the par. Then, in 2004, came his daughter’s victory. He did not make birds 15 that week, but also avoiding self-sacrificed wounds.

“When I finally won it, I felt like, well, a 5 is okay there,” Mickelson said Wednesday. “How, I could lose the tour at 15; I don’t need to do 4 every time. So I would always crush the issue, and I would do 6, 7 times trying to make a 4, and when I finally accepted a 5 in that hole and tried to win it, it was when I was finally to say. That was the holes that I was feeling that I was not to be. Dispute the issue allowed to win me, to win more finally.

Mickelson, 54, can still defeat the 15th but not as easily as it used to be. To add some muscles to his bag, he said he experimented with a 7-tree, but found that he produced a lot of rotation, so he was set in a 5-dru.

“I have one that I like a lot and I anticipate to hit at 13 and 15 based on the last two years where my ball is ending from the Tee and the yard I have left,” he said.

Another master, another plan.