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Hitting a driver off the deck is one of the coolest-looking shots in golf.
It’s also one of the trickiest – unless, of course, you happen to be Phil Mickelson.
Dispelling the notion that you need a clean lie to execute this shot to perfection, the five-time major winner provided yet another example of why people call him ‘Phil The Thrill’.
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Playing in the second round of this week’s Charles Schwab Series at Ozarks National – his first over-50s event – Mickelson found himself in an awkward spot off the ninth fairway, his ball sitting in tree bark underneath a tree.
Most players would take an iron and chop it back out into play.
Not Phil.
Watch what happened…
“Give me the driver.” – @PhilMickelson pic.twitter.com/mGG5lZM5e6
— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) August 25, 2020
Phil being Phil, right?
Speaking to reporters after his round, he explained the thought process behind the shot.
“People say, you’re hitting a driver out of the bark, whatever. The fact is I had to hit a low cut and it was much easier to hit a low cut with that club than it was a 2-iron.
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“There was a post and I had left-to-right wind and I was going to have to play right of that post and the wind was going to take it further right and a 2-iron was going to have too much — it was going to be too hard for me to get it to cut back into that wind.
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“A driver off the deck cuts almost automatically, so I didn’t have to do anything to that shot. I could hit the driver right of that post and I felt it was going to cut back into the wind without having to do too much at impact.”
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With just 18 holes to play on his Champions Tour debut, Mickelson holds a four-shot lead over his nearest challengers Tim Petrovic and Rod Pampling, with Rocco Mediate a further shot adrift.
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