Phil with new Epic

[Red4282]

22 minutes ago, SUMM1T said:

 

This is such a shallow argument. Phil is 50 and he's transformed his body (hard enough at that age) and then won twice on champions Tour. Regardless of how you personally feel about the Champions Tour, it's a big deal to go out there and win like Phil did. To expect Phil at his age to do what kids half his age are doing while maintaining expectations of him in his prime is incredibly and impossibly high standards. 

 

 

Its not an argument, its an opinion. Everything else you said there is nice, but my beef is more with the “chasing distance” stuff, not phil.

[TheMoneyShot]

4 hours ago, BirdieBob said:

Now those are DEEP faced drivers!

So sexy😍

[SUMM1T]

6 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

Its not an argument, its an opinion. Everything else you said there is nice, but my beef is more with the “chasing distance” stuff, not phil.

 

I'm so confused. Someone said what Phil has done was impressive, you said it wasn't, followed by an explanation of what it wasn't impressive. The literal definition of the word argument is "an exchange of diverging or opposite views". That's what happened. 

 

This entire post is about Phil.

[Red4282]

7 minutes ago, SUMM1T said:

 

I'm so confused. Someone said what Phil has done was impressive, you said it wasn't, followed by an explanation of what it wasn't impressive. The literal definition of the word argument is "an exchange of diverging or opposite views". That's what happened. 

 

This entire post is about Phil.

No, look again, i said he hasn't been relevant since he started chasing distance... and people wanna argue with my opinion by digging up any glimmer of success. My OPINION on phils resume in the last few years isnt changing, no matter who wants to argue. Id welcome a counter argument to how much chasing distance has influenced that though. 

[bubbagump]

Glad this thread has so much about the new epic, and isn't just another drain fest argument.  

 

 

Driver in the back is deep af.....kind of Superdeep like....

Edited December 29, 2020 by bubbagump

[SUMM1T]

2 minutes ago, bubbagump said:

Glad this thread has so much about the new epic, and isn't just another drain fest argument.  

 

Careful... it's NOT an argument. It's an opinion.

[bladehunter]

I’m just surprised to learn that Phil’s first name is Van.  

[PureStrikes54]

33 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

No, look again, i said he hasn't been relevant since he started chasing distance... and people wanna argue with my opinion by digging up any glimmer of success. My OPINION on phils resume in the last few years isnt changing, no matter who wants to argue. Id welcome a counter argument to how much chasing distance has influenced that though. 

 

hAsN't bEeN rEleVaNt sIncE hE stArTeD chAsInG diStAnCe

 

[SwooshLT]

13 minutes ago, PureStrikes54 said:

 

hAsN't bEeN rEleVaNt sIncE hE stArTeD chAsInG diStAnCe

 

More wins than rickie? Lol

[Red4282]

21 minutes ago, PureStrikes54 said:

 

hAsN't bEeN rEleVaNt sIncE hE stArTeD chAsInG diStAnCe

 

Im only replying because you mentioned chasing distance. 

 

he has 2 pga tour wins since 2013- thats 7 years:

 

look at the drop off in major performances- a top 3 every year until 2017. 

Also got his tail handed to him in the 18 rydercup- 0-3. 

Is it age? Perhaps. Father time gets all of us. But remember since 2017, if anything he has ADDED speed.

 

I love phil. His back nine at augusta in his first masters win will always be my favorite two hours in golf. 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Red4282

[SUMM1T]

1 minute ago, Red4282 said:

Im only replying because you mentioned chasing distance. 

 

he has 2 pga tour wins since 2013- thats 7 yeas:

 

look at the drop off in major performances- a top 3 every year until 2017. 

Also got his tail handed to him in the 18 rydercup- 0-3. 

Is it age? Perhaps. Father time gets all of us. But remember since 2017, if anything he has ADDED speed.

 

I love phil. His back nine at augusta in his first year will always be my favorite two hours in golf. 

 

 

Correlation does not equal causation. You’re hardly pointing anything out other than he has struggled on the PGA Tour. It proves nothing about distance gains and its affect on his game. 

[Valtiel]

Phil's distance gains and obsession with "bombs" has definitely been a mixed bag and I think it has made him a lot more erratic. It is SUPER impressive to be producing what he is at his age, and he is definitely trying to keep up, but he is spraying it everywhere and I question if his distance average per the stats is not being impacted by having so few actual measurable drives in play to derive an average from. 

I love watching Phil do Phil things, but I do wish he would dial it back to, in both his AND Pelz's words, "get the driver to a place where it is alteast NOT hurting him". 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Valtiel

[Red4282]

Just now, SUMM1T said:

Correlation does not equal causation. You’re hardly pointing anything out other than he has struggled on the PGA Tour. It proves nothing about distance gains and its affect on his game. 

Shall i pull up fairways hit? Is that correlation or causation? 

[PureStrikes54]

1 minute ago, Red4282 said:

Im only replying because you mentioned chasing distance. 

 

he has 2 pga tour wins since 2013- thats 7 yeas:

 

look at the drop off in major performances- a top 3 every year until 2017. 

Also got his tail handed to him in the 18 rydercup- 0-3. 

Is it age? Perhaps. Father time gets all of us. But remember since 2017, if anything he has ADDED speed.

 

I love phil. His back nine at augusta in his first year will always be my favorite two hours in golf. 

 

 

 

I was responding to the fact that you said "Phil has not been relevant since he started chasing distance". He literally won two tournaments on the PGA tour at an older age which coincided with his statistically supported club head speed gains. 

[elwhippy]

Phil is the most erratic driver on any tour. Why on earth would you use him to market a driver? 

[Red4282]

9 minutes ago, PureStrikes54 said:

 

I was responding to the fact that you said "Phil has not been relevant since he started chasing distance". He literally won two tournaments on the PGA tour at an older age which coincided with his statistically supported club head speed gains. 

Yes, you are correct, but you have to put it in context..phil is top 10 alltime in career wins. Its a high standard, so dont get me wrong, im not comparing him to ricky fowler or those likes. But for his standard, he has dropped off. Maybe the age has cause endurance issues, i dont know. but Im glad to see him healthy as an ox, but the ADDITION of speed has seen him more erratic-, and i just didnt see it necessary as perhaps one of the best short games of all time. Meanwhile tiger is a complete shell of himself speed wise and somehow is still competitive.

[Valtiel]

9 minutes ago, elwhippy said:

Phil is the most erratic driver on any tour. Why on earth would you use him to market a driver? 

One word....

[SUMM1T]

56 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

Shall i pull up fairways hit? Is that correlation or causation? 

 

I tell you what, let's pull up strokes gained putting in 2018 and 2019 and contribute that decline to his driver as well. 

 

OR 

 

We recognize that Phil is struggling with EVERY aspect of his game when comparing it to any part of his prime or even just a fews year back. And we don't throw blame on his distance search as the culprit to any of that decline, because, it could very well be anything. 

 

 

[SUMM1T]

43 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

Yes, you are correct, but you have to put it in context..phil is top 10 alltime in career wins. Its a high standard, so dont get me wrong, im not comparing him to ricky fowler or those likes. But for his standard, he has dropped off. Maybe the age has cause endurance issues, i dont know. but Im glad to see him healthy as an ox, but the ADDITION of speed has seen him more erratic-, and i just didnt see it necessary as perhaps one of the best short games of all time. Meanwhile tiger is a complete shell of himself speed wise and somehow is still competitive.

 

Tiger seems to get a lot more leeway from most golfers when it comes to his performance. Looking at SG stats from the 2020 season, Phil posted better all around stats than Tiger, including a better SG off the tee than Tiger. And we could argue Tiger seemed to chase distance for a moment and has since toned it down a little. While I can see how it could be easier to tag distance as the culprit for Phil's decline, it isn't that simple. He's struggling with all parts of his game, suggesting it is more complicated than an obsession with speed. 

[SUMM1T]

55 minutes ago, elwhippy said:

Phil is the most erratic driver on any tour. Why on earth would you use him to market a driver? 

 

Almost... Jimmy Walker can firmly hold that trophy up in 2020. We just see Phil miss more fairways on TV because they assume we love to see him get out of trouble. Phil beat out Keopka, Spieth, Finau and other big names when it came to driving accuracy. 

[Cwing]

Hadn’t Phil always been erratic off the tee? What are his season by season driving stats?

[KJD777]

8 hours ago, cubuffs said:

In true WRXer fashion - the things I noticed about the video when posted yesterday:

 

1.  New Callaway Epic driver - but is that speed or LS?

2. GC Quad and Trackman 

3.  Oh, there is Phil....

 

He has the Epic Max LS

[SUMM1T]

1 hour ago, Cwing said:

Hadn’t Phil always been erratic off the tee? What are his season by season driving stats?

 

He usually sits towards the bottom third in driving accuracy. He also gets recognized more in this category than others that are with him because he gets more TV time. Looking at 2020's driving stats, I was surprised to see who performed worse than him in driving.

[Valtiel]

If you dig into the stats, I think they paint a fairly clear picture. Based on strokes gained, Phil has always had a driver that hovers around average but can dip into hurting him too much, a streaky putter but with more upside, and a fairly rock solid, bordering on elite approach and short game. When the putter clicks and the driver isn't hurting him, he is right in the mix. But everything flipped in 2019, which is when we first started hearing about his "new speed". 2016-2018 saw typical "good" Phil; average to mediocre driver but steady everywhere else with elite upside coming into, on, and around the green. That is three solid years of top 10 performance everywhere but off the tee, so it makes sense that he would try to find something there to "break out" again. But the transition into 2019 looks like he got hit by a truck:

2018:


2019:



The bad driver got worse and the elite approach and putting completely went away. Maybe it's father time, maybe whatever he did to gain speed off the tee messed up his feel, maybe a combo of both, or maybe it was those long sleeve shirts, who knows! All I know is that the Epic Speed has 4 little bits on the bottom and this is twice as many as before, so i'm sure Phil will be phine. 👍

Edited December 30, 2020 by Valtiel

[Shakespeare]

Looks like my game...bad drive...crappy second shot...great chip...jack the putt...

[ND2005]

Don’t really care about his golf game, I’m just happy for him and his body transformation. Probably the most important thing he could have done for his long term health and I really hope he can sustain it. 
 
He’s 50 and a HOF caliber player. Anything he does at this point is gravy and if he thinks chasing distance will help his game he should go for it. 

[Valtiel]

1 hour ago, ND2005 said:

Don’t really care about his golf game, I’m just happy for him and his body transformation. Probably the most important thing he could have done for his long term health and I really hope he can sustain it. 
 
He’s 50 and a HOF caliber player. Anything he does at this point is gravy and if he thinks chasing distance will help his game he should go for it. 

Agreed, especially for someone with an autoimmune condition. The fact that he is able to stay healthy with all the travel is remarkable, let alone the physical improvements along the way. I think it is just the sharp decline that worries fans. It is one thing to slowly taper off with age, fading gracefully into the HOF night, but another to tumble off a cliff in one season, coinciding with his fixation on "bombs". It makes it feel like the only thing between 2018 top 10 Phil and 2019/2020 scrapping it around Phil is that change, but if that change was improving his physical fitness and health then its kinda hard to say "go back to being fatter and slower Phil!". 😆

Edited December 30, 2020 by Valtiel

[Red4282]

1 hour ago, Valtiel said:

If you dig into the stats, I think they paint a fairly clear picture. Based on strokes gained, Phil has always had a driver that hovers around average but can dip into hurting him too much, a streaky putter but with more upside, and a fairly rock solid, bordering on elite approach and short game. When the putter clicks and the driver isn't hurting him, he is right in the mix. But everything flipped in 2019, which is when we first started hearing about his "new speed". 2016-2018 saw typical "good" Phil; average to mediocre driver but steady everywhere else with elite upside coming into, on, and around the green. That is three solid years of top 10 performance everywhere but off the tee, so it makes sense that he would try to find something there to "break out" again. But the transition into 2019 looks like he got hit by a truck:

2018:


2019:



The bad driver got worse and the elite approach and putting completely went away. Maybe it's father time, maybe whatever he did to gain speed off the tee messed up his feel, maybe a combo of both, or maybe it was those long sleeve shirts, who knows! All I know is that the Epic Speed has 4 little bits on the bottom and this is twice as many as before, so i'm sure Phil will be fine. 👍

Haha i found this that contradicts what you found. But you can see how skewed this article is written and how they think distance is everything

 

Apparently his swing had “dipped” to 116...ha...ok

 

 

[iNeedMoreGolf]

Its only important on tour... so what hes looking for an edge they all do. Anyone can beat anyone... or bryson would be winning every tourney. Its alot more then just power. Decision making and execution, Consistency, luck even.

[Valtiel]

38 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

Haha i found this that contradicts what you found. But you can see how skewed this article is written and how they think distance is everything

 

Apparently his swing had “dipped” to 116...ha...ok

 

 

Hah yeah, that article does not exactly age well. It is true that Phil's driver had been in decline, but not really TERRIBLY so. 154th in SG of the tee was his worst, but not really by all that much, and all the other categories were holding pretty steady. He was 131st in 2012, but another year of elite approach/short game/putting still put him 10th in SB overall, despite a shoddy driver. It just feels like the Mickelson ship was slowly listing to the starboard side and he threw all his weight over to port and tipped over. But still, 120mph clubhead speed at 50 is insane, and it would have been amazing to see him dominate the young guys if everything else had held together. 

Like I said though, Epic Speed will save the day, especially if he puts TWO of them in the bag. 😲

Edited December 30, 2020 by Valtiel