Westwood backs into win on tour.

I have said for months that Lee Westwood does not have what it takes mentally to win on the PGA Tour, or in a major championship for that matter. Every time he has come down the stretch in the final 18 holes, either leading or close to the lead, he fails to close the deal!

I cannot stress enough the impact that a player's mental game has on his scoring, and winning. Some golfers are simply not comfortable with the lead, or in the winner's circle.

Sunday at the St. Jude Classic, he had finished at ten under par, with the leader Robert Garrigus still out on the 18th tee, at thirteen under, with one hole to go. Westwood was about to head for the airport when PGA officials told him to stick around for a few minutes. Why?

Garrigus had led the tournament when the final round began, but he is another tour player who has never won on tour, and leading the tournament made him green around the gills. So he promptly played poorly until he was no longer in the lead.

Once he was back in his comfort zone, he relaxed and started playing good golf again. Standing on the 18th tee, Garrigus was once again hit with the reality of the fact that he had a three-stroke lead going into the last hole.

What did he do? He panicked and hit his tee shot left into the water. He then dropped back of the water and chunk-pulled his next shot on the other side of the water to the left. From there he managed to punch out over the water and back in the fairway. He was lying four, hitting five onto the green. He managed to two-putt for a triple bogey seven, and found himself in a playoff with Westwood and Robert Karlsson.

Garrigus promptly stood up on the 18th tee again, to begin a sudden death playoff with Karlsson and Westwood, and drove it through the fairway, up against a tree. He was SOL, with no shot to the green at all. He punched out into the fairway, then hit the green, two-putted for bogey, and his tournament was over. Westwood found himself remaining in the playoff with Karlsson, and managed to beat Karlsson for the win!

What will this win do for Westwood's mental side of his game? I don't think his backing into a win this last weekend will do anything for his mental toughness at all. But who knows? Maybe he'll start thinking he is the luckiest golfer on tour, and even thinking you are lucky can have its rewards.

But it will be interesting to watch his play in this week's U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. I'm looking forward to this week's tournament.

My Golf Equipment Business Background

Some of my readers have asked me to tell some stories here at my blog about my experiences in the golf equipment industry. I think the best way for me to do that is to copy some excerpts from my new novel, LOVE WAS NOT ENOUGH, into this blog.

The very first hardback copies of my book were just released last week, and one of the first people to whom I mailed a copy was to Arnold Palmer. Please see the photos, one with the inscription to Mr. Palmer:

October, 1992

I drove to Seattle, Washington by myself on Wednesday to the GTE Western Classic. I brought a total of ten of the Probe 20/20 putters with me, several each of the three different weights we made it in. On Thursday, a practice day for the Senior Tour pros, the first pro I saw on the putting green was Arnold Palmer. I walked through the ropes surrounding the green, holding back over 500 viewers, and went to Arnie.

"Hey, Arnie, mind if I show you something new?"

"What do you have, Pete?"

"We invented a new putter that has the thin end of the shaft in the grip, and the fatter, heavier end in the head. It gives you a pure pendulum stroke each and every time and keeps the putter head moving toward the hole."

"Let me try it."

I handed the #3 Probe putter to Arnie, explaining it was the lightest one.

"It's pretty heavy!"

"It's made that way to keep any jerkiness out of the stroke"

Arnie stroked a ten foot putt uphill and it went right in the center of the hole.

"It feels pretty nice."

"Now try this one. It is 50 grams heavier."

"It feels even better."

"We found the heavier putters give you more control on faster greens. Now try this one. It's the heaviest model at 450 grams in the head."

"I think I like this one the best."

"Let me show you something I incorporated into the putter."

I placed the ball about three feet from the hole, with a slope from left to right.

"Arnie, this putt normally breaks from left to right about three inches. With any other putter, you'd have to aim outside the hole to the left and hope you hit it the proper speed so it breaks three inches and you make the putt. But with this putter, you can hit the ball with the mark at the heel, and it will put left-hand spin on the ball, reducing the break to the right so you can aim the ball at the inside of the left side of the hole and it will only break about an inch. The putter actually straightens out the putt and you make it without aiming outside the hole."

Arnie tried it and the ball went into the center of the hole. "That's amazing!"

Now put the ball on the other side of the hole, so the putt will normally break about three inches from right to left. Then aim the putt inside the right side of the hole and hit the ball off the mark on the toe of the putter. The putter will put right-hand spin on the ball and the putt will only break about an inch, into the center of the hole."

Arnie tried the putt, placing the ball off the toe of the putter and the ball went into the center of the hole.

"Whoa, that is nice. So I can hit short breaking putts off the toe or heel when appropriate, and take the break out of the putt?"

"Exactly. You can take the guesswork out of making short breaking putts."

"OK, may I take this putter out for a practice round right now?"

"Of course, but let me show you one more thing you can do with this putter."

"There's more?"

"Yep."

To be continued.......

The weather affects PGA tour pros differently!

Yesterday I asked the question, "Who will win the U.S.Open at Pebble Beach in two weeks?"

I made the argument that weather may very well determine the outcome of the tournament, because tour players differ in their strengths and weaknesses in their games. Someone who can drive it longer than most of the field will excel if the course is wet, for example. The ball won't roll, so shorter players will not prevail by getting their usual roll, while the longer hitters will fly the ball to their target without the ball rolling into trouble.

Today I tried to learn what the weather is expected to be starting June 14. Not an easy thing to do when very few weather forecasters get the next day's weather forecast correct!

I found a golf blog that talked about Pebble Beach and the Open, and it said the weather was wet, but it was talking about the Open being this week, not next week. I tried to check the date, and it only showed the time of the day, not the date or the year!

Then I went to Yahoo Weather, and it showed fairly clear and dry for the next ten days, so I assume that is the correct information.

If the weather is windy, lower hitters will have the advantage. Mickelson hits the ball high, so wind will hurt him. Tiger and a number of the new, young players can drive it low when they have to, so windy conditions will give them an advantage.

As you probably know, the PGA tour flip-flops the tee times on Thursday and Friday, to try to make it fair for all players, before they cut to the low 70 and ties for the weekend. If a player tees off early on Thursday, he will tee off late on Friday, for example. That supposedly balances out for all players, but it won't be fair if the weather changes from one day to the next.

Wet conditions also give an early tee time the advantage, because those players can putt on smoother greens compared to the afternoon players putting on greens with 1) raised cups from the weight of the early players pushing down on the green surface from six inches to several feet away from the cups, and 2) spike marks from the early players.

I have gone out on a limb by already predicting that Phil Mickelson will not win the Open, ten days before the first tee time, but that is because of the driver and putter he has to play due to his contract with Callaway.

Trying to predict who will win any particular tournament weeks in advance is something the tour media tries to do, but not knowing what the weather will be at tee time makes it impossible in my opinion. Believe it or not, most tour players do not have the ability to change their swing and ball flight when the weather dictates it is necessary.

The players who are most hurt when the weather changes are the players who are under the more stringent contracts to play particular clubs, or a particular ball, and are not fee to change with the conditions. One ball, for example, flies lower than other balls, so it is better to play the low flying ball in the wind.

How will Justin Rose, last week's winner at the Memorial, play at the Open? I have heard rumors he is not even entered!

The United States Open at Pebble Beach

OK, everyone, what are your thoughts about who will contend at this year's U.S. Open at Pebble Beach? I believe Tiger has gotten enough demons regarding his past personal life out of his mind to start playing well again. And every golf commentator on the PGA Tour seems to favor Phil Mickelson as the winner this year. Phil has won how many times at Pebble Beach?

And now the tour has a new group of young players, as demonstrated by last week's Memorial. Justin Rose won at age 29 last week, and the runner-up, Ricky Fowler, is 21 years of age. In addition to those two, there is Dustin Johnson at 25 years who has won tournaments at Pebble Beach already in his short professional career so far. Another eight to ten young players are all capable of winning at Pebble Beach.

I have already predicted that Phil will not win the Open, because I do not believe he will win in two weeks as long as he is hitting his driver crooked, and as long as he continues using the Callaway blade putter. Only if the weather conditions are wet, and therefore the greens are soft and slow, will Phil have a chance.

That is why Phil threatened on Sunday at the Memorial; an early tee time on Thursday in wet conditions. If it is dry and windy, Phil won't have a chance.

So let's see what weather they expect to have for the Open in another week or so.

The golf equipment industry has changed!

I started PROBE GOLF, my golf equipment company, in my garage on the Lake Shastina Golf Resort's fifteen hole during the winter of 1986-87. The space shuttle had just exploded during launch the day my first golf components showed up at my house.

I had studied the differences between all of the iron shafts on the market at the time, and learned why PING "custom fit" iron sets really fit no one because they used the same shaft for every customer. Changing the Lie, Length, and Grip size means nothing if the shaft's flex and flex point (low, medium or high) is not properly addressed.

I made myself a custom fit set of Probe irons, and dropped from a 6-handicap to a "+2" handicap. I won that year's Lake Shastina Men's Amateur by shooting 70-70-140, four under par. The three guys who finished 2nd, 3rd, and 4th all played PING irons. Over drinks the afternoon I won, all three ordered custom fit sets of Probe irons from me. The next year one of them came back and won the same tournament by six strokes!

I had played golf for 22 years, and had never had a hole-in-one. After making my first set of Probe irons for myself, I holed a 5-iron on #8, 195 yards over a lake. A month later I holed a 2-iron on #11, at 222 yards. The shaft I chose for my set made all the difference in my scoring. No other golf equipment manufacturer was custom fitting shafts in those days.

By 1991, I learned that the most important two clubs in the golf bag were the driver and the putter. The driver sets up every par-4 and par 5 hole. If you drive it long and straight, the rest of the hole can be attacked, for a birdie or better. But drive it crooked, and you end up scrambling for a bogie or worse.

That's what I have been talking about with Phil Mickelson for the last two weeks. He has removed his ability to play a better driver than his Callaway driver, all for endorsement money paid to him by Callaway. When I learned the details of his contract, and learned what kind of man manages Phil, I no longer remained as a fan of Phil Mickelson. I want to respect the golfers for whom I cheer, and Phil would be the best golfer in the world, better than Tiger, if Phil would put performance ahead of endorsement money.

The same holds true of his putter, the Odyssey (Callaway-owned) blade he uses. A heel-shafted putter is the worst kind of putter for a tour player to use. It is the farthest thing imaginable from a center-shafted, face-balanced putter.

I mentioned over a week ago what happened when I got the idea of helping Phil make more short, fast, breaking putts by showing him how to improve his chances of doing so by using my Probe 20/20 putter. When I tried to contact Phil online with that "noble" goal, I ran into his lawyer, who threatened me if I so much as tried to say, "Hi." to Phil.

When I worked the Senior PGA Tour from 1991 through 1993, I introduced the seniors to my superior Probe driver. I figured the Senior Tour players would be more likely to use what worked for them, and won more tournaments for them, than simply play certain equipment for endorsement money. I was right, up to a point. In two years we had 23 victories by seniors who were using the Probe driver! And we did not pay any of them to play it.

The best example I want to mention to make my point was Chi Chi Rodriguez, who played the Probe driver starting in February of 1991. He won four tournament in three months, and was the leading money winner on the Senior Tour by June of 1991. Then his agent demanded we pay him $150,000 to continue using the Probe for the rest of the year, or he was going to change to Callaway's Big Bertha, at the "suggestion" of his attorney. I faxed his attorney and wished Chi Chi well with his new Bertha. He changed, and did not win another tournament for 15 months, and dropped to eleventh on the money list for 1991.

But the story does not end there. In September of 1992, Chi Chi learned that Arnold Palmer had changed to using the Probe 20/20 putter, and called my office in Yreka, CA, and asked if he could try the putter. We sent him one just before he flew to the Ko Olina tournament in Hawaii, and he WON THE TOURNAMENT, his fist win since quitting my driver!

What is your opinion of tour players who would put endorsement money ahead of performance and victories on the professional tour? I have very little respect for them. But that is what the golf equipment industry has become; prostituting tour stars to fool the public into thinking their golf equipment is the best.

Please let me know your opinion of this major change in advertising in the golf industry. I would really like to know.

After the Memorial tournament, I'm still shocked at Mickelson.

I hope you enjoyed the Memorial over the weekend as much as I did. The two players I hoped would win finished first and second.

I knew Tiger would struggle, and he did, but he seems to be getting the demons relating to his personal life out of his head. Tiger should contend at the U.S. Open in two weeks.

And Phil Mickelson struggled at the Memorial as I predicted he would with his putter, and somewhat with his driver, the two most important clubs in the bag, and more importantly the clubs he is not free to change due to his contract with Callaway.

I mentioned a week ago that I had the idea of offering Phil the chance to try my PROBE 20/20 putter, which is the only putter I know of that is designed to allow the player to plan how the tough, short breaking putts will break, instead of guessing how they will break.

Then I learned what an ass Phil's lawyer (agent) is, and of his threatening emails to me if I even think of introducing myself to Phil, and letting him try my putter!

The good news from that experience is that I have decided to start up PROBE GOLF once again, and reintroduce the PROBE 20/20 to the golf industry, and the new PROBE 20/10. After selling all of the 120,000 PROBE 20/20 putters we manufactured, and then retiring, it will be exciting to show tour players once again how my putter will make them better putters on the fast greens on tour.

I'd like to make a prediction for the upcoming U.S. Open at Pebble Beach at this time. I seems that every TV commentator this last week has said Phil will be impossible to beat in two weeks. How many times has he won at Pebble?

I'm going to predict that if he stays with his Odyssey (Callaway) putter, and his Callaway driver, he will not win the Open. There is no reason he would change either, because he can't. Callaway owns Phil Mickelson.

I also predict that Phil's legacy to the game of golf will be that he allowed endorsement money to interfere with his goal of winning more majors. He will be the greatest player not to win a decent number of majors because he put endorsement money ahead of tour prize money and major wins!

I have limited time today to expand this topic, but I will address it more thoroughly tomorrow, including my own personal experience with past tour players putting endorsement money ahead of victories, to their dismay.

Second round as predicted at the Memorial!

This is getting boring, predicting successfully most of the time when the golf media is wrong!

This week they said Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were favored to win the Memorial. I predicted Tiger would still struggle like he did the last few weeks, because he still has his demons in his head from his personal life. But he is showing signs of improvement with each round played. Today I did not hear anyone in the crowd yell anything nasty at him, and the crowd seemed more cordial than yesterday or last week. Eventually he will put those demons behind him, and then win again.

The golf media surprisingly does not seem to recognize how much the mental side of golf effects its tour stars. As far as Phil Mickelson is concerned, I predicted Phil would not putt well on the faster greens that are usually found in the majors and the bigger tournaments, like the Players and the Memorial.

If you have read my last week's blogs, you also know I am no longer a Phil Mickelson fan after learning last week that his lawyer (agent), a personal injury lawyer, is an ass! To threaten any manufacturer of a non-Callaway golf club to stay away from his client is a new low in the corruption that has taken over the golf equipment industry in the last ten to twelve years.

As I predicted, Phil struggled on Friday because of his later tee time, and having to putt the rougher greens due to spike marks later in the day.

Phil shot four shots worse on Friday than on Thursday when he got lucky with the earlier tee time and wetter conditions. If he hadn't made a 65-foot eagle putt that was going at least fifteen feet past the hole if it had not hit the hole dead center, it would have been five or six shots worse than on Thursday.

I have to admit that watching Phil putt now is much more relaxing than it was when I was a fan of his for so many years. We all know how he can self-destruct over a three-foot putt due to his having to play the Odyssey (Callaway) blade putter. I don't care how much Callaway pays him to play that putter, he would own a dozen majors by now if he didn't have to play it.

I used to hold my breath when Phil was putting a three-foot putt, waiting to see if he hit it five feet past the hole, and then missed it coming back!

Now I don't care if he makes it, and am more pleased if he misses such a putt. I am rejuvenated with the idea of returning to manufacturing my PROBE putters, especially our new PROBE 20/10 model, also center-shafted and inverted-shafted like the original 20/20 model. Knowing Phil's lawyer will make less money when I get other tour players to use my putter, I am newly energized to get into production!

Have you noticed how the headlines have changed from last year's Memorial, when Tiger won, to Friday's headline this week, which exalts the fact that Tiger made the cut!

Good luck to Ricky Fowler and Justin Rose this weekend. It would be great to see either of them win on Sunday!

Mickelson had a lucky day at the Memorial!

As I predicted, Tiger Woods struggled the first day of the Memorial, and Phil Mickelson was lucky with the weather, and his early tee time!

The rain that fell before and during Mickelson's round softened the greens, helping to hold shots and giving the early players the chance to make putts. The afternoon players suffered through spike marks left by the earlier players due to the soft, wet greens. Raised cups due to the softened greens also plagued afternoon players.

I personally hope the course dries out later in the week, since I am no longer a Mickelson fan, and putts will become faster with more break in them.

Phil never putts well with his Odyssey (Callaway) putter on hard, fast greens. If you missed my explanation of why I no longer cheer for Mickelson, please read my blogs of four to five days ago.

Overall, scores were low due to the soft, calm conditions.

The weather on Friday can determine who will be leading after the first two days. Tiger plays fairly early on Friday, and should have a chance to move up the leaderboard, while Mickelson will play later and face bumpier greens.

If it stays wet, the greens will hold shots as they did on Thursday.

Enjoy the round on Friday.

Who will win the Memorial this week?

After all the discussion about Phil Mickelson over the last week, and what kind of a lawyer represents Phil in his equipment contracts, I want to turn to this week's Memorial Tournament, and who is favored to win.

I mentioned earlier that the media favors Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, but I don't have a very favorable opinion of the golf media. When I hear some of the questions they ask the tour players in the media tent, I wonder of any of them even play golf! Very few of them seem to have an inkling of common sense when it comes to their understanding of the mental aspect of the game.

As far as the Memorial's ultimate winner on Sunday is concerned, Mickelson took most of the skins in yesterday's Memorial Skins Game. Since I am no longer a Phil Mickelson fan after I learned last week what kind of lawyer represents Phil, I was not pleased to see Phil score so well in the skins game. What I did not see yesterday was a good round of putting by Phil, because he knocked the flag down all day, and had three-foot putts for eagle and birdie, or he blasted out of a sand trap and holed the shot for birdie! In other words, he didn't have to putt well yesterday.

I have not had the time this week to research how the course is playing, so today's first round should give us all some kind of idea as to how much putting will determine the ultimate winner.

I want to thank all of the golf fans who emailed me the last few days with their opinions about the golf equipment companies, and how they have taken a healthy competitive industry and corrupted it the last fifteen years.

You all know my opinion after the last few blogs. I love a good fight, and all of the discussion about Callaway and its dishonest lawyers has given me the inclination to reopen Probe Golf and to compete with the big equipment companies once again. It is my intention to show the world's golf fans how a better product can catch on with tour players as well as the general public when it is obviously superior in performance to the equipment that is mass-produced by the big companies. I am looking forward to proving that the big companies can only sell their product by trying to trick the public into thinking tour stars use their equipment because it is the best, when I know they buy off tour players to play their equipment!

Look forward to seeing Probe's new PROBE 20/10 inverted-shafted putter on the market, for a guaranteed pure pendulum stroke (no more yips!). In addition, its center-shafted head will allow the player to make each short side-hill putt break as he wants it to break instead of guessing how it will break. The new 20/10 will be slightly wider than the original 20/20 to make it easier to line up than the 20/20, eliminating the only negative comment we ever heard from 20/20 owners!

Enjoy the first round of the Memorial.

Thank you for your support!

I want to thank all of my readers for their emails the past twenty-four hours on the subject of yesterday's blog, the apparent dishonesty within the golf equipment industry. I was glad to see that over 80% of the emails I received were from readers who agreed with me that money paid by equipment manufacturers to tour players has ruined the game!

What the golf equipment manufacturers have done in the last fifteen years is force each tour player to decide if his goals are to win more tournaments and leave a legacy of being a great champion, or to make more non-prize money by signing to play a specific company's equipment for millions of dollars per year. Seldom do the two goals reach the same desired result.

When each of our PGA Tour stars retires and leaves their legacy for the future to remember, what will that legacy be?

Will Jack Nicklaus be remembered as winning the most major championships in a single career, with even more second place finishes than his victories?

Will Tiger Woods overcome his recent mistakes he has made in his personal life over the last few years and return to focusing on his golf, and winning more majors? If he can clear his mind of non-golf related problems, and concentrate on winning again, he will pass Jack's eighteen majors and be the all-time major winner.

And what will Phil Mickelson's legacy be twenty years from now. For years he was the best player in the world to not win a major. Then he finally won the Masters, and now he has three majors. In my opinion he should have eight to ten major victories by now, minimum, but Phil lacks the determination to win in my opinion that Tiger has shown for years.

For example, golf is a unique game in that each player may choose from a wide variety of equipment to use as his arsenal on the course. In most other sports like football, baseball, basketball, hockey and most other team sports, every player uses the same equipment. Managers and coaches of each professional team look for the very best of the best who are coming up from the college ranks to play for their team. The best players get the biggest contracts as far as money is concerned.

In golf, as in tennis, each player has to choose what he wants to play as far as his equipment is concerned. Does he play what is best for him, with the goal of winning tournaments, winning majors, and winning the most prize money? Or does he choose to take the most money that is offered to him by equipment manufacturers, regardless of whether that equipment is going to give him the best chance to win?

In golf, that kind of decision in my opinion will define the player, define the man, and determine what his legacy will be to the great game of golf!

There are 156 players that tee it up most every week on the PGA Tour, but only a few are usually involved in discussions by the media each week as to the outcome of that week's tournament. This week it appears that the media is giving Tiger and Phil the best odds to win the Memorial.

I disagree. I think it is far too soon for Tiger to put his personal problems behind him for him to win this week. Tiger does have one thing in his favor, though. Tiger has always chosen to play the very best golf equipment he can find to suit his game. When he negotiated his equipment contract with Nike, he insisted he be able to play the putter of his choice, which right now happens to be a non-Nike putter.

When I was active making golf equipment in the late 1980's and early 1990's, most tour players could choose to play the most important clubs regardless of who's name was on the bag, whether they played Spalding irons, Titleist irons, or whatever. The player was usually free to choose which driver, wedges, and putter he wanted to play, because those were the most important scoring clubs.

That is why we at Probe Golf designed a driver face with more curvature on it, to keep the ball in the air 2 1/2 seconds longer than any other driver. The Probe out-distanced all of the competition by thirty yards due to its increased curvature. It took the rest of the golf industry three years to copy the Probe design, which was superior to the flatter faces of all the major manufacturers.

The driver set up the rest of the hole, so a small equipment company like Probe could specialize in making a superior driver and own a niche in the market. Many tour players used a Probe driver because it was longer than any of the competition, especially on the Senior tour where the players were more interested in performance than in manufacturer's money to play a certain driver that would cost them victories and prize money.

We did the same thing in designing a superior putter, for the same reason. A player might sign for a lot of money to play Titleist irons, for example, but they could use the putter that made the most putts for them, despite whether or not they had a contract to play the irons for some other manufacturer. So, we designed a putter that was unlike any other putter in the world, to do things on the green that no other putter could do, such as making the ball break or not break a certain predictable way, instead of guessing how it would break.

As my blog yesterday proves, Phil Mickelson is playing certain golf equipment that he is paid a lot of money to play, and it is apparent to me that his decision to do so has cost him major championships. If that is the legacy Mickelson wants to leave, then he has made the right choice. But if he wants to be remembered as playing the best he could play, and win majors, he will have to start looking for a better driver, to hit more fairways, and he will have to find the best putter he can use to make more putts.

As demonstrated yesterday in my blog, his having an attorney who threatens other manufacturers' reps if they try to show Phil what it will take in the form of a new putter to make more putts is not going to leave a positive legacy in the minds of knowledgeable viewers.