Phil Mickelson slipped back to ninth position at the Barclays Singapore Open after entering the final round T3 and only four shots behind the rather unknown tournament leader Chapchai Nirat of Thailand. Phil shot a final round 75 (+4) that included a triple-bogey 8 on his front nine.

Once again the players had to cope with difficult meteorological conditions: After play was suspended several times due to bad weather, most players had to play the end of their third round and the entire fourth round on Sunday.

The tournament was won by India’s Jeef Milkha Singh by a stroke over world-class players Padraig Harrington (IRE) and Ernie Els (SAF). Both Harrington and Els failed to birdie the Par-5 72nd hole and thereby missed out on a sudden-death play-off.

Despite his disappointing finish, Phil won prize money of $110,000 for his last official tournament in 2008. However, his next showing will be at the LG Skins Game, which will be held at Indian Wells Golf Resort over Thanksgiving weekend.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

A poor final round 73 (+1) turned out to be costly for Phil Mickelson at the rain-delayed HSBC Champions Tournament at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China. After three solid rounds of 66, 70 and 70 Phil did enter the 4th round in a tie for 3rd and only two shots behind overnight leader Oliver Wilson (ENG). However, during Monday’s final round, Mickelson’s putting was not at its usual level.

Phil did manage only one birdie (which was offset by a bogey) during the first 14 holes and a double-bogey six on the difficult 15th hole effectively ended his hopes of defending the title won twelve months ago. Mickelson’s final round 73 was by far the worst of all players in contention for the title.

Spain’s Sergio Garcia won the tournament after beating Wilson with a birdie on the second hole of a sudden-death play-off. It was Garcia’s third win of the season and helped him overtake Phil in the Official World Golf Rankings. It is the first time in a long time (does anyone know exactly how long?) that Phil is positioned below number two in the world. I personally feel that the new ranking is a fair reflection of the results that both players (Mickelson and Garcia) have achieved in 2008: While Garcia managed to add a number of excellent finishes to his three victories in the US, Europe and Asia, Phil had a good but not great year (two titles on the PGA Tour) and did disappoint especially during the big events, notably the Majors and the FedEx Cup play-offs. 

Here is the new ranking (as of November 10th 2008):

I cannot remember the last time I looked at a list of the ten best players in the world and Ernie Els was not on it…

The HSBC Champions tournament had to be finished on Monday because the 2nd day of play was a complete wash-out following torrential overnight rain and a steady downpour throughout the day. While the organizers tried to play catch-up on Saturday and sent out players in groups of three off both the 1st and 10th tee, another three hours were lost due to bad weather that forced another suspension of play. The third round was therefore completed on Sunday and the top players only managed to complete a few holes before darkness ended play.

Phil will stay in Asia and end his 2008 campaign with a start at the Barclay’s Singapore Open this week. While the field won’t be quite as strong as at the HSBC Champions, players like Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington and Adam Scott should guarantee an exciting tournament.

I will give you the complete tournament summary together with my personal review of the golf year 2008 next week. So check back on www.phil-mickelson.com or sign-up to my RSS feed.

After a six-week break since his last tournament (a tie for 3rd in THE TOUR Championship in late September), Phil Mickelson will end his golfing year with two events in Asia. At this week’s HSBC Champions Tournament in Shanghai (China), Phil will try to defend the title he won last year in a playoff with Englishmen Lee Westwood and Ross Fisher after giving up a five-shot lead on the final day.

Mickelson will play the first two rounds with Ian Poulter (ENG) and India’s Jeev Milkha Singh. Even though there are only 67 players in the field this week (no cut) and Tiger Woods is not one of them, competition will be stiff for Phil. Among the professionals trying to take the HSBC Champions Tournament’s trophy from Phil are stars like Sergio Garcia, Robert Karlsson, Anthony Kim and Padraig Harrington.

A week later, Phil will tee it up at Sentosa Golf Club in Singapore for the Barclays Singapore Open. The main reason for Phil’s presence in these two tournaments will be their main sponsors Barclays and HSBC - both companies are also two of Phil’s most important personal sponsors. However, it seems as if Phil is nowadays generally less reluctant when it comes to making the effort of playing in foreign countries. While he did only leave the PGA Tour for the British Open and the Ryder Cup during the early years of his career, he is now obviously looking to become somewhat of a global golfer and spread his wings to unknown territory in Asia and Europe.

I am really looking forward to seeing Mickelson play all over the world. Just look at players like Gary Player or Ernie Els and how popular they have become through their global presence. I am sure that Phil’s friendly character and great personality will win him even more fans overseas when they only get a chance to see him play.

Of course I will tell you all about Phil’s success in Asia in my next post – so stay with me.

On an exciting day at East Lake Golf Club, Phil Mickelson (38 years old) narrowly missed a breaking 20ft putt for birdie on his 72nd hole of THE TOUR Championship to join a play-off between Camillo Villegas (26 yrs) and Sergio Garcia (28 yrs). He finished in a tie for 3rd together with his Ryder Cup team mate Anthony Kim (23 yrs) while Villegas went on to win his second consecutive tournament and secure 2nd place in the Fed Ex Cup Rankings worth $3 million.

Mickelson played excellent golf all day long and held a share of the lead for a few holes before missing the fairway to the left with his drive on No. 16. His low iron shot to the green came to rest in a difficult lie on the bank of a steep bunker. After his difficult pitch barely made it to the putting surface, Mickelson’s par attempt missed and Phil wasn’t able to recover. He finished the Fed Ex Cup in 7th place, 4 spots lower than in 2007.

THE TOUR Championship was Mickelson’s last tournament on American soil in 2008. While it is certain that he won’t play in any event during the PGA Tour’s Fall Series, he is expected to tee it up in Asia before the year’s end.

Despite a rather average performance by Phil Mickelson, the USA did beat Europe 16½ - 11½ to win the Ryder Cup for the first time since 1999. World number two Mickelson - the team’s best ranked player in the absence of Tiger Woods - was the only player along with Hunter Mahan to play in all five session but did contribute only 2 points (1 win, 2 halves, 2 losses).

Here are the results of Phil’s games:

Listen to what Phil, Sergio Garcia and the team captains Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo had to say after the match:

As some of you might have noticed, the site was not available from Thursday morning until earlier today. The reason was a technical problem following some programming work on the site’s database. It took several days to find a capable person who could fix the problem and upload a backup. I apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused and hope that you did use the extra time to follow the action from the 2008 Ryder Cup.

With Tiger Woods out from professional golf until the 2009 season, Team USA and all the nation’s golf fans will be looking to world number two Phil Mickelson for leadership as well as points in this week’s Ryder Cup battle against Team Europe at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky.
After three consecutive European victories - the last two of them real blow-outs - most experts consider Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Co. to be clear favourites in the 37th edition of the world’s third biggest sporting event (that is after the Olympic Games and the Soccer World Championships).

However, just because a team has managed to pull off three upsets in a row doesn’t make it the automatic favourite for the fourth match.

Let’s take a closer look at the line-ups:

As far as I can remember, the 2008 Ryder Cup marks the first time that the average world ranking of the Europeans is better than that of their American counterparts. This is not only due to the fact that Tiger Woods is missing, but also because more and more Europeans continue to climb up the rankings following their strong showings on both sides of the pond.

Let’s come to a conclusion:

- Team USA has the home court advantage
- Team Europe is the defending champion - a tie would be enough to retain the cup
- Momentum is on Europe’s side. They have won three in a row and they certainly feel they can make it four.
- Tiger’s not there…
- For the first time ever, the Americans are the underdogs. In the past, the Europeans have benefited greatly from being perceived as outsiders which put a lot of pressure on their opponents. The situation will be different this time and Team USA will work together as a real team.

I am sure that we will not see another landslide victory by either team, but taking everything said into account I predict a European victory by the score of 14½ / 13½.

The Stack and Tilt golf swing was first heard of in early 2007 when professional golfers like Australia’s Aaron Baddeley or former Masters Champion Mike Weir (Canada) started to use it. In the meantime, more than 20 other touring professionals have used the Stack and Tilt swing to (re-)boost their careers. The new approach was developed after 20 years of research by swing teachers Andy Plummer and Mike Bennet. A fundamental element of a conventional golf swing is the weight shift to the right foot (for a right-handed player) during the backswing and to the left foot during the downswing. With the Stack and Tilt method, a player will set up with at least 60 per cent of his weight on his front foot. During the swing, the left shoulder will move down instead of laterally and even more weight will be put on the front foot resulting in an 80/20 weight distribution at the top of the backswing.

The benefit of the Stack and Tilt obviously is the lack of weight shift and in consequence less body movement than with a traditional motion. The spine stays vertical over the ball through the whole swing. According to Plummer and Bennet, this enables the player to achieve a more solid contact with the ball, a more penetrating ball flight and better consistency.
Of course there is also a potential downside of the Stack and Tilt methodology for the average player: When you already lean too much on your front foot and have a hard time coming from the inside (i.e. you are probably fighting a slice or a pull), the Stack and Tilt will most likely only worsen your problems.

Stack and Tilt: Success Stories
Here are some of the PGA Tour Pros who are successfully using the Stack and Tilt swing:

Mike Weir
Aaron Baddeley
Dean Wilson
Tommy Armour III
Eric Axley
Charlie Wie
Will MacKenzie

Check out the swing of left-handed golfer Eric Axley in this video:

 
Stack and Tilt Instruction Material:
While doing some research on the web I found a DVD series called “Get stacked”. I haven’t had a chance to try it myself yet but it does sound promising:

“Get Stacked” DVD Series Price: $19,95 risk free for 30 days Free shipping and handling Delivery within 24 hours

INCLUDES Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer’s Short Game DVD as a FREE BONUS Improves Swing Plane, Grip, Posture, Alignment, Ball position, Tempo Comprehensive and organized - making it easy to follow Gives step-by-step direction Shows the fundamentals of the Stack & Tilt swing Includes in-depth analysis, including Setup Backswing Downswing Follow-thru Analyzing your shots: Slice Hook Fat shots Thin shots Practice drills

In case you are not into visual instruction, you might want to take a look at this great GolfDigest article and photo series.

If anyone of you guys has ever tried the Stack and Tilt or knows the “Get stacked” DVDs, please use the comment function to tell me about it. Has it worked only for a couple of days (like so many swing changes) or are you enjoying permanent success with the Stack and Tilt? Does it only help with your short irons and wedges (where more weight is put on the left side anyway) or are you also hitting better drives than before? I am looking forward to hopefully many comments.

After being only two shots off the lead after two rounds at the BMW Championship at Bellerive Country Club, Phil Mickelson finished the tournament with rounds of 71 and 70 on the Par 70 layout. His total score was 274, nine strokes more than winner Camillo Villagas from Columbia who celebrated his maiden victory on the PGA Tour.

After a complete washout on Thursday, players had to complete 36 holes on Saturday (rounds two and three). Here is Phil’s scorecard for the week:

Vijay Singh, who won the first two events of the 2008 FedEx Cup Playoff Series, clinched the $10 Mio. pay-out with a tie for 44th. While this certainly takes away some of the excitement of THE TOUR Championship in Atlanta, all eyes are now on the upcoming Ryder Cup (Sep. 18 - 21, Valhalla, Kentucky). I will tell you all about it with a detailed team comparison in the days to come.

Monday at work obviously wasn’t what Phil Mickelson was looking for this year: After three rather uneventful rounds of 69, 70, 72 (211, -2) at TPC Boston,  Phil missed the 54-hole cut. The Deutsche Bank Championship - where Phil was the defending champion - marks the first time that Mickelson got a day off due to the new rule that was introduced early in the 2008 season in order to reduce the number of players in the final round of PGA Tour events.

Under the new regulation, if more than 78 players make the halfway cut, the field will be reduced to low 70 professionals plus ties. Think that this is a funny rule? Why not check out this Golf Digest article…

Shortly after it was clear that Mickelson was not going to play in the 4th round, speculations began on whether he will tee it up at this week’s BMW Championship at Bellerive CC. No official statements have been issued yet - needless to say that I will let you know as soon as I hear of something.

What about my pre-tournament picks: With the exception of Phil Mickelson (see above) they are faring quite well: Ernie Els lays T5 (-13) and Sergio Garcia T3 (-14) after the third round. However, I was definitely wrong about Vijay Singh as he is currently tied with Garcia and very much in contention again. After Singh’s playoff victory last week the two will be paired together again today - I am looking forward to seeing who comes out on top this time. They are all chasing tournament leader Mike Weir who shot rounds of 61, 68 and 67 to lead by one over Camillo Villegas.