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.

I am sure that some of you have already tried the latest tool released on www.pgatour.com, the PGA Tour Shot Tracker. The concept of the application is that you can follow every shot of a single player or a group of players through graphical illustrations of each hole they play. Every shot is depicted by a yellow line and as usual the PGA Tour gives you a ton of stats for it (e.g. length of shot, distance to the hole, position of the ball etc.).

The tool is still in BETA (i.e. they are still testing and fixing bugs), but I have to say that even at this early point in time I am pretty disappointed with it:

• The tool is quite slow and certainly not in real-time, i.e. there is a significant delay between a shot being played and it showing up in shot tracker. The official PGA Tour Leaderboard is a lot faster than the new application.
• I noticed quite a few funny bugs during the time I was watching it: First they said that Vijay holed out from the fairway, later they changed it to 2 ft from the hole. The same happened with Ernie Els: At first he was over the green in two on a Par-5, a few minutes later they added a penalty shot and birdie became bogey…
• So far so good, but what about Phil’s second hole at TPC Boston - did he actually hit it only 126 yards off the tee? That’d be a case of beer at my Golf Club.

Last year’s Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston was one of the best week’s of the year: Not only for Phil Mickelson but certainly also for millions of golf fans watching the tournament live on the course or on television. After being paired with Tiger Woods and Vijay Singh during the first two rounds of the tournament, Phil and Tiger did again play together on Sunday and Phil blew Tiger away with a flawless front nine and then held him off down the stretch to win the trophy. 

I still consider this victory to be crucial for Phil as it proved once and for all that he can compete with and beat the best golfer in the world when he (Phil) is on top of his game. Every active golfer knows what such a big win can do to your self-confidence and Phil is certainly still benefiting from that push.

However, we are now in 2008 and Phil has not won a golf tournament since the Crowne Plaza Invitational in late May. While all of his latest results have been respectable, many fans were hoping for more. But after two Top-10s at the Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship, I think that a successful defense of his title is not out of the question.

Here are my picks for this week’s tournament:

1. Sergio Garcia: It is hard to believe how he always manages to not win when he is playing great, but he is obviously in great shape and up again for a big win.
2. Ernie Els: Since his victory at the Honda Classic in February, Ernie has probably played the worst golf of his entire career. It cannot go on like that, even though he is teeing it up for the first time at the Deutsche Bank Championship.
3. Phil Mickelson: He likes the course (even though it was slightly altered since the tournament last year) which is bringing back a lot of good memories. Phil played well last Sunday at The Barclays and is looking to carry the momentum over to the TPC Boston.

By the way, I might be one of only a few people thinking that Vijay Singh will not compete at the Deutsche Bank Championship. Why? Well, if the winner of a tournament would always do well in the next one, we would see the same names on top of the leaderboard all the time. But - with the exception of a certain Mr. Woods - that does not happen. I guess that the physical and mental fatigue is just too great following a big win and that even a guy like Vijay will have to take it easy this week.

Don’t forget: It’s Labor Day weekend, so the tournament won’t start until Friday…

Phil Mickelson finished the first leg of the 2008 FedEx Cup Playoffs in a tie for 19th after rounds of 70, 70, 72 and 68 for a final score 280 (-4) on the tough Par-71 layout at Ridgewood Country Club.

Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker got off to a great start and lead the tournament at -9 (Mahan) after the first and -11 (Stricker) after the second day, respectively. With Phil at -2 after two rounds I thought that he was already out of it. However, things only got worse over the weekend for the two Americans and the final score of tournament champion Vijay Singh was -8. It turned out that the poor third round effectively ended Phil’s chances of taking both the tournament trophy and the lead in the FedEx Cup standings.

With the new FedEx Cup point system good performances in the playoffs bring a lot more points than last year. That’s the reason why the top three spots in the standings are now taken by the three players who made it to the sudden-death playoff at The Barclays:

In the second event of the 2008 Playoff series, Phil Mickelson will defend his title at the Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston next week. He won that tournament in spectacular fashion against Tiger Woods a year ago.

In a major tournament that left players frustrated with both the weather and the golf course, Phil Mickelson played solid golf over the weekend, but unfortunately not more than that. He only got to play five holes on Saturday after the third round was suspended due to dangerous weather in the Detroit area. First thing Sunday morning Phil missed an eagle putt on the short par-4 6th and then played 31 holes on that day to finish with rounds of 71 and 70 and in a tie for 7th.

Let’s take a look at Phil’s scorecards for the week:

In a final round that was played in cool and windy conditions, Phil obviously had the best start he could’ve hoped for with three consecutive birdies. At that point he had it back to +1 and was only four shots behind Ben Curtis, who did lead the tournament until about midway through the 4th round. But somehow Phil lost it a bit afterwards: No birdie on the driveable 6th, a lot of missed greens and eventually a few missed par putts dropped him back out of contention rather quickly.

As a summary I think it is fair to say that Phil played four solid rounds on the “Monster” Oakland Hills CC. But I also have to be clear about the fact that obviously solid is not enough when you are looking to win a major championship.

The similarities were so obvious that at one point I thought about getting up, calling the network and asking them to please stop playing the replay of last week’s Bridgestone Invitational. In pretty much the same way he lost that tournament to Vijay Singh on Sunday, Phil Mickelson made three bogeys in his last five holes of yesterday’s 2nd round of the PGA Championship to drop into a tie for 14th. He is now four shots behind leader J.B. Holmes (-1).

While Phil’s score of +3 for the day is still an acceptable result on an incredibly difficult golf course, it was the way he fabricated those bogeys that make me shiver when looking ahead to the weekend. After briefly joining the lead early in the round and regaining 2nd spot after a birdie on the 13th, holes 14 to 18 weren’t fun to watch at all: Wild drives, uncharacteristicly poor chipping and a loose iron shot on 16 delivered the impression that Phil Mickelson was not in control of his game.

Technically speaking, Phil is right when saying that he likes his chances for the final two rounds: “Within four going into the weekend, there’s a lot of golf left out here, and the golf course is very difficult; so I think that it won’t be overly difficult if you play well to make up some ground.” I definitely agree on that - I am just asking myself if Phil will be able to regain his mental strength and touch around the greens. Otherwise it could be “Groundhog Day” again on Sunday afternoon.

Phil Mickelson finished the World Golf Championships – Bridgestone Invitational in a tie for 4th
after a final round of even par 70. Mickelson started the day tied for the lead with Vijay Singh
(FIJ) and Lee Westwood (ENG) and lead by one stroke midway through the back nine.
However, he finished with unfortunate bogeys on holes 15, 17 and 18 and two strokes behind
tournament winner Vijay Singh.

Up to that point, the fourth round of the Bridgestone Invitational was nothing short of spectacular.
Watching it from start to finish I felt like I was sitting in front of a highlight video of the
entire golf season instead of “just” the broadcast of a single tournament. With perfect scoring conditions – except maybe for the ultra-fast and tricky greens – everybody was hitting their drives over 350-yards and their irons never more than a few feet from the pin. Even with Tiger in the field, I don’t think that the level of play could have been any better.

Phil did play with Stuart Appleby in the second-to-last pairing of the day and seemed in
control of the tournament after birdies on the par-5 second, the par-3 fifth and the par-3
eleventh. Up to that point, almost every drive was long and straight and the score could have
been even better if it wasn’t for a couple of closely missed putts.

However, the last group of the day with Singh and Westwood was playing some great golf as well.
Westwood seemed to be out of it after dropping three shots in a four-hole stretch midway through
the front nine. But he came back strong with birdies on 8, 11 and 13 and just missed out on the
tournament win by a single stroke. Vijay was four under after six holes and despite of bogeys on 8,
11 and 14 was the only one who could keep it together down the stretch. Deservedly he finished
with his first victory of the 2008 campaign and threw his arms in the air after the final putt had
found the hole on the 72nd green.

Hats off to Vijay, but without taking anything off his great performance: All this would probably
not have happened but for Phil Mickelson making bogey from the bunker on three of the four final
holes. As he said after the round: “It wasn’t a good finish for me, but I played really well today.
I’m turning 63s and 64s into 70s, and that’s kind of what happened today. I couldn’t get any putts to go in, then in the end, I made some bogeys.”

I was bitterly disappointed on Sunday night, but looking at it now I think that Phil can take a
lot of positive out of this. With the PGA Championship coming up this week I am confident that
we will see his name on the leaderboard on Sunday afternoon.