Bigger is Better, Longer is Stronger - Right ?

OK, I confess - I'm going with the attention grabbing headline today....what the hell, it's been a long week and I have earned it.
Everywhere you look in our culture, we are obsessed with a size...whether it's in promoting tourism (Everything is Bigger in Texas), male "vitamins" like Extense (Having a larger penis* and enjoying a more fulfilling sex life is possible and attainable !), or the vehicles we drive ("Our SUV has 4000 Square Feet more cargo space then the nearest competitor") - Bigger is Better and Longer is Stronger.

And our dearly beloved game of golf is not immune from the siren song of "if you are not long,then you are flat out wrong". This year's new drivers are longer, the new model of irons ("The Set is DEAD) are advertised as being longer, and EVERYONE's balls are touted as being longer ("Nice Ball, Phil"). One could certainly argue that on the golf course we are even MORE obsessed with size and length than in other facets of our life. Lest you call me a sham, and accuse me of thinking I am immune from this, I confess...I am not! Look no further than my last post, where I wrote about a training tool (The Orange Whip) which has added (much needed) distance to my driver and my irons...so PLEASE color me guilty....
After pondering this in the pre-dawn hours today (She Who Must Be Obeyed was at her Friday session of "Booty Camp", and I was up early), I decided to conduct an experiment to see if we have all been bamboozled...if, in fact ,"Long is Wrong & Big is Bad". I decided that my next round, I would conduct a scientific analysis of golf, using the following simple rules:

• All tee shots (Par 4's and 5's) will be hit with no more than a 3 wood.
• All par 5's willl be played as lay ups.
• All iron shots will be struck with one more club than normal, with perceived effort adjusted accordingly

Upon completion, I will compare the following statistics to my "normal" averages:

• Total Strokes
• Fairways Hit
• GIR
• # Putts

I will be posting the results of this experiment here next week, so stay tuned. Until then, I am curious to know if any of you have ever conducted a similar experiment, and what your results were. IN the meantime, keep your head down and your eyes on the BIG BOOBS ball....

Looks like Phil has made a decision...

If you were watching the WGC event at Doral yesterday, you got a heaping dose of Philly Mick doing his thing. I've been somewhat critical of Phil in the past for two things:

1. Bad Fashion Sense - The wide (white, FGS) belts and the tight shirts (with shorter sleves,no less - see above) are not made for people built like Phil. Sorry dude, I know you lost some lbs and are proud of your new physique - but you aren't there yet....TRUST ME. Leave that stuff to the under 30 flat bellies and go for a little less form fitting look. I just read today that you get your gear custom made in the UK, so please ask your sartorial squire to make 'em a bit larger, ok ?
2. Lack of Sincerity and being a bit "Fake": I get the whole "little curly haired blonde girls running into Daddy's arms when he wins thing". The same thing happens to me , so I am SO USED TO IT (laughing inside...). Seriously - every golf fan in America has seen it and knows the message you are putting out - and maybe, just MAYBE, it IS sincere...but for some reason I cannot buy it. It just seems like a thin veneer over the top of a completely different feeling that you have inside - sort of like a chocolate covered, uh, worm or something. Maybe it's just me, but it all looks so damn contrived.

Anyway - this post is not about hating on Phil. Instead, it's about something that I think represents a REAL decision that he has made. Watching him yesterday, it really looks like after struggling with the "aggressive Phil / conservative Phil" internal debate, he has finally decided to be the player that he feels most natural being - and that's the aggressive Phil. You have heard this discussed in countless interviews - but the way he played yesterday, the shots he hit, his responses to good and bad shots, his entire approach spoke to me of a man who has really resolved some inner issues (one example - the new approach to tee shots "tee it high and hit it really far").

It could be temporary, and I could be entirely wrong....but as Ben Crenshaw once said, "I've got a feeling about this one"... I'm going to take a stance here, and predict a big win for Phil today and big season for him - regardless of how well Tiger, Rory, VJ, Sergio, and the rest of the guys play.

If I am right, you heard it here first. If I am wrong, well, I guess I will blame it on the English tailor..