Two mornings later, I catch the first flight of the day from Phoenix to San Diego and drive a rental car to The Farms Golf Course. It’s a bright Southern California morning when I meet Michael “Fury” Feuerstein, a former Korn Ferry Tour member, on the putting green. There’s an undercurrent of excitement as we chat and await Mickelson’s arrival.
Cutting through our anticipation, Mickelson pulls up in his alarmingly fast cart with his logo on the front and name on the side. He is drinking coffee from a sleek black tumbler, and the caffeine seems to be hitting just right. He greets us warmly and enthusiastically, pulls two chipping nets from the basket of the cart, and plants one in the tightly shorn fringe as he explains the plan for the day.
“The point of blind testing is to make us totally confident in our swings,” he says. “We’re going through the bag, making stock swings with every club, but you won’t be able to see where the ball goes. You’ll have no visual reference.”
Mickelson points one of the chipping nets in our direction and then walks a half-dozen steps to set up the second net.
“Usually I use blackout goggles for this, but the goggles aren’t working perfectly, so today we’re just going to attach a towel to the end of a shaft, which will cover your field of vision the moment after impact,” he says. “It will work just as well. You’ll provide feedback for each shot as I chart your patterns. Not only will it get you totally in tune with your swing, but we’ll be able to see if there are any deficiencies in your swing or equipment.”
Fury starts hitting chip shots from the tight fringe into the distant net. He has some competitive fire – he teamed with Mickelson to win the gross and net divisions of The Farms’ Member/Member (what Mickelson calls “Operation Clean Sweep”) – but don’t let the nickname fool you: Fury is easy-going and always good for a laugh.
“To start, we need to make sure we’re doing the little things perfectly,” Mickelson says. “These little chip shots seem easy, right?”
“Here I was thinking a Walmart chipping net is for beginners,” I quip.
“Well, do you think you can make 10 in a row off this tight lie?” Mickelson asks. “Because this is what we need to do: be better than everyone else at the little things. Doing the little things well is an easy way to pick up half-shots.”
I hole a few consecutive chips before bouncing one off the front rim of the net.
Mickelson suggests a couple of subtle adjustments to our setup positions before climbing back in his cart.
“I am going to set up our grid on the range,” he says. “Keep working here and tidy up the little shots before we move to blind testing.”
Fury and I methodically carry on, a couple of plus-6 handicaps hitting three-yard chip shots into nets on the side of the putting green.
About 30 minutes later, we move to the range, where Mickelson has laid out a grid of towels from 100 to 230 yards. There are three sets of towels: five yards left of the target, center line, and five yards right of the target.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he says. “I used to do this before the start of every season with [Dave] Pelz. This will build complete trust.”
I’m the first rat into the maze and begin with 100-yard shots. Trackman is recording the details of each shot, and Fury practices jousting the towel in front of my face at impact. He is worried about the possibility of decapitation, but quickly settles into his role of blinding me. Mickelson is sitting 10 yards behind us, holding a legal pad of lined paper. He asks me to provide feedback on each shot so he can chart the dispersion. If I make an abnormally bad swing, he says, I should call it out so we can discard that result.
I go to work hitting shots. Mickelson watches intently but doesn’t say much. Occasionally, he asks me to switch clubs, either graduating to the next club in the bag, picking up the one I had just previously hit, or selecting the straightest club in my bag.
When I look up after hitting a shot, all I see is the white towel. It dangles inches in front of my face.
“That felt like a little pull,” I say, only able to guess at the direction the ball headed.
Mickelson sits silently in the grass and studies the ball flight from behind his signature mirrored sunglasses.
“I’m thinking it’s a slight pull-draw,” I say.
He is busy charting the shot on a notepad before he finally speaks in a monotone voice, not allowing any inflection that might tip me off to the shot’s result.
“Count it?’ he asks.
“Yeah, count it,” I reply.
“I feel like you’re worried about hitting it left today,” Mickelson says. “Don’t hold onto the face. I need you to make normal swings with full releases. Don’t worry about where it goes. Just trust your swing.”
I swing the club freely and realize he is exactly right.
“What’s one club in your bag you really trust right now?” Mickelson asks.
I take the 2-iron out of my bag. Without much thought, I make a perfect strike.
“Yeah, I can see why you like it,” Mickelson says, watching the soaring trajectory.
After I’ve hit every club in my bag about a dozen times, Camo arrives with three sets of irons. He introduces himself, and as he organizes the clubs, Mickelson shows me the dispersion of shots he has charted on the legal pad. The shorter irons are close to the target line but the longer clubs are farther left, reflecting a more right-to-left shot shape. There’s consistency through the bag with two exceptions: my 6-iron is directly on the target line and Mickelson says every shot was almost dead straight; my 7-iron has the widest dispersion, with too many misses to the right.
“There’s something wrong with that 7-iron,” he says. “I can just tell. All your clubs were predictable except that one. I almost guarantee the lie angle or the shaft is off. We’re going to put it on the lie-and-loft machine later and check it.”
Mickelson then puts me on range duty while Camo warms up. I begin clearing the grid with a club and bag, remembering the last time I picked a range was 20 years ago when I could only dream of practicing alongside Mickelson. Each ball I bounce from the ground into the bag is a shiny new Callaway stamped with Mickelson’s logo – quite an upgrade from the old striped Spauldings and Pinnacles I retrieved as a kid and a reminder of the great adventure golf has led me on.
Back on the range, Fury tells me he thought my ball striking was impressive. But this is before he watches the next swing test, because Camo is putting on a clinic. I take a seat on the grass next to Mickelson, who can hardly contain his displeasure.
Camo strikes a mid-iron, and halfway to the shot’s apex, Phil grumbles.
“Look how much that ball wavers off the club,” he says, shaking his head as the ball starts to cut. “That shaft isn’t kicking properly.”
He is locked in as if he’s reading the code in the Matrix. “That shaft isn’t even close!” he exclaims.
Camo switches to another set of irons. The ball comes off fast and tight, fading a few yards as it falls slightly right of the centerline.
“Look at that—a post-apogetical fade,” Mickelson says with great satisfaction. His coined phrase would have been puzzling if I hadn’t been watching the subtle shape to the end of Camo’s ball flight.
Camo continues demonstrating the superiority of his second set of irons.
“These are just so much better,” Mickelson says as he continues to chart each swing. “Those other shafts just weren’t right.”
He holds up Camo’s dispersion chart. “Look at this,” he says, energetically pointing to shots on the margins of the grid. “All of these with those bad shafts.” He points to the pattern along the target line. “These irons are clearly better, and you can see it before the flights even get to their apex.”
Camo and I trade places, and Mickeson begins breaking down the chart with him.
Fury warms up and begins his test with humor and hesitation. “I really don’t want to follow that stripe show,” he says with a smile.
When I move to blinding duty, I nearly knock Fury’s hat off with the first joust of the towel-draped shaft. The unintentional attack doesn’t inspire confidence in either of us. After the first few swings, Fury looks at me for clues about his ball flight. I maintain a poker face.
“This is just so strange,” he says. “How was that? I mean, I think it was good?”
Despite his unease, Fury is hitting almost perfect shots, knocking down the target line repeatedly. He is in a rhythm.
“Dude, this is so impressive,” Mickelson says. “Just keep doing it and trust your swing.”
After finishing the session, Fury studies his chart. The dispersion is a tight pattern; clusters of shots around each center line. Fury listens to Mickelson analyze his results with surprise, amusement and pride.
“Your swing is so repeatable, Fury,” Mickelson says. “Just go trust it out there when it matters and know you can do it without thinking.”
Fury’s hesitation is gone. Whatever distrust he felt at the outset of the day has been replaced with confidence. He has aced the test, and Mickelson’s words will resonate with Fury in tournament rounds to come. Mickelson turns to me.
“Mark, I’ve got to get to a meeting, but you and Camo compete against each other on the chipping green,” he says. “Camo is one of the best chippers in the world, so you’ll have your hands full. When I come back, we’re going to work on your 7-iron.”
Camo and I play another Mickelson original, a short-game contest called 6-Up. Each shot is worth a point, a hole-out is worth two points, and a hole-out on top of a hole-out is worth three. First to 6-up wins. For almost two hours, Camo and I play an exhaustive game, neither of us allowing the other to pull away. It is a battle of attrition, but I finally wear him down.
At sunset, I’m in Mickelson’s backyard practice sanctuary: the driving range slopes uphill, framed by four chipping greens with bunkers, and a large house sits at the top of the hill. Mickelson invites me into his workshop on the side of his garage – a long rectangular room with warm lighting, a few club racks lining the wall, a work bench on one side covered with papers, and at the end of the room, a lie-and-loft machine. Mickelson is struggling to adjust the machine to accommodate right-handed clubs. He tries to dislodge a bolt in the front plate of the machine. I walk along the racks of clubs, studying sets that go back to his Yonex days. Almost every club he has competed with rests on the racks – an invaluable history of this man’s career at my fingertips.
“The majors are in those bags right there,” Mickelson says.
Ryder Cup team bags are arranged on the far side of the room and filled with complete sets of clubs. I study them like Indiana Jones admiring the golden idol at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The room is silent except for a few metallic tings and thuds of the lie-and-loft machine behind me.
“You fucking righties!” Mickelson says with a laugh as he finally pops out the bolt.
Perched a few feet off the floor behind Mickelson is a shining blueish-purple boulder wedged in a vertical vise. It looks like an ancient glowing asteroid, or an all-powerful stone from a superhero film. I stare at the strange, iridescent object, trying to make sense of it.
“What is that?” I ask.
Mickelson looks at the object and explains it’s a composite of raw elements, materials that can be used for club-making. It’s heavy, he says, still tinkering with the lie-and-loft machine. “It weighs like 300 pounds,” he adds.
“It looks like it’s from Jurassic Park,” I say.
Mickelson pauses for a moment, looks at me and smiles.
“There’s a T-Rex skull around here somewhere,” he says.
He sets each club in my set in the machine and starts writing down lies and lofts. Trying to be useful, I move to the work bench and pick up his Sharpie. On the paper in front of me are the lies and lofts of Mickelson’s clubs. As I write down the lie and loft of my 9-iron, I notice my lofts are weaker than his. Mickelson peers through reading glasses at what I’ve written. I can see a change in his expression.
“Why don’t you go hit a few shots on the range while I get this figured out,” he says.
Somehow, I have interfered with his process, perhaps irking him.
“I’ll just stand here quietly and learn,” I say. I look at the time and realize my flight is 90 minutes away. Plus, it’s rush hour around San Diego.
“How long does it take to get to the airport at rush hour?” I ask.
“Probably around 40 minutes,” he says.
I realize there’s no way I’m making my flight. Mickelson has more pressing concerns.
“Ok, so your 7-iron is too flat,” he says. “I’m going to start by bending it a degree. Then we’ll go hit some shots and adjust from there. Do you trust me to do that?”
I’ve trusted the guy at the golf store making $15 an hour with my clubs, so, yes, entrusting a six-time major champ with bending my 7-iron a degree doesn’t feel risky.
The cost of my soon-to-be missed flight comes to mind, but at least I’ll have the best “how’d you miss your flight” story. Mickelson hands me the adjusted 7-iron and tells me to hit some shots.
I jump into one of his amped-up carts and carefully navigate in the fading light to his backyard tee. I can barely see the ball leave the face. One ball after another disappears into the sky. Mickelson pulls up next to me and asks how it’s going. It’s too dark, I say. He assures me he’ll be able to track the ball.
“I’m confident in the adjustment we made here,” he says. “Swing like we did today in the test: full releases. We need to make sure this turns over.”
Mickelson writes a 6 or a 7 on each ball I hit based on the iron I’m swinging. We’re using the 6-iron as the control club in our study. Because it’s too dark to see, we’ll retrieve the marked balls and study the results. I’m aiming at an open area to the right of the regal garden bordering the house. It occurs to me that a hard-hooking 6-iron might end up in the kitchen sink.
After I hit a handful of shots with each club, we turn on the cart headlights to scour the target area. After a minute, we find the 6-iron balls, but the 7-iron spheres are nowhere to be found.
“Maybe they plugged in the ground?” Mickelson says. I point the golf cart lights into the garden and start looking in the bushes.
“I may have overcooked the 7-irons,” I say.
Mickelson drives his cart over and shines the lights in the bushes. “Yeah, I’m no longer confident in the adjustments I made,” he says.
I’m on my hands and knees fishing for golf balls with the 7-iron. Mickelson starts searching in another bush a few yards ahead of me. I look over at him as we hunt for golf balls in the dark, like the fate of the world hangs in the balance. It is the most unfathomable moment of my golf career.
“I’d really like to find this,” Mickelson says. “I’m worried I overbent the 7-iron.” After a minute of searching, he turns to me.
“This is OK, right?” he says. “This is cool?”
I pause to interpret the question: Do you find it strange we’re digging in a garden for golf balls at night while your flight takes off?
“No, Phil,” I say. “This is totally cool.” Actually, it’s way beyond cool.
“Great,” he says, “because I do this shit all the time!”
Mickelson loves golf the way few do – the way you love golf when you’re a kid carrying your bag and squeezing in as many holes as you can until it’s too dark to see. No detail is trivial to him; whether it’s using chipping nets, developing blackout goggles, hitting shots blindly, or stashing an elemental orb in his golf cave, no stone is left unturned. Every idea is an opportunity to learn and a chance to gain an advantage. On this day, he hasn’t even hit a shot. He has devoted the better part of a day entirely to friends. The passion – some would call it an obsession – and the wisdom and the methods to his madness are all rather remarkable.
Mickelson gets a phone call and is told it’s time to head home for dinner.
“Looks like I turned those shots over too much,” I say as I finally find a ball with a 7 scribbled on it.
“Yeah, I’m no longer confident in that 7-iron,” he says. “Let me take it back by a half degree before you leave.”
Dinner can wait. He makes the adjustment before sending me on my way. As I load my clubs into the rental car, he’s already planning our next practice session. I need two stock yardages for each club in my bag, he says. The next time I visit will be transformative, he assures me.
I thank him for his generosity and we say our goodbyes. He hops in his cart and drives off, the bright lights of the cart cutting through the cool night. As I stand next to the rental car and begin my search for a flight home, my phone rings. It’s Mickelson.
“Mark, I don’t want you to think you need a second stock yardage for each iron to be successful, because you’re good enough now,” he says. “You can have plenty of success with your game as it is. The second stock yardage is just another tool that we’ll add later. Please don’t read too much into that.”
I tell him I understand. He offers a few more encouraging words before we hang up. I lean against the rental car and take in the brisk air – encouraged, amused, but more than that, amazed.
It’s time to find my way home and learn what the flight change will run me. It's the best investment I’ll ever make.
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