IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel discusses Romeo Langford’s decision to play through a thumb injury and how it affected his NBA draft stock. Now we know the sacrifice Romeo Langford made, the oddity of it, the enormity. Players like Romeo, they don’t often make the choice he made back in late November
One of the drivers is a 10.5-degree Callaway Epic Flash head equipped with a shorter length shaft – “about an inch-and-a-quarterâ€� shorter, according to Mickelson — so he can hit “cute little cuts into the fairway,â€� as he explained in his social media post. The other driver is a 9-degree Callaway Epic Flash Sub Zero head equipped with a longer length shaft in order to “hit bombs.â€� With the longer of the two drivers, as Mickelson explained to the media following his Thursday round, he has a more upward angle of attack and it results in a ball speed increase of 4 mph. The longer setup also allows Mickelson to keep up with the “young guysâ€� in ways that his body cannot. “My swing is different than a lot of the young guys, where they’re very connected and have fast twitch muscles that explode through the ball,â€� Mickelson said. “My body moves a little more lethargic. I use length of arc for great speed. I need longer shafts and timing to be able to create the same kind of speed.â€� The longer driver, however, does have drawbacks. Mickelson says that the longer-shafted driver launches about 16 or 17 degrees, which is “such a high launch you can’t control that 14 times a round.â€� The shorter driver, on the other hand, launches “closer to 11.5, 12â€� degrees, which is “much easier to control,â€� as Mickelson said. Although Mickelson said in his Thursday post-round interview with the Golf Channel that six holes at Muirfield Village Golf Club “open upâ€� around 325 yards, which he says he can achieve using the longer of the two drivers, he wants to “get a little work doneâ€� hitting cut shots with the shorter driver to prepare for upcoming events such as the U.S. Open and Open Championship. “I wanted to try to do well here [at the Memorial], but wanted to get practice in with the [shorter driver],â€� Mickelson said. “I felt like I hit the long driver, [I] probably hit it five or six times. More than a three wood, which I took out.â€� Mickelson, who is playing with two drivers and no fairway wood, shot a first-round 70 (2-under) at the Memorial Tournament, hitting 50 percent of his fairways and averaging 310.5 yards off the tee. In 2006, Phil Mickelson famously used two drivers – one to hit a draw and one to hit a fade – at the BellSouth Classic, where he won by 13 shots, and a week later at the Masters, where he won his second green jacket. Related: Steve Stricker using irons from 2006 at the Memorial Tournament While the strategy worked, Mickelson hasn’t returned to the dual-driver setup in a “long time,â€� as he said in a social media video post on Thursday. That is, not until this week at the Memorial Tournament. Mickelson posted a video on Twitter and Instagram on Thursday, before his 1:16 p.m. ET tee-time, explaining – in his own way — that he’ll be using two different drivers during competition this week at Muirfield Village Golf Club.
DUBLIN, Ohio — Tiger Woods got off to a slower start than he would have liked Thursday at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. That had more do with a stopwatch than a scorecard. Ryan Moore opened with five birdies in seven holes and never missed a fairway after the first one, posting a 7-under 65 for his best start in his 14th appearance at Muirfield Village. He was one shot ahead of Jordan Spieth, who chipped in for birdie, chipped in for par and holed a 35-foot eagle putt. Woods made a pair of late birdies to salvage a 70 in his first round since missing the cut at the PGA Championship. He played his back nine in a foursome with Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Rose and a rules official in a cart timing them because they were so far out of position. “We were on the clock most of the back nine,” Woods said. “That made things a little more complicated.” Getting caught up wasn’t easy with various tee shots in water hazards, though it was obvious how far behind they were. Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas were in the group ahead of them, and McIlroy hit his tee shot on the par-4 second into a backyard. With no official nearby, he had to walk 300 yards back to the tee to hit again. That took time. Still, walking off the fourth green, the group of Woods, DeChambeau and Rose still had not reached the third tee. Golf still is measured by score, and Moore had the lowest on a rain-softened Muirfield Village. Only two of his seven birdies were longer than 10 feet, and the only time he came close to a bogey was on his opening hole, where he saved par with a 6-foot putt. He was among 22 players who broke 70, and only 44 players broke par despite the soft conditions. Phil Mickelson, using two drivers this week to go after longer tee shots on a half-dozen holes, opened with a 70. Spieth looked as though he couldn’t miss for the longest time. On his second hole, the par-5 11th, his wedge came up so short on a soft green that it spun off the front. He chipped in from 50 feet for birdie. Another chip from thick rough caught the slope on the back of the par-5 15th green and rolled down to 3 feet for a birdie. He went out in 32, made an 8-foot birdie putt on No. 3 and then had consecutive holes that illustrated how his round was going. On the par-3 fourth, his tee shot was buried in the slope of a mound above the bunker. With his feet well below the ball, he hooked it out onto and across the green into more rough, and then chipped in for par. On the par-5 fifth, his hybrid caught the right side of the green and he rolled in the long eagle putt. Spieth took only 22 putts for the round. And then his luck ran out with a tee shot that plugged into the sand left of the green on the par-3 eighth, leaving him two options: go at the pin and run off the green into rough, or aim away from the flag and leave a 60-foot putt for par. He chose the latter and came inches within making it. “Sooner or later, it was going to bite me,” Spieth said with a smile. Even so, he had no complaints. “Six under around Muirfield I’d take any day of the week, no matter what form you’re coming into it with,” he said. “I felt like I hit more fairways today, gave me some more opportunities, and the putter stayed hot.” Thomas, in his first tournament since the Masters because of a bone bruise in his right wrist, showed plenty of rust in his round of 71. McIlroy had a 75 with two double bogeys, both from tee shots either lost (No. 15) or out-of-bounds (No. 2). Anirban Lahiri, Marc Leishman and Martin Kaymer were at 67. Woods made birdies on all but one of the par 5s. His regret was a few loose iron shots that led to bogey, especially on the 13th when he hit 9-iron from the fairway into a bunker that led to a careless bogey. But he finished strong — eventually — and while 10 players from his side of the draw broke 70, he wasn’t too far behind. At least on the leaderboard. “That was frustrating, because the last eight holes we were on the clock,” Woods said. “The group ahead of us … JT doesn’t take a lot of time, Rory plays quick and Jordan was 7 under. So they were obviously playing fast. And we were obviously not.”
