Secrets of the Short Game

Phil Mickelson, winner of 34 PGA Tour events, including three major championships and long renowned for his masterful short game, has teamed with Emmy Award-winning producer/director Terry Jastrow to create "Phil Mickelson: Secrets of the Short Game." the two-disc DVD focusing on all shots played from 50 yards is set is due to be released April 7. "My ideas about the short game are very different from a lot of the instruction I see out there," said Mickelson, "so it was a lot of fun to put this together with Terry and I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. The goal here is help golfers build a foundation so that their practice time directly correlates to improved scoring on the golf course." Jastrow has produced hugely popular instructional tapes with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and others but said, "No great golfer has done an instructional program in more two decades. For years people have acknowledged Phil has a superior short game, but the question they still ask is, 'How does he do it?' Here Phil finally gives his answers." Mickelson has been outspoken on various topics throughout his career and continues to be so in sharing his "Secrets." on two popular chipping instructions, that "the club should go back and through the same distance" or that there should be "no wrist" in the swing: "If anybody teaches you one of those two methods, go somewhere else. There is one great way to chip and it is a method that I call "hinge and hold." There has never been a good chipper who does not conform to this technique." on putting: "For years I have heard how you want your hands to oppose each other. I don't buy into that either. We want our top hand turned stronger; this promotes a release." the DVD set focuses on all shots from 50 yards in and includes sections on putting, chipping, sand shots and the flop shot Mickelson popularized soon after he joined the PGA Tour in 1992.