980f pour Phil

Phil Mickelson continued his hot play last week at the BMW Championship and finished tied for second, two shots behind Rory McIlroy. While most onlookers noticed that Mickelson was putting with the claw grip, sharp-eyed equipment junkies might have noticed another change.

Mickelson continued to use his Callaway RAZR Fit driver (9.5°) and his Callaway Big Bertha Diablo Octane 3-wood (15°), but the Hall of Famer replaced his Callaway RAZR Fit 5-wood (18°) with a Titleist 980F 5-wood (17°) with a Graphite Design PM 902 shaft.


Titleist's 980F line of fairway woods debuted in 2003, while Mickelson was a Titleist staff player. Before the start of the 2004 Ryder Cup at Oakland Hills, Mickelson signed a deal with Callaway and switched to the company's gear before the start of the matches against Europe.

It's not unusual for pros to hold on to old, trusty fairway woods. Tiger Woods uses a Nike SasQuatch II 5-wood, a club that was released in 2007, and Geoff Ogilvy has been playing a Cobra S9-1 5-wood since 2009.

That, gentlemen, in Phil’s hands, is a modified RBZ 13 degree, bent to 11.5, “driving 3-wood.” Phil painted her up matte black because he thought that looked cool, put in a lighter shaft than normal so he could actually launch it in the air, and put a crap load of lead tape on the bottom of it to move the CG location so it could actually get up in the air. Result? He has a mini driver that’s good for 290 [yards] off the tee, right between his current 280 3 wood gamer and his 305 driver. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Phil Mickelson, the Crowned Prince of this Forum and club junkies everywhere.