British Open 2017: Phil Mickelson opts for ‘Phrankenwood’ instead of a driver at Birkdale

Phil Mickelson is doing Phil Mickelson things again at The Open Championship. We’ve seen FIGJAM play and win the Masters with two drivers in his bag. We’ve seen him play and win The Open with no driver in his bag. We’ve seen him regularly toggle between completely different putting grips during the same rounds. And we’ve seen everything in between.

Now, back at The Open, the site of his last win and his most recent tormenting close call at another, Mickelson is going with a no-driver look again. He revealed the plan on Tuesday morning at Royal Birkdale, saying he was putting a “hot 3-wood” in the bag and going sans driver. The 3-wood is the same “Frakenwood” or “Phrankenwood,” as it was called, that is suped up and which he used for the 2013 Open win at Muirfield.

In addition to the “hot” 3-wood, which is a delightful and amusing bit of Mickelson nomenclature, he is also experimenting with multiple 3-irons. One of them, according to Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis and Rex Hoggard, is bent to 16 degrees and plays more like a driving 2-iron. He’s also going with a 64-degree wedge in the reshuffled bag.

So to review, Mickelson will have no driver, a rigged-up 3-wood, a super-lofted wedge, and he has two 3-irons right now. Oh, and he’s also got a new caddie, his brother Tim, making just his second official start after a split with his 25-year bagman, Bones Mackay, in the middle of the season.

Mickelson’s strategy is not crazy, but it’s just very Phil Mickelson. Birkdale is a setup where you may not need to hit a driver until the last five or six holes. Rory McIlroy has already said it’s unlikely he’ll hit driver, the biggest weapon in his bag, until the 13th hole.

Mickelson is notoriously wild with the driver and these are some of the tightest fairways in the Open rota. That narrowness also comes on a bunch of holes that are doglegs usually playing in a crosswind. So he’s trying to trade distance for accuracy and strategy. He may want that distance over the final six holes, which include two par-5s, great scoring chances to make a late run, and a 499-yard par-4.

But Mickelson has done this long enough that it’s hard to doubt him. It’s entertaining and fun to talk about during slow practice round days. He obviously put thought (maybe too much) into it and has won before making unorthodox equipment decisions. He’s also “figured out” The Open, if that’s possible, late in his career and knows exactly what he wants to do to get around in what are dramatically different conditions than most PGA Tour-based players are used to.

So you’ll hear a lot about how this is crazy Phil taking a risk, but as we saw last year in that all-time performance at Royal Troon, he has mastered this major as much as anyone right now and has a perfectly acceptable reason for banishing the driver. We’ll side with and trust Phil, even if he turns out to be only one in a 156-man field doing it.