NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Since the LIV Golf event in Saudi Arabia in early March, Phil Mickelson has been noodling with a new putter. In his last three LIV starts in Jeddah, Hong Kong and last week at Doral, Mickelson gamed the LAB Golf DF3.
Mickelson was spotted testing the LAB putter in February – a significant departure from his preferred blades he has used throughout his hall-of-fame career. He used an Odyssey “Phil Mickelson” blade prototype with a SuperStroke Pistol GT Tour CounterCore grip to win the 2021 PGA Championship at age 50.
LAB Golf putters have developed a following. Will Zalatoris, Grayson Murray and Byeong Hun An use different LAB putter models. The LAB DF3 is a smaller version of the DF 2.1, which was LAB Golf’s flagship putter. Despite the reduced size, the DF3 still has low torque to avoid twisting at impact. There are eight sole weights along the wings that help prioritize stability through the stroke.
Mickelson doesn’t have any putting stats available from his three seasons playing LIV Golf, but his results have been unimpressive. So it seems natural he’d try to find some kind of putting spark before he returns to Augusta, where he’s won three times and shared runner-up honors last year at age 52.
“I obviously love the place. It’s a course where I feel I don’t have to be perfect,” Mickelson said last week. “When I go through the gates and drive down Magnolia Lane, I relax a little bit because … given the pin placement, if we miss in the correct side we can still salvage par utilizing our short games.”
After a sub-standard strokes gained start to the season off the tee, Tony Finau switched the setup on his Ping G430 LST driver before the recent Texas Children’s Houston Open.
“I would say this year I haven’t driven the golf ball nearly as well as I have in the past, so I’m not hitting as many fairways, so then my ball-striking just hasn’t been as good as I need it to be,” Finau said in Houston.
Finau swapped his Mitsubishi Diamana driver shaft from his longtime D+ Limited 70TX to a new GT 70TX. According to Mitsubishi, the GT model has the stiffest handle section of any Diamana product and has a softer tip and mid-section, which can rein in Finau’s increasing spin rates.
“My driver’s been a little high spin for me over the last month or so, and so I just figured it was time to probably check out the equipment," Finau told GolfWRX.com. “It definitely showed me that I was using a shaft that was maybe too tip-stiff for me, the way I load the club now.”
Finau has gained 5 mph of speed but he had fallen to 71st in strokes gained off the tee before his title defense in Houston – a big dip for someone who’s never finished outside the top-50 in that category. After the Houston Open with his new shaft, he jumped to 44th off the tee.
“I’m in the gym more often than I’ve ever been,” Finau said. “The numbers have shown this year my speed is up; I think I’m fourth on ball speed or swing speed this year, which is, for me, I haven’t been that high since really my first couple years on tour. For me, it’s paying off. It hasn’t paid off in results yet, but again, the work is there and I know at some point … I know it’s going to pay some dividends.”
Scott Michaux