The long and the SHORT of it...

Phil Mickelson's coach Dave Pelz says his man has the best finishing game in the world. He also thinks Tiger was lucky to win the US Open. James Corrigan finds the mentor responsible for improving the world No 2's poor Open record in controversial - and confident - mode

Confessions of a golfing guru

When a major golfing figure decides to use the words "lucky" and "Tiger Woods" in the same sentence, in the same paragraph, in the same encyclopedia even, he had better be damn sure of his argument. As a former Nasa scientist and an unashamed numbers junkie, Dave Pelz happens to be damn, damn sure and he has all the damn statistics to back up his courageous claim.

The theory offered by Pelz, as the mentor and reinventor of Phil Mickelson, about Woods' startling success at the US Open last month surely provides a fascinating insight into Team Mickelson's thinking, not to mention confidence, as they come into this Open Championship. Many in the game declared that the Torrey Pines "one- legged" triumph once and for all removed any doubt as to the uncontested nature of Tiger's domination of the sport. The world No 2's camp clearly does not see it that way. Respect, yes; hero worship, if you must; inferiority complex, most definitely not. Not when the US Open afforded them ample proof to believe that fortune, and indeed Tiger's misfortune, played such a role in San Diego.

"I give Tiger all the credit in the world but I'm a stats guy," Pelz said at the opening of one of his renowned short-game schools at Killeen Castle in Co Meath. "I look at Mickelson's worst three drives and he made two doubles and a bogey and then I look at Tiger's worst three drives and he made eagle, birdie, par. Tiger's three-under, Phil's five-over. Tiger's drives were worse than Phil's, yet finished in better spots.

"When Phil hit his bad three woods they went in the deep six- inch rough; when Tiger hit his bad ones they went into the next fairway or the trampled-down dry dirt. So if you're going to miss, miss big and have a unique set of circumstances when your knee hurts so bad before the tournament that all you do in the build-up is putt all day, every day and go on to make 75 footers, 50 footers, 40 footers...

"That actually might not be a bad way to do it," he adds. "I mentioned it to Phil. Of course, it's not just luck. It is lucky when a 75-footer hits the hole and goes in, but it's not lucky that he hits it so near to the hole. It might have gone eight foot past but he probably wouldn't have three-putted as he was putting so fine.

"Tiger's putting was incredible. You don't make six or eight snakes in four rounds of a tournament if you're putting badly. So if you combine the bad misses with the luck and the great putting you get his head-to-head with Rocco [Mediate]."

Now some will inevitably view this as Pelz merely defending his own role in the most talked-about major in the last decade. The guru with the big hat was widely criticised in the American media for sending Mickelson out at Torrey with a driverless philosophy. Accusations of over-strategising and of strangling a natural talent flew his way but, far from ducking them, Pelz wants to tackle them head on.

"Phil simply didn't hit his three woods well and the only way the charges of overstrategising can be correct is if Phil would have hitten his driver any straighter. I don't believe that," he said. "You know, before I worked with Phil he had gone 43 and 0 in the majors. We're not doing bad as in the last four years he has won three. And to my mind that should be judged in three years as he was hurt [with a wrist injury] last year and there was no way he should have played."

Indeed, if the golfing intelligentsia is kind enough to wipe out 2007, then Mickelson-Pelz have not been performing too disastrously against Woods. The score between the 2004 to 2006 seasons was 4-3 in majors in Tiger's favour; a deficit lengthened to 5-3 after last month, but hardly the stuffing that current public perception might suggest. In fact, Pelz is prepared to shove his neck ever further over the block and declare that, despite Woods' dead-eyed excellence on those Californian greens, Mickelson has no equal when it comes to being in close proximity to the shaved surfaces.

"Phil Mickelson has the best short game I have ever seen," Pelz said. "No question. He is very creative and has no fear. The launch angles he gets are just absurd. Earlier this year he was not putting well because he had been working on his swing with Butch Harmon, but now it's the best I've ever seen. I think he's got a great chance at this Open."

Well, he should have, shouldn't he? Tiger is not in town and Mickelson is therefore the acting world No 1. If he doesn't have "a great chance at this Open", then something is seriously wrong. As it is, Mickelson's Open record suggests there is something horrifically wrong. One top 10 in 16 years is ghastly enough but when the number of other top 20s is placed alongside it - one - it enters the darker reaches of Stephen King's imagination. This is where Pelz comes in; the physicist charged with, if not quite reinventing the wheel, then at least making sure it does not veer off into the nearest links hazard.