On TOUR, the little things make all the difference

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Rory Sabbatini got a surprise recently that changed his game.

Rory Sabbatini is not the protagonist in the fairy tale about the Princess and the Pea. You probably already knew that, though.

Rory's public persona was considered a bit prickly last year when he threw the media a softball and they hit it out of the park. Then Tiger took a few swings of his own. But the truth is that Rory is an ultra-talented, sometimes inconsistent, but proven winner on the PGA TOUR. At least that was true at this point last year. But since the winter thaw very little has gone Rory's way in 2008.

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That all changed a few weeks ago when Rory made an equipment discovery that may sound nonsensical to the average golfer. After his third-round 63 that gave him the lead the Valero Texas Open, Rory admitted that he had played most of the year with inconsistent lofts on his irons. He pointed out that there was a nine-degree gap between his wedge and his sand wedge. Lest you think this the grumbling of a princess who suffered a bad night's sleep, think again. Not only is this a critical issue for someone who makes his living hitting golf balls a specific distance, but the stats back him up.

I hate stats. But I am also a pragmatic hypocrite when it comes to them and in this case I will gladly yield to science. Rory is 10th in proximity to the hole from 75-100 yards this year. From 100-125, though, he is ranked a meager 165th. It doesn't take short-game guru Dave Pelz to figure out there is a problem here. The logical extension of these facts is that his greens-in-regulation percentage and his putting average suffered, as well. If you don't hit it close you don't make putts.

On Tuesday of the BMW Championship -- after trying virtually everything and losing confidence in the process -- Rory and the technicians at Adams took a look at his a3 irons. What they soon realized was that over a period of time the lofts on Rory's irons had been beaten out of shape. Because this happens so gradually over the course of a season it is not only possible but highly likely that Rory wouldn't notice.

Rory was quick to point out that he had no one to blame but himself. It would be easy to blame someone else -- technicians or a caddy, for example -- but Rory shouldered all the blame. In the end, the player is completely responsible for his own equipment. Changing equipment manufacturers from Nike to Adams was far less the issue than the fact that Adams' new irons apparently are very similar to other new irons. When club manufactures tried to create more feel with softer metals as an answer to a harder covered ball, this problem has become more commonplace.

When Cleveland came out with a new generation of irons a few years ago they recognized that the metal in the heads of the irons had a "memory." After a few weeks, the lofts and lies would try to revert back to their original position. To counter this on the PGA TOUR, the team of club representatives from Cleveland would routinely grab their staff players' irons and give them little bumps to make sure that they were bent to each player's individual specifications.

This may sound like overkill but for a TOUR player it is not. I would hazard a guess that Rory's lofts and lies will be checked routinely going forward. A difference in one degree of lie or one degree of loft can completely change the characteristics of a shot. To make matters worse -- and this may be hard to believe for the average golfer -- when things get a little out of whack with his equipment a player will actually make unconscious swing adjustments to compensate. Far fetched? I promise that I didn't sleep on a stack of mattresses last night.

Some players are constantly tweaking their equipment while feel players like Rory go with what looks and feels right. In Rory's case, he got the year off to a fast start with two top-three finishes in the first few weeks of the season. During his mid-season struggles, it didn't seem like there was any reason to question his equipment.

Having success on the PGA TOUR is far more than teeing it up and shooting low scores. Even the smallest thing can change a player's perception and cost him shots. Now that Rory, who tied for eighth in Texas, is once again comfortable with his equipment we just might see him at the top of more leaderboards -- as long as he gets a good night's sleep.