Q&A: Pelz on innovation, Phil Mickelson, the USGA & more

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Dave Pelz is one of the most recognizable names in golf instruction.

Dave Pelz has studied everything from rocket science to the golf swing. His days at NASA long behind him, he's been a New York Times best-selling author, was named by Golf Digest as one of the game's 25 most influential instructors ever and of course the short-game coach to Phil Mickelson for the last seven years. Pelz recently sat down with PGATOUR.COM's Brian Wacker for an interview to discuss the next innovation in teaching, his relationship with Mickelson and how losing to Jack Nicklaus 22 times over the course of his college career impacted him.

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You've been an innovator for so long with a dozen or so developments or patents in the game of golf. What's next when it comes to innovations in teaching?

Probably in my career the biggest change has been video. It came when I was young in my profession and it's been a tremendous help to players. Then it's been enhanced and is now 3-dimensional and really that's pretty hard to teach. It's hard to work with a golfer on this even though you can see what happens. It gives you so much information that in most cases it ends up being confusing. I'm now into measuring digitally, how players perform certain moves -- whether that's the putter accelerating, or aiming in a different place or having a different feel in a wedge swing. The other thing we're still studying is the brain, which has been a mystery to us. We work with it and there's a mental aspect to the game, but we're working in quicksand because you just don't know.

Explain what you mean by that.

My basic premises is I'm trying to understand the game well enough to teach simply enough to be effective in the golfer's learning cycle. The more I can measure how they perform at various levels -- from the beginner level to the best in the world -- I can have a 30 handicap who can become a 20 and a 20 to a 10 and a 10 to a scratch and a scratch to professional quality. And then how an LPGA player can move toward a PGA TOUR level and Phil and the boys, the elite players, can get better. I'm trying to get my research results into my teaching. That's how we've gotten to where we are. I see no end in sight to the learning. There's still an awful lot of things still to be understood.

You've worked with Phil Mickelson for the last seven years. Describe your relationship with Mickelson and what he means to you.

I've really enjoyed working with Phil. He's one of brightest players I have ever known and probably the best I've ever worked with and he certainly has the best short game I've ever seen. A lot of people ask me for an overview of our relationship and how I try to put it in perspective is that I've probably learned more from him than he's learned from me. He's honest, he's open. He always tells me the truth and what he's thinking. He hadn't won any majors before [we were together] and now he's won four and hopefully he can win more, though he's had setbacks in his quality of life the last couple of years. In '09 his wife and mother were treated for cancer. In '10 he had psoriatic arthritis. He endured a lot of pain during the year. His practice wasn't as sharp and his game wasn't as good because he went on medication. He's said it's fine, that it had no effect on his game, but I think it has. I don't know about next year, but if it doesn't it could be the best he's ever had. And meanwhile time is passing and the young players -- Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy, etc. -- are getting better.

Who are the best short game players on TOUR right now?

I think Phil is the best and I think it might surprise some but I think Mike Weir is really great. If we're talking strictly short game, Vijay Singh is really good; he just doesn't putt as well. When [Singh] was putting well, he rose to No. 1 in the world. And some of these young kids can really get it up and down. Recently, about a year ago, I was asked about the great young players and Anthony Kim and Rory McIlroy and Ryo Ishikawa are all on everyone's radar, but I concluded the article by saying Dustin Johnson and Hunter Mahan, if they got their short games up to not as good as Phil's but could sniff it, they'd be world beaters. Unfortunately for Hunter, he had a bad experience on the last hole at the Ryder Cup, but that happens. He and Dustin would get my vote for being the next superstars.

Your life on the line, who are you taking to get up and down right now?

I'd rule out Tiger because his short game has really suffered this year, but he was the only guy even close to Phil in short game and putting. And when Tiger's putting well, he putts better than Phil. I do think Stricker would give them a go, though. He's as good with his distance wedges as Phil, but not as good with the cute shots around the green. But he may be the best putter out there.

You were a very good player in your younger days having gone to Indiana University on a golf scholarship, but you lost to Jack Nicklaus 22 times during your collegiate days. What did that do to your career and how did it impact your decision to work in science and not play golf, your true passion?

That is the nut of it -- that golf was my true passion. The first tournament I played in I was 7 years old and I had a match against a 77-year-old man. I don't even remember who won, but it was in Lexington, Ky., and I got my picture in the paper. It was an incredible statement for the game of golf when a 7-year-old and a 77-year-old can go out and compete. I thought I was a superstar at the time. That got me into the game. I fully intended to play the TOUR and I just happened to major in physics. I didn't know what I wanted to do and never even thought about it because I just assumed I could play golf. I didn't lose to him 22 times head-to-head, but I'm thinking it's probably not luck he beat me 22 out of 22 times. There's some data there that says I'm not good enough. And I thought if I can't beat this overweight college kid, I concluded what was I going to do against the real pros? So I entered grad school but I didn't finish the first semester because I got a job with Goddard Space Flight Center. The Soviets had put up Sputnik and the world was wondering what happens in space and I thought it was an awful lot of fun. It was an incredible experience and I was there 15 years. I left though when I realized I was a golfer who loved physics rather than a physicist who loved golf.

You said years ago that 60-65 percent of shots come from 100 yards and in. What can the average player learn from watching a TOUR pro play in that regard?

At all my schools and how I try to help people, that's what it's all based on. Knowing that, I would recommend instead of going to a TOUR event when it comes to town, I think you can learn more if you go to the practice rounds. You've got to see those sessions and what they do to tune up. They put alignment sticks up to make sure they're lined up and exactly where they need to be. They measure how far they are; chip, putt, hit out of the sand. If you practice like they do, that's what improves your game. It's not playing an extra practice round.

Rhythm is important in putting. How important is rhythm in chipping and pitching?

If you look at the importance of fundamentals of chipping and putting, it's acceleration. All good chippers and putters accelerate past impact. As the ball strikes the clubface, it's got to be accelerating. The importance of rhythm is that you have to have one has a repeatable rhythm so you can have repeatable mechanics. Tom Purtzer doesn't have great mechanics, but he has great rhythm and he can get away without great mechanics because of it.

Who's the best putter you've ever seen?

The best putter I ever measured was George Archer. He made more putts from more distances, percentage-wise, than anyone. During his heyday, he hit it sideways but he could really putt. But the best guy inside 6 feet was Watson, in his heyday. He had a higher percentage than anyone, even though Nicklaus was touted to be the best putter in the game. Jack was probably in the top-10 all-time, though. Watson was not a very good lag putter and he did have touch problems on the greens, but when the greens were between 9.5 and 10.5 the way they used to be, Watson was unbelievable inside 6 feet. But if I had to pick one guy, I'd take Archer. Bob Murphy is another guy, tremendous putter. The guys of Murphy's era maybe putted better than the guys today, though it's tough to say because the greens are tougher today. It's hard to measure era to era. One guy today I'd like to measure is Rickie Fowler from inside 10 feet because he makes an awful lot of them.

Fowler is often talked about as one of those next great players. What do you see in his game?

The two things I've seen is that he doesn't leave his [missed] putts close, he doesn't three-putt. But I was weary of him because I didn't know if he was paying attention to his first putt. The other thing I see is that he plays so fearlessly that he sometimes puts himself in bad positions and makes double bogey. It's not so much shot management but game management. He either almost wins or doesn't play very well it seems and I think that's part of game management. He's got all the shots; I think he just needs to manage them so he doesn't need to hit them all every week.

In this era of the power game, have you changed any of your short game principles to cater to that power?

There have been modifications or details have changed but the fundamentals haven't really changed. If you want to putt really well, you have to aim well and have the blade square at impact. That will never change. There's no spinning of putts that will help the ball roll better. So the fundamentals aren't changing even though players are driving it further because they've made courses longer and greens firmer. Ben Hogan hit as many greens when he played as these guys today. These guys today are facing higher rough, narrower fairways and firmer greens. When I first went out on TOUR, if you put a pin 10 feet from the edge of the green they would have run you out of town and tarred and feathered you. If you put pins in the middle today, pros would shoot lights out, they'd shoot in 50s. Where the rub comes is when amateurs are turned loose on these courses, then they shoot a million. And my pet peeve is the USGA changed the grooves rule this year and said it wouldn't affect the amateurs because they don't hit many greens in regulation. Well it turns out after watching the pros [this year] that it hardly affected the pros at all because they're good enough to play around it. The USGA took good data and misinterpreted that data. The amateurs are the ones who hit greens with wedges; they don't hit greens with 4-irons. The first question I always get asked at clinics is how can I get more spin on my wedges? Mine don't stop like pros do. The USGA has taken away 50 percent of the spin from the amateurs. It was a terrible decision, the worst decision the USGA has ever made. Change the ball or change the driver. Don't change the wedges for amateurs.

Thanks for your time.

You bet.