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Phil Mickelson has been playing hide and seek with the press since mentioning at the Shell Houston Open that he may unleash a "special club" at this week’s Masters.
Golfweek uncovered the covert Phrankenwood 2-wood on Monday in the Callaway tour van parked across the street from Augusta National, and a company rep confirmed that the bat was the one in question. What’s not clear yet -- and perhaps Lefty will spill the beans when he meets the press later on Tuesday -- is whether the club will be part of Mickelson’s repertoire this week.
"Honestly we don’t know," Nick Raffaele, Callaway’s vice president of sports marketing told Golfweek. "Everybody knows that Phil does things his own way. So we’re waiting just like you."
The actual name of the club is the X Hot Phrankenwood and it has 12 degrees of loft, which is not far afield from Callaway’s 13-degree X Hot 3Deep 3-wood that Mickelson currently employs, according to the publication. Conventional wisdom has it that Phil will replace a 9.5-degree Razr Fit Xtreme driver with the new club, which he’ll use off the tee.
Mickelson, by the way, is also using a new ball, according to a recently released Callaway ad. It’s the prototype Hex Chrome++.
***Update: At his Tuesday press conference, Phil clarified saying: "This is my driver. It just looks like a 3-wood. It's 3-wood technology. It's a larger 3-wood but it has a driver shaft in it and it's hot like our 3-wood." He also added that it is 45 inches long, and also just 8.5 degrees of loft. Given that loft, it's hard to not call it a driver.
More Masters from SB Nation:
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"Skip It!" the best practice round tradition at The Masters
How all 94 players earned entry into the most exclusive major in golf
14-year old prodigy to tee it up at Augusta