The secret equipment trick Phil Mickelson used to win the 2006 Masters at Augusta

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Phil Mickelson will always do things his own way.

He landed The Open at Muirfield in 2013 without a driver, a tournament many said he could never win.

Mickelson made his breakthrough in the Majors at the 2004 Masters, holing a birdie putt at 18 to edge out Ernie Els.

But in 2006 he produced an even more dominant performance at Augusta National and key to his win was not one driver but two.

Both were the same model – the Callaway FT-3. The difference? One was an inch longer at 46″ with heel bias weighting to help with a draw while his standard length 45″ driver had fade bias.

The course had been lengthened to 7,445 yards in 2006 and Mickelson was more than ready for it.

“I worked with the technicians over at Callaway and I’ve got 20, 25 more yards with this driver that draws. I call it a draw and a fade, but the fact is, the draw is like an additional driver; it makes my normal driver a 3-wood, because it goes so much farther,” he explained after his two-shot win over Tim Clark.

“I needed it to combat the added length here at Augusta. This is the only course that I can think of that I will probably do it, and I did it at BellSouth to get accustomed to it.

“I don’t know where else I’ll end up needing to do that, but it was a huge help here, and I started going to that driver exclusively, only on holes that I thought I would play cuts. Like on 14 and 17, I ended up hitting that draw driver because I needed the extra length.”

The move was of course a dream for Callaway who Mickelson signed with in 2004.

“Our new slogan at Callaway is the only thing better than an FT3 drivers is two FT3 drivers. I knew I was going to do that after playing there on Monday and Tuesday, I decided there were too many shots off the tee where I needed different distances and these drivers are different distances. All of the right to left holes, I didn’t have to hit it very hard and all of the left-to-right holes I had to hit it pretty far,” he explained.

“I hit a driver I hit a long ways that draws and I have a driver that fades and stays in play. I wanted a week where I did this before The Masters, to see if I could go from one driver to the other and still hit fairways and not have it be a big change.

“It has worked out really well. The way the internal weighting of the club; one draws it and takes the left side out of play and one fades it and takes the right side out of play. It’s great because I only have to play with half the trouble.

“I had been working in the off season to get this longer driver in play. We got it dialed in to where I could hit just a very long draw. But all of the little finesse shots like carving it around the trees on 13 and so forth, the club wasn’t designed for that and just wasn’t doing it.”

Mickelson now has three Green Jackets – 2004, 2006 and 2010 – and was tied second as recently as 2023.

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