There obviously is the fact that Phil’s wife and mother have been diagnosed with breast cancer within a few weeks of each other and that currently he certainly has more important things to deal with in his life than hitting a little white ball into a hole in the ground. However, things seemed to be going better with the ladies lately and Phil decided to return to the PGA Tour. He staged a sensational, very emotional and somewhat successful comeback at the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black in front of his die-hard New York fans.

To me that showed (once again) that he is definitely capable of playing his best golf under enormous pressure and less than ideal circumstances. So let’s try to forget about the adversities in Phil Mickelson’s personal life for a moment and take a look at some statistics. Here are Phil’s numbers for the first three tournaments of the FedEx Cup Play-Offs as compared to his 2009 season averages:

It seems that with the exception of the BMW Championship, Mickelson’s Play-Off statistics are comparable or even better than his season average. So how come we haven’t seen the good results we’ve been used to?

May be TPC Boston, Cog Hill and Liberty National played easier than the courses during the rest of the year? So I came up with the idea of comparing Phil’s numbers to those of the three tournament champions:

It probably would’ve been even better to do a comparison with the field average but I didn’t know where to find that data. Also, it is difficult to judge a round of golf simply by looking at the numbers: For example, Putts per GIR doesn’t say much without looking at the average distance to the hole at the same time; driving accuracy isn’t worth a thing if you only hit it 200 yds etc.

Anyway, let’s keep it simple and bring it to the point: It seems as if Phil’s biggest problems are the driving and the putting. But while Phil has never been known to be a consistently accurate driver of the golf ball, putting the ball into the hole has always been considered one of his biggest strenghts.
To me it seems that both a recent lack of practice and all the troubles in his private life are having a negative impact on Phil’s putting, the mentally most challenging aspect of the game.

I know that TV coverage of Mickelson’s play was limited lately (due to his poor performances), but if you saw him play or do have an opinion based on the numbers presented above, please feel free to share it through the comment function.