Hope renewed: Phil Mickelson to share his secrets in new video

I really try not to bite the hook of every new golf video or instruction book, but it’s difficult sometimes. Now, we learn that Phil Mickelson has a new DVD series on the short game coming out called ” Phil Mickelson: Secrets of the Short Game.”

Considering what Mickelson did in winning the WGC CA Doral Championship, I’m probably biting. My gosh, he chipped in four times, which was more than the difference in the tournament.

There’s also relatively very little out there – save Dave Pelz – that addresses the short game, and Mickelson is regarded by many to have the most creative approach around the greens of all time. (Mickelson did extensive work with Pelz, by the way.)

“My ideas about the short game are very different from a lot of the instruction I see out there,” said Mickelson, “so it was a lot of fun to put this together with Terry (Jastrow, and I’m very pleased with the way it turned out. The goal here is help golfers build a foundation so that their practice time directly correlates to improved scoring on the golf course.”

Jastrow has produced hugely popular instructional tapes with Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and others but said, “No great golfer has done an instructional program in more two decades. For years people have acknowledged Phil has a superior short game, but the question they still ask is, ‘How does he do it?’ Here Phil finally gives his answers.”

Mickelson has been outspoken on various topics throughout his career and continues to be so in sharing his “Secrets.”

On two popular chipping instructions, that “the club should go back and through the same distance” or that there should be “no wrist” in the swing: “If anybody teaches you one of those two methods, go somewhere else. There is one great way to chip and it is a method that I call “hinge and hold.” There has never been a good chipper who does not conform to this technique.”

OK, I’m definitely listening.

The DVD is about 2 hours and retails for $49.95. It will be available online on Mickelson’s Web site and in golf shops everywhere beginning April 7.