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As they talked, the Callaway team pointed out to Phil that since his Masters victory in 2006, he has consistently taken loft off his driver. He won that Masters with a driver loft of 8.4 degrees. Over the last few years, he has de-lofted his driver to as low as six degrees.
After talking it over, Phil and Callaway's tour and technology team decided to increase Phil's driver loft by a full degree. According to my source at Callaway Golf, Mickelson made an 'easy' birdie on 18 Wednesday after striping his tee ball 300 yards up the gut. He turned to the team with a gleam in his eyes and said, 'This is going to be a fun week.'
He may be right. Lefty fired an 8-under-par 63 on Thursday to take the early clubhouse lead at the Northern Trust Open. Mickelson, the defending champion, averaged 299.3 yards off the tee and hit seven of 14 fairways with his FT-9 driver.