‘Curiosity kills the bird,’ they say but in Phil Mickelson‘s case, it might impact you if you test his unconventional equipment setups. It’s a high-pressure task, as Lefty loves his clubs and their mechanics. That’s something Callaway representative Johnny Thompson knows better than anyone. Thompson had spent five years as Odyssey’s PGA Tour representative in 2011. That gave him a front row seat to Mickelson’s pursuit of the perfect feel. Recently, he narrated one harrowing incident from that time.

“I had his [Phil Mickelson’s] classic PM 882 style,” recalls Thompson on the Fully Equipped podcast. “He brought it on, asked me to bend it at the Masters. So you know, like a loft-lie machine? And like how you fit putters into a loft-lie machine?… There’s no scoop. There’s no pocket on the back, and like, there’s only so many fixtures.”

The PM 882 is a nod to the classic heel-shaft Anser look. Mickelson wanted its loft and lie angles to be tweaked. For any equipment technician, that’s a pretty straightforward task. But, for Thompson, it turned out to be a nightmare. The metal of the putter was tougher and denser, and could not bend no matter what. As Thompson put all his pressure to slight the adjustment, the putter slipped out of the fixture. “It scratched. It scratched it a decent amount, and I was mortified,” he said.

“I was starstruck with Phil. I was the biggest Phil fan,” he recalled. Thompson had known Mickelson all his life. Jim “Bones” Mackay, his longtime caddie, happened to be Thompson’s babysitter. It was through him that the now golf specialist developed an awe of the golfer.

“When he started caddying for Phil…Phil became my favorite player,” Thompson explained. “Jimmy always was so great to me, and he had Phil’s ear. He’s like, ‘Hey, if you need anything…I trust this guy[Thompson]. I’ve known him my whole life. I’ve known his family.’ So that, like, set it up to where there was a little bit less intimidation with Phil.”

For Jim “Bones” Mackay, it could have been rather easy to slip in a few good words about Thompson. He had worked with Mickleson for 25 years. That’s almost like a lifetime. Through their journey (1992-2017), they’ve accumulated 41 PGA Tour wins. Mackay helped win 5 of his 6 majors and caddied for him in 11 consecutive Ryder Cups. After a point, their relationship transcended golf and touched each other’s families. Both of their wives are each other’s best friends.

So when Thompson was tasked with such an important responsibility, before a major championship, it makes sense why he got his nerves wrecked. What later happened when Mickelson found his loved putter all scratched up, we don’t know. But that was surely not the only time Johnny Thompson messed up his only job with Phil.

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Thompson’s long night and Phil Mickelson’s belly-putter experiment

The year was 2011, at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Boston. Johnny Thompson had had a long night before, walking around with friends and colleagues. He cleverly spares us the details, but one could easily imagine that the night was filled with some amount of booze.

“We had a pretty late night and had a lot of fun that night. The next day shows up and I have not slept very much at all…wasn’t feeling my best… And Jimmy calls me and he goes, ‘Hey, can you meet Phil on the putting green?'”

Once Thompson reached the field, he saw Mickelson with a left-handed saber-tooth belly putter in the back. The 6-time major champ, with all his concentration, was trying to figure out how to use it. Interestingly, Odyssey had never made a left-handed version. But especially for Mickelson, lead designer Austie Rollinson had to slice and re-engineer the right-handed head. He sawed off the hosel, rewelded it for a left-handed setup, and even fixed the brand’s insignia. The result was a beautifully customized, White Hot XF Sabertooth exclusively for Mickelson.

The reason Mickelson did all that complication was due to his inspiration from Keegan Bradley. Bradley had just won the PGA Championship, using the same Sabertooth model. So obviously, Mickelson wanted to replicate that, too.

“So Phil’s like, ‘Hey, tell me about this belly putter.” He’s asking me all these questions about how to use a belly putter,” And I’m in the deepest of fogs mentally from my night out,” laughs Thompson. “And I had to suck it up and just try to answer all these questions. And then finally, we like finished up and I was just like, ‘Oh my god, what just happened?'”

The experiment itself didn’t last long. Mickelson used the custom belly putter that week but “putted terribly,” as Thompson put it. The club never saw the inside of Mickelson’s bag again.