ARticle from golfweek.com
Palmer finds answer in slimmest of margins By Jim McCabe August 18, 2010
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It is the thinnest line in pro sports, that difference between playing well on the PGA Tour and leaving for home on Friday afternoons.
How thin is it? Ryan Palmer would suggest it’s 1 1/2 degrees. He’s not talking not about the temperature, either, but rather his irons.
“Turns out they were 1 1/2 degrees flat,” Palmer said, and while such a tweak wouldn’t turn a 16-handicapper into a club champ, he thinks it has been the reason for his impressive turnaround against the world’s best players.
OK, there are contributing factors, like this, from caddie James Edmondson at the PGA Championship: “He’s driving it the best I’ve seen since I’ve been with him.” But both Edmondson and Palmer suggest their trip to the TaylorMade truck before the RBC Canadian Open cannot go overlooked.
Heading into that tournament, Palmer had missed 10 cuts in his previous 11 tournaments. “And the one cut I made was a top 10 (T-9 at the Valero Texas Open),” Palmer said with a laugh. “Go figure.”
Frustrating about that stretch of play is the fact Palmer opened the season with a win at the Sony Open in Hawaii and made the cut in five of the first seven tournaments.
Then, from late March to mid-August, he worked just one weekend.
Palmer, who had put new irons in the bag after Sony, was frustrated, mostly because he didn’t feel as if he was playing that poorly. When the trip to the equipment guys revealed that the irons were 1 1/2 degrees off, both Palmer and Edmondson became optimistic they had stumbled upon an answer.
So far, you could suggest they have, because Palmer finished T-24 in Canada, was second at the Bridgestone Invitational, and had it going at the PGA Championship before a third-round 75 slowed him. Still, he finished T-33 in the season’s final major and heads into the playoffs with solid standing.
He’s currently 23rd in the FedEx Cup standings, 22nd in money (at $2,239,245 he’s already established a career best), and encouraged that he’s in form and that his worst stretch of golf is far behind.
“My head’s in a right spot,” Palmer said. “But I guess if I’ve learned a lesson, it’s that I’m going to check my irons more often.”
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