For a player of such renown, Phil Mickelson has a record at the Open Championship that is a little startling — or, to be blunt, it is dreadful. In 14 appearances as a professional, the world No 2 has had only one top-ten placing and only one other finish inside the top 20.

As anyone who has watched him up close will testify, Mickelson is a wonderful ball-striker and a genius with a wedge in his hand, but has paid for his high ball flight in the seemingly ever-present winds of links courses.

And yet only a fool would rule the American out of the reckoning. He arrived at Royal Birkdale four days before the start of the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond last week and set about planning his strategy in the company of Dave Pelz, the respected short-game teacher (and former Nasa research scientist).

“We took 12 hours to do nine holes,” Pelz said. “Like anyone, Phil has a game that has strengths and weaknesses and we had to find out where his game was going to be attacked at Royal Birkdale. After a while we knew what he had to work on. He has to hit low off the tee in 30mph winds. If you get the ball up in the air, you can’t possibly control it.”

It was on and around the greens, however, that most of the work was done. The two spent up to an hour on each green, figuring out where the pin positions are likely to be and then working backwards. Mickelson would putt to each position, chip to the same spot, make his notes and then plot his course, picking out where he would need to be on the fairway to get into position and where to aim off the tee.

“We spent 15 to 30 minutes trying to determine the line off the tee because of the bunkers,” Pelz said. “At Birkdale there are some holes that make you shudder. We would hit shots where you know you shouldn’t, just to see how they turned out. We hit two balls to the right of the 17th green — only seven paces or so — and we could not find them. We then hit some to the left side of the green that we found but couldn’t play.”

Pelz, who was speaking at the opening of his short-game school at Killeen Castle in Co Meath, near Dublin, says that if Mickelson can keep the ball on the fairways, few can live with him. So does this make his star “pupil” the world’s best short-game player?

“Absolutely,” he said. “Tiger is wonderful and so is Bernhard Langer, but I think Phil has more shots and more courage than anyone else I’ve seen. He’s absolutely fearless and will try any shot that is needed. He has practised all of them, so it’s not just wild speculation. He won’t try anything unless he knows he can do it.”

Pelz, a huge man, stands up, places a milk jug to represent a ball on the floor and relates a story that illustrates Mickelson’s skills. “I stood here, three feet away, and he hit it over my head with a full swing,” he said. “The ball never came within a foot of my nose. It went right up over me. There’s no other player in the world who can do that. I’d say about 97 per cent of it is taught, rather than natural. Phil’s not the best athlete in the world. He doesn’t compare to Michael Jordan or Lance Armstrong — people with incredible physical advantages. But neither does Tiger.”