LEFTY HOPING FOR RIGHT TURN.

Byline: JILL PAINTER GOLF

PALM DESERT - Phil Mickelson and his driver have come out of seclusion.

Lefty's annual hiatus from the golf world has ended, and he's ready to debut a different body type as well as a drive that won't go Lefty on him in today's first round of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

His vacation from golf was just that. He says he played just three to fourrounds over the past few months. Even Jack Nicklaus, who's retired, has played more golf than that.

Mickelson was plenty busy, however. He had a Polynesian wedding in Bora Bora to renew vows with his wife, Amy, for their 10-year anniversary. He traveled to Italy with family and friends. He entered the golf-course design business with projects in North Carolina and Cabo San Lucas.

He lost 20-25 pounds with the help of his trainer, Sean Cochran. He started a new fitness regimen that had him lifting weights again and he added 10-15 pounds of muscle. And he corrected, or so he believes, the problem he had hitting the ball to the left off the tee with his driver. That gargantuan hole in his game cost him the U.S. Open on the 72ndhole and made him gear his offseason game plan around fixing it.

``That was the key element we addressed,'' Mickelson said in a news conference Tuesday, the first Phil sighting since the disappointing Ryder Cup. ``What is it with the golf equipment, what is it with the golf swing that we can do to eliminate that left shot that has crept in my game after starting my career having the hook be the problem.

``I'm really excited about 2007, because I really think that shot is going to be eliminated the majority of the time.''

Had Mickelson not sliced his tee shot into the left rough on the 18th hole at Winged Foot, he said he likely wouldn't have tinkered with the shot.

But that mistake with his driver cost him a major, and now that Mickelson is used to winning them -- he's won three over the past three years -- he wanted to make sure it doesn't happen again.

``Well, dealing with failure is part of the game,'' Mickelson said. ``I deal with it 90 percent of the time. This offseason we addressed driving. I always kind of put it back like, `I know I can hit a fairway if I had to.' It wasn't the case, and I had to address that.''

Soon, he'll stick the square-shaped, Callaway Fusion FT-i driver in his bag, but for now, he's using the FT-5. He's working on that club for the Masters, where he can hit it longer but still straight, and a couple of other tournaments. Mickelson is the defending Masters champion.

The past six days were so busy that Mickelson, a San Diego native, didn't even have time to go the Chargers' playoff game Sunday against the New England Patriots. Mickelson spent 10-14hours a day the past sixdays with swing coach Rick Smith and short-game guru Dave Pelz.

``I really believe that the past former presidents of the USGA that passed away were looking down and said, `No one should win the Open hitting two of 14fairways,' and that certainly came back to bite me,'' Mickelson joked.

His words immediately following that round were: ``I can't believe I did that. I'm such an idiot.''

Mickelson is one player who seemingly is interested in the new FedEx Cup playoff system. It won't cause him to alter his schedule drastically, but he will change it a bit. He won't play in the Nissan Open again because that would mean he would have to play in six consecutive tournaments, he said.

He'll play in the same number of tournaments, only in a more condensed format. And he'll take the weeks off before the Masters and U.S. Open, missing the Shell Houston Open and Stanford St.Jude Championship, respectively.

As for his poor Ryder Cup performance -- though he was hardly alone -- Mickelson said he believes it was more of a physical setback. His offseason conditioning workouts, in which he did nearly an hour of cardio five or six days a week, were designed to help his stamina

``I was in better shape in 2004 than I was in 2005 or 2006,'' Mickelson said. ``So, I felt that was the one variable that I had been missing, and so that's why I tried to address it in the offseason.''

CAPTION(S):

photo, 2 boxes

Photo:

Phil Mickelson, affectionately known as Lefty, will be making his season debut today at the 48th annual Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.

Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

Box:

(1) THIS WEEK'S SCHEDULE

-Associated Press

(2) ETC.