Mamaroneck, N.Y.
In the weeks leading up to the start of the U.S. Open, there were so many Phil Mickelson sightings in these parts the locals began wondering if the superstar had become a resident. There was Mickelson at this restaurant. At that grocery store. The guy at the front of the line at Starbucks yesterday? Phil.
“Well, I can’t recall frequenting a coffee shop. I don’t drink coffee,” Mickelson said. “But there have been a couple of pizza joints and ice cream joints that have seen me.”
That the man pilloried not too long ago for introducing “subcutaneous fat” into golf’s lexicon could joke about gorging himself with junk food speaks to the comfort level Mickelson has attained. So much so that when he tees off this morning at Winged Foot Golf Club, Mickelson will be trying to do something really piggish – win a third consecutive major championship.
After breaking an 0-for-42 professional drought in the game’s biggest events with a triumph in the 2004 Masters, Mickelson has threatened to supplant Tiger Woods as golf’s best high-stakes performer.
Ironically enough, he has done so by toning down his reliance on gambling that his overwhelming talent would see him through the rough patches commonplace in a major. Instead, Lefty has become the thinking man’s golfer, blending equipment technology (he used two drivers at the Masters), coaching and copious preparation into a winning formula.
Mickelson said he made three trips to Winged Foot to prepare, and played the 7,264-yard, par-70 course “probably nine or 10 days.” The first time he visited, Mickelson didn’t even take his clubs. He preferred to walk the grounds and greens, visualizing shots he might hit or where the USGA might place the pins for its 106th national championship.
As a result, Mickelson knows the course as well as anyone outside the membership. He can go into great detail, such as noting that on the 475-yard, par-4 No. 8 a player is safe if he hits his ball into the greenside bunker if the pin is back left, but has cause to worry if the pin is in the middle of the green.
“I’ve come to the point where I enjoy the challenge of trying to be successful in these very difficult tests of golf,” he said. “It’s been very fun, even though they’re the hardest days, they’re eight-, nine- 10-hour preparation days. I’m worn out. It takes me days to recover, but I actually enjoy them.”
Of course, Mickelson doesn’t have a patent on preparing for a major. There are at least a few others in the 156-player field capable of winning.
Including Woods, who came up just short in the 2005 PGA Championship (tied for fourth) and this spring’s Masters (tied for third). Woods has seen Mickelson at least stick his foot in the door when it comes to naming the game’s best player. He plays down the idea of an ongoing rivalry.
“(The media) keeps asking me things like that. You have runs where Ernie (Els) was there for a little bit, then Vijay (Singh), Goose (Retief Goosen) and now Phil. I suppose as long as I can be part of that conversation, it’s never a bad thing,” said Woods, but it seems clear he would like nothing more than to re-establish his dominance.
By week’s end, however, it may be obvious that the most powerful entity at play here is Winged Foot. Although no one expects the scores to balloon as high as they did in 1974, when Hale Irwin won with a 7-over-par total, the firm greens and gnarly rough threaten to bend the will of the most steely player.
“I guess if I hadn’t played in ’74 I might think this was the hardest course I’ve ever seen,” Jay Haas said Wednesday. “The rough is as thick as I’ve ever seen, not only length-wise, but just the density.”
And if that means one man sips champagne Sunday night while everyone else cries in their beer, so be it.
“We set up the U.S. Open courses to match our philosophy that we want the most rigorous test in championship golf,” USGA president Walter Driver said. “The players don’t see courses like that very often. We understand that’s a change that requires adaptation by the players. That’s our philosophy, and we don’t make any apologies for that philosophy.”
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
