Augusta, Ga. – Asked this week if there was a young player capable of breaking through and winning the Masters, Tiger Woods responded with a pithy – and quite telling – question of his own.
“Who?”
Woods quickly added he didn’t mean to disparage Charles Howell III or Paul Casey or any young, talented player. Rather, he said, winning at Augusta National Golf Club requires more than a newish birth certificate or knowing how to wield the latest equipment.
Over the past six years, the tournament has almost been the exclusive province of Woods and Phil Mickelson. With the exception of Mike Weir’s surprising 2003 triumph, one of the two supremely talented players has taken the first major of the season.
“I just think it helps to (have been) in contention, too, to know how to deal with the back nine and all of the different roars and all of the different things that happen here on the back nine on Sunday,” Woods said. “There are so many different things that happen here, so many different distractions that you have to know how to handle it.”
Fittingly, history has borne out Woods’ theory. The most recent player to win in his first appearance here was Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979; in the nine Masters following Woods’ breakthrough victory in 1997, the man who eventually donned the green jacket averaged nine previous appearances in the year he won.
While Woods has one more championship than Mickelson in that stretch, it is the left-hander who is the defending champion this week, a fact that seemingly has gotten lost amid the 10-year anniversary of Woods’ epic win or the fact that the world’s top- ranked player has also emerged with the last two majors contested.
“It should be that way,” Mickelson conceded of the Tigercentric slant, adding that he’s at a point now where trying to force favorable comparisons to Woods would be an exercise in futility.
“If I have a great rest of my career, and I go out and win 20 more tournaments and seven more majors to get to 50 wins and 10 majors, which would be an awesome career, I still won’t get to where he’s at today,” Mickelson said.
“So I don’t try to compare myself against him. What I like to do is try to win as many tournaments and as many majors that I can, and with him in the field, it just gives it more credibility, whatever it is that I’m able to accomplish.”
But it is Mickelson, and not the more shrouded Woods, who is arguably the most compelling figure in the game. Of course, part of that is because of the failures that have haunted Mickelson throughout his career. One was the 0-for-42 streak in the majors, a run that ended here in the 2004 Masters. The most recent was his 72nd-hole meltdown at last summer’s U.S. Open, when a double bogey cost him a third consecutive major title.
Mickelson followed the Open with indifferent finishes in the year’s final majors, tying for 22nd in the British and 16th in the PGA Championship. In fact, Mickelson played in just five events after Winged Foot. Throw in a winless effort at the Ryder Cup and some wondered aloud whether the U.S. Open had fostered some lingering, negative effect on his game.
That wasn’t the case, Mickelson said.
“I’ve had to overcome tough losses in the past. Certainly Winged Foot was a tough loss … losing the PGA in 2001 after three-putting 16 was probably the hardest – it was harder because I hadn’t won a major at that time and didn’t know for sure if I could do it.
“Certainly that was a hard loss. I’m not trying to downplay it any, it stung. It also challenged me to improve in areas, specifically driving, so that it doesn’t happen again.”
Even though he’s already won a championship this season, taking the AT&T Pebble Beach in February, Mickelson said this week is truly the beginning of his season.
“It’s my favorite event of the year,” he said of the Masters. “There are very few courses where I just get excited just to go play, and every time I stand on the first tee at Augusta National, I’m excited just to play a round of golf.”
The 95 players who aren’t named Woods or Mickelson, especially those who don’t hit the golf ball as far, are excited to see what they can do on a 7,445-yard course. There has only been minor tinkering this year, quite unlike recent years, when hundreds of yards have been added to the tract.
The past few years have also featured a great deal of rain, which has limited roll on drives as well as the number of players with a realistic chance of winning.
But according to Adam Scott, who won last week’s Houston Open, that’s the kind of negative thinking that, along with copious amounts of experience, plays right into Woods’ and Mickelson’s hands.
“You know, so many people are beaten before they’ve even started the tournament,” Scott said. “That’s kind of a position I was in when I was younger, I didn’t really have the self-belief that I would be there on Sunday.
“I felt like I had to play better than I’ve ever played before to win a major, but that’s what (U.S. Open champion) Geoff (Ogilvy) talks about – you don’t have to play 110 percent. He was smart and stayed within himself all week and in the end, he was on top.”
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
Phil’s roller coaster
How Phil Mickelson has fared since losing the 2006 U.S. Open with a final-hole, double-bogey debacle, above:
HIGHS
Won Pebble Beach Pro-Am in February
Finished second in the NissanOpen the following week, losing in a playoff
LOWS
Went 0-4-1 in the 2006 Ryder Cup
Has finished out of the top 15 in 11 of 13 events, including two missed cuts.
On the rebound
After his double-bogey meltdown on the final hole of the 2006 U.S. Open, Phil Mickelson struggled at the end of the season but has rebounded a bit this season:
2006 FINISH
Date Event Finish Earnings
July 9 Western Open T65 $10,350
July 23 British Open T22 $65,762
Aug. 8 The International MC None
Aug. 20 PGA Championship T16 $94,000
Aug. 27 Bridgestone Invitational T54 $39,500
Note: He played in the Ryder Cup but did not win a match, going 0-4-1.
2007 START
Jan. 21 Bob Hope Classic T45 $15,500
Jan. 28 Buick Invitational T51 $12,542
Feb. 4 FBR Open MC None
Feb. 11 Pebble Beach Pro-Am 1 $990,000
Feb. 18 Nissan Open P2 $561,600
Feb. 25 Match Play Championship T17 $90,000
March 18 Arnold Palmer Invit’nal T36 $25,346
March 25 CA Championship T23 $74,000
