PHIL MICKELSON’S
● Bid for elusive final major hinges on a delay giving him enough time to fly from daughter’s graduation to course
“I need a minimum four-hour delay. That’s the way I kind of mapped it out”
US Open bid hinges on the weather holding up the start to give him enough time to fly from his daughter’s graduation to the course.
Can the weather gods really be on Phil Mickelson’s side this week? To be brutally honest, it’s a long shot. He needs a four-hour delay, after all, to have even a hope of making it to the first tee at Erin Hills for the opening round of the 117th US Open and what, really, are the chances of that?
Well, better than you might think, actually. Almost as if on cue, scattered thunderstorms are in the forecast for the Milwaukee area on Thursday morning and they’ve intervened already. The course was closed to spectators yesterday morning as bad weather swept over the Wisconsin venue.
So, why does Mickelson need Mother Nature to be the 14th club in his bag for the season’s second major, the one, of course, he needs to win, having come close so often in the past, to complete a career Grand Slam and join Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in achieving that feat?
Well, as the morning starters are out on the course, Mickelson will be 2,000 miles away in southern California. At 10am Pacific time, he’ll be at Pacific Ridge School in Carlsbad to see his oldest daughter, Amanda, make one of the speeches at her graduation ceremony. If the US Open was at Torrey Pines, he’d have no problems making an afternoon tee time, but is there any realistic hope that he can make it to Wisconsin for 2.20pm Central time to join Steve Stricker and Stewart Cink in the one of the third last groups?
“I need a four-hour delay,” admitted Mickelson at the weekend. “I need a minimum four-hour delay most likely. That’s the way I kind of mapped it out. I should get in the air right around my tee time. It’s about a 3-hour 20-minute flight.” That, of course, will be on a private jet, so at least he won’t have to fret about how long it might be before his golf clubs appear on the airport carousel. Even so, it is surely asking a lot for these particular ducks to line up as required.
Mickelson’s name had been on yesterday’s interview schedule, suggesting he might have intended to fly into Erin Hills for a practice round before heading back to California. There was no sign of him, though, meaning he will be playing the course blind if he does indeed make it to Erin Hills as it becomes the second new venue used by the USGA for this event in three years after its ill-fated visit to Chambers Bay in 2015.
“I am going to keep my game sharp the next couple of days… but it’s not looking good,” he also said during the final buildup event, the Fedex St Jude Classic in Memphis. “It’s totally fine. I’m not going to really be prepared for Erin Hills. I haven’t gone there. I don’t know the golf course.”
Neither, of course, did John Daly when he got into the 1991 US PGA Championship at Crooked Stick as a reserve at the 11th hour and we all know what happened on that occasion. It would be an even bigger fairytale – probably even the most fanciful in the game’s history – if Mickelson does get to play this week and goes on to claim that elusive victory. Six times he’s finished runner-up in the US Open, including the year the aforementioned Amanda was born.
Just 29 at the time, Mickelson was ready to dash away from Pinehurst the moment he got the call to say that his wife, Amy, had gone into labour with the couple’s first child. As it was, he managed to finish the tournament, losing out to Payne Stewart as his colourful compatriot holed a 15-footer on the last green, before getting back to Arizona, where he was living at the time, for the birth.
Given his history in the event, it would be a pity if Mickelson did miss out on an opportunity to finally win it, especially as you begin to wonder just how many realistic chances lie ahead for the 46-year-old. His absence on this occasion would also make it the first occasion since the 1994 Masters that a major will have taken place without either him or Tiger Woods in the field. Wow.
Sergio Garcia has also played in his fair share of majors in that time and, having finally made the big breakthrough at the 74th attempt, the Spaniard is now bidding to become only the seventh player – after Craig Wood, Hogan (twice), Arnold Palmer, Nicklaus, Woods and Jordan Spieth – to win the Masters and US Open in the same year.
“That’s the goal and that’s where we want to go,” said the 37-year-old. “I definitely hope that I can keep playing well and win many, many more, now that we have our first one. The only thing I can do is keep putting myself in that situation as many times as possible and now I can maybe rely on what I felt on Sunday at Augusta and hopefully it gives me a little bit ofanedgewhenitcomesdown to that situation.
“At the end of the day I think that obviously we’ve achieved something that we’ve been trying for for so long and it’s easy to kind of take a deep breath and relax. But I’m still working out hard, I’m still working on my game as much as I can and as hard as possible. I’ve always said it. Wins are important but to me consistency is the most important thing.
“I’ve been fortunate to be consistent throughout my whole career. I want to keep being consistent, keep playing well, keep giving myself chances at winning majors and being in Ryder Cups and all those things.
“So to me that’s the best motivation possible, to keep that consistency going. And if I want to do that I have to keep working hard. I’m sure that some lows will come, but hopefully they’ll be short ones and we can get over them as quickly as possible.”