Tiger-Phil relationship blossoms
Their relationship has been softened by age. The needle is sharp as ever. Never mind Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have only five victories between them over the past five years. It’s a big deal when the two best players of their generation are in the same group at any tournament, much less The Players Championship that begins today.
Mickelson, of course, wanted something even better.
“I look at the cover of the newspaper and the pairing is on there and the excitement that’s been going on around here, it gets me thinking,” Mickelson said Tuesday. “Why don’t we just bypass all the ancillary stuff of a tournament and just go head-tohead and just have kind of a high-stakes, winner-takeall match.”
Lefty was just getting warmed up.
“Now, I don’t know if he wants a piece of me,” he said, pausing for laughter, “but I just think it would be something that would be really fun for us to do, and I think there would be a lot of interest in it if we just went straight to the final round.” Or maybe not. They have played as a twosome in the final group just twice in their careers, and Woods won both times — in 2005 at Doral to return to No. 1 in the world, and in 2001 at the Masters when he completed his sweep of the majors.
So when Woods was told about Mickelson’s jab questioning whether he wanted a piece of him, Woods knew exactly where to go.
“First of all, big picture,” Woods said as his smile widened.
When a reporter thought Woods meant their record while playing in the same group — amazingly, the mark is 16-16-4 — Woods cut him off.
“How many times have we won on tour?” he said.
They have never been particularly close in the record book. Woods has a 79-43 lead in PGA Tour victories, 14-5 in the majors.
Matt Kuchar once told a story about how Mickelson would be dishing out his best material in the team room at the Ryder Cup, and if he ever didn’t have a comeback, he would simply reveal how many majors he has won to shut up the room — but not without surveying his audience.
“He can only say that if Tiger’s not around,” Kuchar said. “He has to look over both shoulders and make sure, because then Tiger gives him his number.”
They were never particularly close off the course, either.
Both will say their relationship was overblown in the media, and there might be some truth to that but they have been there for each other in tough times.
Woods reached out to Mickelson when his wife, Amy, was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Woods told of Mickelson sending nothing but encouraging texts when Woods was struggling with his chipping in early 2015 as his back was still ailing.