Looks like it’s going to be quite a final day at FESJC
Yes, it should be quite a final day at the FedEx St. Jude Classic, where 23-year-old Daniel Berger will try to hold off Phil Mickelson for the championship.
Berger must be awed by the moment, right? He probably idolized Mickelson growing up.
“I would say Tiger Woods would be the guy,” said Berger.
Ahhhhh. But still, quite an honor to be in the mix with Phil, no?
“I like to call ‘Phil’ ‘Philip,’ ” said Berger. “He says that only his wife calls him that and that I can’t call him that until I win on the PGA Tour. So I still call him that anyway and I don’t care.” Wait, seriously? “It is what it is,” said Berger. “That’s his name, ‘Philip.’ And everyone calls him ‘Phil.’ So I like to call him ‘Philip.’ He doesn’t like it, so I just do it anyway.”
Like I said, should be quite a final day!
The kid vs. the Hallof-Famer. Lefty vs. The Young Mouth.
The winner gets to call himself champion. The loser has to use the winner’s actual name.
Which might not be Phil or Daniel, for that matter. It could be D.A. (Points) or Steve (Stricker) or Seungyul (Noh) or Colt (Knost) or Brooks (Koepka). It could even be Boo (Weekley) or John (Merrick) or Harrison (English) or Brett (Stegmaier), come to think of it. All those players are within five strokes of the lead.
But the headliners will
be Mickelson (with his 42 tour wins and five majors) and Berger (with his zero tour wins and stubborn refusal to call Mickelson by his preferred name).
It’s not the first time Berger has gone out of his way to stand up to Mickelson, either. In March, he refused to concede a one-foot putt to Mickelson at the WGC-Dell Match Play.
“And Daniel Berger did not give him that one-footer,” whispered the surprised television commentators. “You don’t want to wake the sleeping bear here, friends.”
Except, Berger doesn’t seem to care much about sleeping bears. He may have gotten that from his dad, Jay, a former professional tennis player who rose to No. 7 in the world at one point and knocked off Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg and Mats Wilander (twice!).
You don’t beat four No. 1 tennis players by just accepting their superiority. Think Jay might have called “Boris” “Bo?”
Berger may or may not be able to hold off Mickelson and the rest of the field today, but he clearly draws strength from telling himself that Phil(ip) puts his golf pants on one leg at a time.
And who’s to argue, after what happened Saturday on Berger’s back nine?
He had been sailing along, 10 under par, with just three bogeys for the week, when he plunked his tee shot at No. 14 in the drink.
“My caddie is telling me to aim 25 feet left of that and, for some reason, I’m looking at the flag,” Berger said.
So there it was. The inevitable meltdown. When Mickelson birdied No. 16, Berger suddenly found himself in a tie for the lead.
Poor kid. He would surely collapse from disappointment. He would surely disappear from the leaderboard. He would surely — OK, the truth is, he did none of those things.
Berger just missed a birdie putt on No. 15. Then he birdied No. 16 to reclaim the lead. Then after Mickelson bogeyed No. 17, Berger chipped in from 26 feet at 17 to go back up by three strokes.
Indeed, it took a remarkable par-saving putt by Mickelson at No. 18 to keep it that close.
“I feel like I rebounded very well,” said Berger.
In tennis, you’d call it breaking back.
So now comes Sunday, and the chance for Berger to get that first PGA Tour win. He’ll be paired with Points, with Mickelson and Stricker right behind.
And if you think Berger is awed by this, you haven’t been paying attention.
“This isn’t the last time I’ll be in this position,” he said. “If it was Tiger Woods behind me, it wouldn’t matter.”
But it’s not Tiger Woods. It’s Philip aka Phil.
And just for the record, what does Berger like to be called? “I go by Daniel,” he said. Or, if he loses, maybe Dan.