Mickelson has friendly course in bid for first U.S. Open title
There was the hospitality tent at Winged Foot.
There was Payne and the pager at Pinehurst.
There was a near-miss at Merion.
To list all of Phil Mickelson’s close calls, meltdowns and shortfalls at the U.S. Open is to peer into a particularly tortured chapter of the history of one of golf’s greatest champions.
More uplifting are the stories from Mickelson’s five tour victories at Pebble Beach — including one earlier this year.
It’s what makes Mickelson’s trip this week to Pebble all that much more tantalizing. It’s his chance to finally win the tournament he’s wanted so badly — maybe too badly — at a course teeming with history and good vibes for not only himself, but for his family and for the game itself. It’s a week during which the five-time major winner, who turns 49 on the day of the final round, will come face to face with what could be his last, best chance to win the U.S. Open.
And become the sixth player to complete the career Grand Slam.
“No,” Mickelson said when asked if he felt pressure to capture the final leg of the slam in order to enhance his legacy. “It’s just that it would be pretty special to be part of the elite players that have won all four. To me, that’s the sign of a complete game.”
It’s hard to argue Mickelson hasn’t proven he has the game to win a U.S. Open. He has played in 25 of them as a professional, finished in the top 10 in 10, and finished runner-up in six of those. And yet, the defining trait of America’s national championship is that it delivers the ultimate examination of every part of a player’s game. That includes the mental and emotional approach — and, it follows that a big piece of that puzzle is the ability to stay cool and make good decisions when the lights are the brightest.
To many, Mickelson’s puttsweeping debacle at Shinnecock last June, where he finished 48th, was a culmination of a quartercentury’s worth of frustration from a player fed up with the vagaries of the USGA’S perennial course-setup controversies, to say nothing of the long, star-crossed history he has written for himself in the major he has valued the most.
But if there was a single 20-minute stretch that defines Mickelson at the U.S. Open, it would be the 18th hole at Winged Foot in 2006. He carried a one-shot lead into final hole. His driver — Mickelson hit only two fairways the final round — bounced off a hospitality tent, well left of the fairway and behind a phalanx of trees that blocked his path to the green. Instead of punching out, trying to save par for the win or bogey for a playoff, he went for it. He dismissed the odds and chose against making what looked like the “smart” play, much the way he has throughout a career of all-ornothing risk taking that has paid off as often as not.
The ball hit a tree and barely went 25 yards. Mickelson made double bogey and lost by one.
“I still am in shock that I did that. I just can’t believe that I did that,” Mickelson said afterward. “I am such an idiot.”
He has at least one more good chance.
“No matter what, he’s going to be one of the greatest players that’s ever played this game,” Woods said.