News
Thursday, June 12, 2008
All Eyes On Tiger And Phil
Phil Mickelson was in the marquee group Thursday. He fared the best, shooting an even-par 71. (John Mummert/USGA)
By Stuart Hall
San Diego — Phil Mickelson strode to the starter’s podium at the first tee just past 8 o’clock Thursday morning to collect the first-round hole location sheet. As he stood there next to a turned-off microphone, members of overflowing gallery surrounding the tee at Torrey Pines’ South Course began to chant.
“Speech, speech, speech.”
Mickelson jokingly obliged by uttering a few inaudible words. A moment later, Mickelson’s sidekicks, Tiger Woods and Adam Scott, arrived on the tee. With that, the much ballyhooed pairing of the world’s top three players was underway in the opening round of the 108th U.S. Open.
While “The Show” may not have fully lived up to its pre-Open hype, neither did it disappoint. Galleries up to five deep surrounded every hole, producing a repeated chorus of “Lets go, Tiger” and “C’mon Phil.”
In golf’s version of “American Idol,” Mickelson, 37, who was born in San Diego and currently lives nearby in Rancho Sante Fe, won the popularity poll by a nod over Woods, 32, who was born up the road in Cypress, Calif. The Aussie-born Scott, 27, was a distant third.
“I thought it was great,” Mickelson said. “There were not any derogatory remarks. Whether they pulled for any of the three of us, everybody was really cool today. I was very proud to be from here.”
Mickelson acknowledged that there was not as much bantering among the threesome as there might be during a regular PGA Tour event. This is, after all, the U.S. Open.
Mickelson also was as the group’s medalist, posting an even-par 71. Woods finished with a 1-over 72; Scott with a 73.
None of the three were at their sharpest, but Woods and Scott had reason excuses. Woods was playing his first competitive round since having loose cartilage removed from his knee the day after the Masters, and Scott was playing with a broken right hand, the result of being slammed in a car door in London.
Mickelson opened with four consecutive pars before making bogeys at the fifth, sixth and seventh holes.
“I guess I could say it was rust or I just made a couple of dumb mistakes,” said Mickelson, who three-putted from 40 feet on the fifth, then hacked from rough to bunker to green and had two putts on both the sixth and seventh.
At the time, Mickelson’s decision to keep his driver at home in favor of a fourth wedge was looking questionable.
“My game plan was that I only want to hit it a certain distance, I don't really want to hit it past 300 yards on most of the par 4s because it starts running into the rough,” he said. “And I felt like with the fairways being firm like they were today all I needed was 3-wood on the holes.”
Meanwhile, Woods opened with a double-bogey 6 and managed to work his way back to 1 under at the turn on the strength of birdies at four, eight and nine.
“Hey, you couldn't have asked for a worse start than I got off to,” he said. “I figured you're going to make bogeys out here. I just happened to make two on the very first hole. I just wanted to be patient, because there is a long way to go and see if I can get this thing to even par or under par for the day.”
The momentum began to move in Mickelson’s direction when he rang up his first birdie at the 414-yard, par-4 10th hole. He bogeyed the 12th, then posted successive birdies at the 13th and 14th holes.
“C’mon, Phil,” yelled one overzealous fan. “This is your house.”
Mickelson added his last birdie at the par-5 closing hole. His eagle attempt from 30 feet tracked toward the hole before slipping past on the high side. But it was enough to amp up the hometown crowd.
Woods, who looked to have his game working on nearly all cylinders after the opening hole, began to struggle on the back nine. His card shows a double-bogey 6 on the par-4 14th as his only blemish, but he needed par-save putts of 20 and 15 feet, respectively, at the 12th and 13th hole.
Then he punctuated an up-and-down par save from a greenside bunker at the 15th with a patented fist pump. At the 18th, he reached the green in two and then three-putted.
Woods was well aware that his 72 keeps him very much in contention, and that he just needs to clean up a few areas in his game.
“To make two double bogeys and a three-putt and only be four back [at the time he finished], that's a great position to be in,” Woods said. “Because I know I can clean that up tomorrow.”
Friday will bring a sequel to “The Show.” The pairing goes off from the 10th hole at 1:36 p.m. local time, well enough past noon for the crowd to get juiced up in anticipation. Woods can only imagine what will ensue.
“It was pretty loud at times,” he said of Thursday’s galleries. “Overall, it wasn't as bad as I thought.”
Neither was the golf.
Stuart Hall is a writer for the Golf Press Association whose work has appeared previously on www.usopen.com.
