Which Phil?

By Leith Anderson

I have a confession to make.  I’ve never been a big Phil Mickelson fan.  I can’t say exactly what’s kept me from joining the club.  Maybe those occasional stories about excesses committed in Las Vegas.  Maybe that nagging feeling that he could have done more with the talent he was blessed with.  Maybe that pained expression that passes as a smile.  I can’t say exactly but I’ve never joined up.

The Northern Trust Open provided me with an opportunity reevaluate my opinion.  Thanks to my association with Golf Today, I was rewarded with an “inside the ropes” press pass.  “Inside the ropes” means just that.  You can follow the players to the tee, get a perfect view of the drive, walk “discreetly” up the rope line to the green and then scoot in with the photographers and tour officials a few feet from the putting surface.  I could have helped the players line up their putts on most holes.  Better yet, you’re close enough to sense emotions as they rise and fall.  Up close access to the action is the next best thing to playing.

Phil knows how to play the Rivera Country Club.  Two years ago he finished tied for first, losing a playoff to Charles Howell.  Last year he won.  This year he opened with a magnificent 63, beating the field by two strokes.  He followed up in round two with a lackluster 71, falling out of the lead.

In an interesting twist, he phoned his coach Butch Harmon who hopped on a plane Friday night from Las Vegas and spent two pre-round sessions with Phil on Saturday morning.  Phil responded with a 62 – one stroke off the course record.  That’s a fabulous score.

Butch went home on Saturday night and Phil was left alone with “Bones” on the range Sunday morning.  That begged the question:  Which Phil would show up to play on Sunday?  If you were a betting man, you would have given long odds on Phil losing the tournament.  He was in the lead by four strokes.

The Front Nine on Sunday

And then it was six.  On the first hole he sank a twisting, downhill 37 foot putt that most amateurs would three putt nine out of ten times.  Eagle, sixteen under.  It looked like the tournament could be over early.

But the “old Phil” came right back out on the second hole.  Choosing a conservative play off the tee – perhaps due to the imposing driving range net wall down the left side – he left over 200 yards to the green.  He pulled the approach, chunked the chip and missed the putt for a bogey.

On the third he hit a wild duck hook into a line of Eucalyptus on the right and was lucky to have an opening to get back in play.  A short wedge and two putts for bogey and he’s back to even par.

He made par from long distance on the fourth and fifth holes and then hit one of only two iron shots that put him in legitimate birdie range all day on the sixth hole – the quirky par three with the bunker smack in the middle of the green.  He missed the slippery downhill putt from eight feet.

On the seventh he chose conservative three metal off the tee and snapped another duck hook into the barranca that runs down the right side of the fairway.  Phil turned to Bones and mouthed “out of bounds?”  Negative.  But the marshals had a hard time finding the ball in ankle high kikuyu.  A brief panic ensued.  I had a view of the next shot from directly behind.  Phil tested the rough with a dozen practice swings but appeared not to notice a tree limb that looked to be at the perfect height to block an iron shot into the green.  I was thinking “run up” trajectory but Phil took a full swing.  It came out a little hot and jumped past the pin over the green.  He missed the overhanging limb by an inch.  Another chunked chip shot and missed twenty foot putt – another bogey.  One over for the day.

On the eighth Phil dodged another bullet.  The eighth hole at Riviera is a split fairway masterpiece that allows a player to take an easier path to the right but requires a trickier approach over a kikuyu filled barranca to a domed green.  A drive to the left, more difficult to place yields a straight shot to the green.  Phil chose left and hit his patented “left of left” drive that was reminiscent of the 2007 Open.  He was in serious jail.  A dozen large eucalyptus trees were in his path to the green.  There was a little hole in the trees, about four feet wide.  Phil slashed an iron through the hole.  He came up thirty feet short of the green.  Pitched to eight feet and made par.

Only later it came out in his post round interview that Phil confessed that he “missed his target” and found another hole anyway.  Bones tried to buck Phil up by saying something like “that’s the kind of luck that wins tournaments” on their way to the green.  How true.

Phil missed another fairway to the right on the ninth but hit a good iron and two putted for par – two over.

The Back Nine on Sunday

Phil was paired with Fred Couples and Andres Romero.  Both Couples and Romero had good chances to win the tournament.  By the start of the back nine, they had each clawed within a couple of strokes of Phil.  Couples was betrayed by his putter.  He played the front nine superbly, from his eagle on one to his birdie on three he looked like a contender.  Then he missed a short par putt on four, and short birdie putts on six, seven and eight.  Couples outplayed Phil by a wide margin on the front nine – putter excluded.

Romero is a lot of fun to watch because you never know what he’s going to do.  On the practice range on Sunday morning it looked to me like he was having a hard time controlling his driver.  That’s the way it worked out on the course.  After playing in the trees and rough most of the way, he sealed his fate with a driver out of bounds on the twelfth.  Wild tee balls and too many missed short putts offset fabulous iron play.  At least this Sunday, irons were the strength of Romero’s game – capped by a couple of fabulous wedge shots from bad lies to tap in distance. 

On the tenth hole, the short “drivable” par four that everyone talks about as a disaster waiting to happen, Phil let it be known that he was not going to back down.  He hit his drive to the front fringe of the green – some 320 yards on a string.  Alas, he was not on a straight line to the hole and had to hit one of his patented high lob shots over the corner of a bunker to get back to the hole.  It was a very gutsy shot but came up twelve feet short and he missed the putt.

The eleventh is a par five, relatively easy at 527 yards.  Phil pushed his drive into the tree line which forced him to lay up with a utility club.  He hit it too far into the rough.  The tucked back pin required a pinpoint shot with spin that Phil couldn’t get out of the rough.  His wedge skipped into the rough over the green.  His chip was indifferent and he missed his ten foot putt.  Couples and Romero both birdied.  It started to look like the final group of the day would turn into a contest. 

The twelfth hole was pivotal for the final group.  With all three players within a stroke, Romero blasted his first drive out of bounds left.  Couples went “right of right” beyond the tree line and was completely blocked from the green.  Mickelson hit the fairway with a three wood.  Couples hit his shot of the day from “nowhere” into the bunker in front of the green.  He blasted out to four feet.  Mickelson hit the green.  In an unlikely outcome, Romero made his putt for bogey, Couples missed his four footer and Mickelson three-putted.  Three bogies.  Mickelson was now two over for the day.  The leader board now showed that Steve Stricker and Rory Sabbatini were making a move.  Mickelson had blown his lead.  He was one down.  What happened to that six stroke lead?

All pars on the thirteenth.

On the fourteenth, a 199 yard par three, Mickelson hit his tee shot into the bunker straight in front of the pin.  His bunker shot was a little short, just missing getting hung up in the fringe.  He lipped the putt.  Now, he’s three over for the day and two strokes behind.  I was within a few feet as the group walked from the fourteenth green to the fifteenth tee.  A normal, mortal golfer would have been contemplating suicide at this point.  I searched Mickelson’s face and couldn’t see any sign of despair.  If anything, his expression was one of resolve.

The game changed on the fifteenth.  The fifteenth is the most difficult par four on the back nine.  It’s a long dogleg right with a massive deep bunker at the turn.  On Saturday, I saw Tommy Armour III hit a good drive that ended up in the bunker.  I saw Scott McCarron hit a pretty good drive and come up twenty yards short.  Mickelson’s drive was fifty yards past the bunker in perfect position.  It was at least thirty yards farther than any other drive I had seen over two days.  Fabulous.  His second shot came up short and he two-putted for par.  Still two down.

There’s usually a player who fails to “close the deal”.  At the Northern Trust Open that player was Steve Stricker.   After going fifteen under par on thirteen he started to wobble.  His driver became unruly and he couldn’t make a birdie – most crucially on 17.  Then, he bogied 18 to finish at 14 under.

Mickelson knew he needed birdie on 16 – a tricky downhill par three with the pin in its Sunday position, a few paces beyond a deep front bunker.  On the card it’s 166 yards, but the players figured the distance at 153 to the pin.  Mickelson chose a nine iron and hit it to six feet.  After an eternity with Bones looking over the slick downhill putt, he made it.  The gallery “roared”.

The seventeenth is a 560 par five uphill into the corporate pavilions.  If his drive on 15 was fabulous, Mickelson’s drive on 17 was Stupendous.  Measured at 325 yards, he was a good 40 yards past Couples who wasn’t making any excuses for his own drive.  The next shot by Couples probably helped Mickelson a lot.  From almost 300 yards out, Couples jacked up his languid tempo more than a little and blasted his fairway metal on to the green.  The gallery responded.  Mickelson, seeing that hitting the green from long distance was possible, plunked his own three wood from 265 on the middle of the green.

Mickelson two putted from sixty feet, sinking a very tricky downhill right to left putt for his birdie.  Two birdies.  Now Phil knew that all he had to do was par the 18th and he would be the Champion.

Easier said than done.  That’s all he had to do two years ago when he bogied the last hole to fall into a tie with Charles Howell and then follow it up by losing the playoff. 

Reversal of Fortune

No one ever said that amateurs and professionals play the same game, but after watching Phil butcher the first fourteen holes on Sunday – miss shot after shot – putt after putt – basically play like one of my buddies – all of my buddies would have folded on the fourteenth green. 

Phil has “been there and done that”.  He knows that miracles happen, sometime you get a little help from your competitors.  In the end, he knows he doesn’t have to make any excuses.  He’s a Major Champion – he’s won the big ones.  So what if he blew a few, only Tiger doesn’t blow a tournament once in a while.

Phil never gave up and closed the deal.  It was quite a show for a guy who struggled for so many holes to pull it out in the end.

The Northern Trust Open is sure to go down in Phil’s own memory book as one of those tournaments that he won, lost, and then won back.  That’s must be very satisfying memory, even for a seasoned professional.

As for me, I came away with a lot of respect for Phil’s ability to accept a lot of disappointment through most of the round – enough to destroy most players – but then hand on for the win.  If he stays away from Las Vegas, I might join the Phil Mickelson fan club.