LEMONT, Ill. -- There was no long night. No unending stream of consciousness about what could have been. No breaking down the game plan, the hole or those where-did-they-come-from shots. No second-guessing. No tears. No fetal position. No time. The minute Phil Mickelson walked into the rental house that Sunday night, he was surrounded by the kids. All three of them jumping on him. They wanted to know if he won that tournament -- that U.S. Open thing. He said no, he finished second. Well, they chorused, second is so great daddy! And, oh, could we have pizza tonight? If Phil Mickelson had wanted those few moments to put the 72nd hole at Winged Foot behind him, he didn’t get it. Not in that house. Not on the plane ride home or the coming days when a Disneyland extravaganza -- 30 people, including the entire Mickelson clan, caddie Jim Mackay, his wife and son Oliver -- was the talk of the house. And after that? He simply told his wife Amy he was flying to Liverpool to work on his game plan for the British Open. “I’m very impressed, proud of him,’’ she said. “I know I’m his wife and I can gush about this because we’re supposed to, but instead of curling up in a ball, he said I’m going to go over and get ready. There are two more this year. And I have to say, it blew me away. “He said, ‘What do you think about that?’ I said it’s fabulous. Go for it.’’ And he did. He called his regrets to teacher Rick Smith on a made-for-tv event. He called short-game guru Dave Pelz and told him to pack for the U.K. It was time to work on the next game plan. Sound like anyone else we know? Now, fresh from two weeks away from the game that tormented him at the worst possible moment and the critics that will question several of his decisions on that could-have-been-the-third-leg-of-a-Mickelslam, he’s here at Cog Hill, smiling wide and playing his way back into our focus and taking dead aim at the Open Championship at Hoylake. Very Tiger-like, if we might say so.
Yet as he talked away Tuesday afternoon, we couldn’t help but think back to that double bogey that bounced off a tent, off a tree and shot out of a fried egg lie on the 72nd hole. He smiled and we saw him cradling his head in both hands as he squatted on Winged Foot’s 18th green. He said it was over and we saw look of total shock on his face as he faced reporters that night. “Well, I'm not ever going to forget it, that's obvious,’’ he said. “But what I'm not going to do is let it affect negatively my performance in upcoming majors. I've got two more this year. I'm playing too well, and I've got a system of preparation that has been helping me play some of my best golf, and right now I'm excited about the chances at Hoylake. ‘’ It's hard to imagine putting a moment like that behind you and moving on. The People';s Choice had this one and gave it away. We couldn't stop thinking about it, so how can he? “There’s a lot of that none of us can understand and I don’t pretend to feel what he must be feeling at that very moment,’’ Amy said. “...He deserves to be upset. He deserves to be down. But he’s always had an amazing amount of perspective. When we were in college, he had this great big picture of life...’’ And now, he’s living it. “When I was seven, I don’t know what I wanted to be,’’ Amy said. “Probably a rock star...and here he is, living his dream.’’ Number one on the money list, number two in the world. Three majors. Two of them back-to-back. A chance at history that was derailed on the last hole. And now, two more to focus on. And don’t forget the rest of his career -- and that big picture. “It's something that I'll look back on and always remember and wish that I had done differently,’’ he said. But he didn’t. And so now, the man who once chaired the hasn’t-yet-won-a-major club joins the next club. The one filled with some of the best of their eras, player like Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Arnold Palmer and even Tiger who all have grim reminders of what could have been at majors they flat lost. Mickelson couldn’t help but remember his first Masters when he played a practice round with Palmer, who got to the 18th tee and remembered the 1961 Masters. He lost that one with a -- you guessed it -- double at 18. “We're walking off the 18th tee and he goes, ‘Right there, that's where it happened, right there,’ “ Mickelson said. “What happened, Mr. Palmer? What happened?" He said, "George Lowe came over and called me over and shook my hand and congratulated me. And I'll be darned if I didn't block a 7-iron in the bunker and blade it across and make double and lost. “Here it was 30 years, 40 years later 30 years later; it happened in '61, we played in '91, so 30 years later, he still remembered it and it still fired him up. “I'm not going to forget it, but I'm not going to let it affect my performance negatively. I think there's some positives that can come out of it.’’ Things like a game plan in the works for the British, where he’s considering using a hybrid club. Things like Tuesday morning’s practice round at Medinah, where he’ll defend his PGA Championship in August. “Pelz and I have been mapping out our game plan over there,’’ he said. “We've got the shots we want to hit. We're working on them this week. I've got Rick here this week helping me to get those shots tight, and I'll be heading over right after this tournament to get ready for the British.’’ A half dozen times he went back to the same mantra. He isn’t going to let one bad hole to affect the way he performs at Hoylake and Medinah. And, oh, the Cialis Western Open, too. Like Tiger and Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen, so many tournaments now are means to the major ends. Phil hasn’t played here since 2003, but this year, it was right. He could play here, practice at Medinah. And the fact that the city is filled with fireworks and Fourth of July celebrations for two days -- yesterday and today -- is great for the kids. And that this 103rd edition of the tournament will be the last official Western Open (it will alternate cities beginning in 2007 as the BMW Championship)? “Since that's the case, I'm glad it has the feel that it has this week,’’ he said. “It's going to go out in the right way with so many of the top guys here wanting to play and compete in this championship, and I'm glad that it's going out the same way it came in, with one of the best fields in golf.” And with Mickelson looking at what’s straight ahead, not looking back at what could have been. |
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