AUGUSTA -- Ownership of the Masters is more than a product of numbers on a scorecard.
Phil Mickelson tees off Thursday precisely at 1:48 p.m. as defending champion, grand marshal, poet laureate and official plush toy of the 2011 Masters.
Certainly his exulted status can be justified numerically: Three green jackets in the past seven years; 13 top 10 finishes in 18 lifetime appearances; a career Masters scoring average of 70.99 for 70 rounds, a composite 71 under par over that span.
But drill deeper and find the visceral explanation for Mickelson’s cozy relationship with this layout, this tournament, this group of worshipful fans.
Something as basic as two answers to the same simple question -- What’s your reaction when pulling into Augusta National’s Magnolia Lane for the first time every year? -- can be most revealing.
Put to Mickelson, the question elicited a response dripping sap. You could almost hear the soft piano music playing in the background as he spoke: “When I drive down Magnolia Lane, I get reenergized with the game of golf. You know, I’ve played since I was a year and a half old [he’s 40 now]. I love it and have such a passion for this game. But when I come here it reminds me of that. I could easily forget week-in and week-out playing the PGA Tour how lucky I am to play this game.”
The question struck Tiger Woods, a rival for the hearts and minds of the Masters gallery, somewhat differently: “Driving down Magnolia Lane is just looking at some trees, really.”
Mickelson gets this place on a level that others can’t quite reach. And as he embraces it, it squeezes back with equal ardor.
Woods has won one more Masters than Mickelson, and his scoring average is slightly better (70.81). But after his breakthrough victory in 1997, when some said he would change the very culture of golf, Woods’ position of laird of the Masters has been sternly challenged. All the more so after the scandal of a year ago.
These onlookers here loved Mickelson when he let himself go; they loved him when he got his figure back.
They shared with him the inevitable trials of life. And those have piled up at his door -- both his wife and mother battling breast cancer, a son just finished beating a serious kidney ailment, his own introduction to a form of arthritis that can leave his wrists and ankles stiff and quite unsuited for golf.
Maybe they even teared up a little last year when, at the conclusion of Mickelson’s three-stroke victory, his long hug with wife Amy at the back of No. 18 delivered the unspoken message that everything was going to be alright.
And certainly they have fallen for his daring style on the course, an impression forever cast in stone with last year’s 6-iron out of the pine straw, through a narrow gap in the pines to fashion a birdie on No. 13.
In case anyone still doubted the Mickelson Masters attack mode, he told Tuesday’s press gathering, “This is the one week where I swing the absolute hardest.”
What’s there not to like? Lee Westwood, who was paired with Mickelson during last year’s fourth round, said of the Masters and the way it loves certain players, “It’s coming home for some people, I guess, each year.” There it is: The Masters -- Phil Mickelson’s homecoming game.
An update before the first earnest shot is struck: The women in Mickelson’s life are doing fine. “We are in such a better place now,” he said.
And he says he is feeling fit as can be for a man entering his 40s, and is keeping the arthritis at bay.
He also is coming into this tournament on a high note -- winning in a breeze last week at Houston, playing the par-5s in 14-under (a most useful trait at Augusta, by the way). Having scuffed it around last year at this time, Mickelson may not need to rely so much upon the rejuvenating properties of this property.
“It reminds me a lot of 2006 when I was able to put it together the week before and carry the momentum through,” he said, referring to the year he won at the late, lamented BellSouth Classic at Sugarloaf the week before taking the Masters.
Just this week, Mickelson also, finally, leaped Woods in the world rankings, the first time since 1997 he has been in the superior position. “It would really mean a lot if he was No. 1 at the time when I passed him, yeah that would be really cool,” Mickelson joked. Instead, Mickelson went to No. 3, while Woods fell to No. 7, two golfers passing in the night.
Such is the Mickelson advantage at the Masters that players are even weighing in now on his lefthandedness being a particular blessing. So many holes favor the right-to-left southpaw fade, they say.
“I wish I could play the other way around,” right-handed Martin Kaymer, the world’s current No. 1-ranked player, said.
“I would love Martin to play this tournament left-handed,” Mickelson responded.
Everyone should have a place to come where the jokes roll so easily, where the audience is always so receptive, where the memories are like an elixir and each visit brings out only the finest qualities.
For Mickelson, that place happens to be a golf course in Augusta, open to a select few for tournament play each April.
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