Good grief, we came for the Masters and a buddy movie has broken out.
It’s Tiger and Phil’s Excellent Adventure. Or is it Phil and Tiger Go to Amen Corner?
We’ll decide the order of names the same way they decided the honors when they teed off on their practice round Tuesday morning.
“Four, Three, One, Zero.” That was Mickelson counting out on the day’s first tee, indicating the order of departure for the foursome.
“(Woods) has four jackets. I have three jackets. Fred (Couples), one. Then Thomas (Pieters). It's a respect thing,” Mickelson said later with a smile. That’s jackets, of course, as in number of Masters green jackets won.
Tiger and Phil it is.
And the second banana seems quite OK with that.
“I've had a respect and appreciation for (Woods) for what he's done for the game, and I've benefited more than anybody else,” Mickelson said.
“I'm very appreciative of what he's done for me, my family, the game of golf.”
Strange days indeed at Augusta National.
After having maintained a personal DMZ between themselves for the better part of 20 years, now they’re hooking up for a Masters practice round? And teaming up, no less, throwing a barrage of eagles and birdies at the poor firm of Couples and Pieters? “I thought we did a good job partnering up,” Mickelson said. It’s all just a little disorienting.
Waves of disbelief rolled over the practice range. “I walked past Tiger on the range and I said, ‘I never thought I would see the day, Tiger and Phil playing a practice round at Augusta,’” Rory McIlroy reported.
And it certainly shook things up on the spectator side of the ropes, patrons rushing to the back nine to view this golfing summit, this continued thawing of relations between elder statesmen, this great Masters rapprochement. We’re talking practice. But it set this place on its ear.
When the shots and giggles end Thursday and the Masters gets real, there will be time enough to get edgy again. And when it does, the dominant theme at least on Day One will be as it was in the old days, before the young turks took over.
“I think it’s kind of gone back to Tiger and Phil,” the 24-year-old champion Jordan Spieth said.
And as that time arrives, the second banana has a big role to play in the conduct of this Masters. It’s not all Woods all the time.
At 47, and eight years removed from the last of his three Masters titles, Mickelson is five years Woods’ senior. He also is lot more recently acquainted with victory, having broken the longest drought of his career – dating back to the 2013 British Open – a month ago in Mexico.
Mickelson is always inspired by the sight of azaleas and magnolia, but doubly so when arriving at the Masters with the scent of victory still in his nose.
“I think it was important for me to get that first win,” he said. “I had talked about it, as we head into the Masters, to get that first win out of the way since it had been a while since I had won and to relive the feeling and the pressure of coming down the stretch and be able to not have to deal with that for the first time here at Augusta.
“Winning was a big thing for me, especially heading into this week.”
At 47, all Mickelson is trying to accomplish this week is to become the oldest-ever Masters champion. Try not to lose touch with that with all the other story lines swirling about like pine pollen here. "I think it has been kind of understated," Spieth said. "When Jack (Nicklaus) won the Masters at 46, that was absurd."
Mickelson thinks far too much about the healthy state of his game and himself to compare his quest to Nicklaus’ back in 1986. Given the chance to frame a potential Masters win this year as improbable and historic, like Nicklaus’, Mickleson flatly refused.
“Because,” he said, “the longevity of careers are different. This is another effect that Tiger had on the game of golf as far as being aware of fitness. And more specifically golf fitness now. It has allowed me to elongate my career because of that.”
When Mickelson looks at the strokes gained putting on Tour and sees himself second, that gives him particular comfort in advance of putting these rolling surfaces.
“Week-in and week‑out I've been putting great, with an occasional off week. Whereas before I would putt average week‑in and week‑out with an occasional great week,” he said.
And another thing: “I knew that once I achieved that level (on the greens) and I finally did break through and win, I'm going to peel off quite a few more. So, I've just had the first one. And it's time to start peeling off a few more.”
Woods acknowledged that there is at least one more guy on the property with a great incentive to win. “(Mickelson) is feisty. He's determined. He always wants to win. It has served him well. He believes in himself an awful lot. And you see the chances he's taken over the years, the reason why he does that is because he knows he can do it and he has that belief,” Woods said.
So, prepare yourself for a few more Mickelson great escapes, all part of the Vegas-style show he regularly stages on a golf course.
And Mickelson the Magnificent also dabbles, it seems, in a little fortune telling: “I think there are a lot of players, a lot of the top-quality players, young and old, who are playing some of their best golf. And I think that's going to lead to one of the most exciting Masters in years.”
A memorable week looms for the elder legitimate Masters contender. It already has begun so promisingly. He’s made a new buddy.
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