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Masters win wipes away pained refrain

Johnette Howard

June 16, 2004

For two months, Phil Mickelson has been basking in the validation his Masters victory gave him. He has lapped up the affectionate applause from fans. He admitted on national television that he went to sleep that giddy night still wearing the green jacket he'd just won. He's no longer the best player never to win a major. He turns 34 today but suddenly he's seen as someone bursting with untold possibilities, a golfer whose ceiling has turned limitless, a remarkable athlete who finally understood the swashbuckling shot isn't necessarily the smartest one.

But starting with tomorrow's first round of the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, Mickelson's victory lap is over. Now he's manacled to a new question: Can he pull off a major victory again? Or will he revert to his old self-sabotaging form?

They're both fair questions, not one of those cynical, joy-curdling, "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?" millstones that successful athletes get lashed to all the time. As exquisitely precise as Mickelson played at Augusta and as impressively controlled as he was -- something new for him -- Mickelson is too wonderfully talented to have his major title career total stop now at just one.

The good thing is, Mickelson made that point first yesterday. The admission wasn't flogged out of him at a news conference. He knows breaking his 0-for-46 drought at the majors has worked an alchemy on his career. But he also said he's not satisfied to stop there. Not even close.

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"I want to try to build on the Masters victory," Mickelson volunteered. "It was a wonderful, exciting moment for me and I don't want it to be the pinnacle, per se. I want it to be kind of a steppingstone to playing at that level more often in majors and having more chances. Because I enjoyed it so much."

That Mickelson won the Masters was a nice story. But how he won it - that was revelatory. He'd been known to blink first or self-destruct down the stretch of tournaments before. But now he'll always have Augusta.

One of the refrains at the great old course is how the Masters tournament doesn't really start till Sunday, on the back nine.

That's when and where the roars seem to roll down the old hollows the loudest, and the pressure, the sheer yearning to win, makes even the toughest tournament players squirm in their spikes.

Mickelson, in victory, made himself part of that lore. He held off hard-charging Ernie Els with a torrid streak of five birdies in his last seven holes. Believe it or not, Mickelson looked almost peaceful doing it. After years of refusing to rein in his game despite a gaggle of overaggressive mistakes, Mickelson suddenly hewed to a new mantra: He told himself to try to save just a half shot to one shot over each of his four white-knuckle rounds. And lo and behold, what do you know, the Best Player Never to Win a Major finally won.

"The game is easier to play from the fairway. How come no one ever told me that?" Mickelson cracked that day.

He'd been told, all right. He just never listened. Now, whether Mickelson has really taken his new approach to heart is one of the little niggling questions that remain. If a heartbreak-littered, 0-for-46 career drought at the majors didn't convince Mickelson that course management deserves more truck than he was previously giving it, will his one win at the Masters - however glorious and breakthrough it was - really do the trick? Or will Mickelson get out on this treacherous Shinnecock Hills course and go for the bold gesture, the daring but potentially round-destroying shot in this U.S. Open, same as he did here in 1995?

One after another yesterday, peers such as Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and Els talked about how patience will be as paramount in this tournament as a good short game or the ability to discern which way the wind is blowing. Woods emphasized how the greens are "repelling" the ball, not providing a soft landing spot. Garcia said the players will have to concede that a bogey is a fine score on some holes.

But Mickelson insists he knows all that, too, and he still likes his chances. Even Mickelson had to laugh, however, when asked yesterday if he was thinking about sweeping all four majors this year.

"To me, it's just amazing what's changed in the last two months," Mickelson laughed. "We go from 'Will he ever win a major?' to 'Is he going to win a Grand Slam?' I haven't really thought about it ... I was at a Rolex dinner last night where we replayed [the Masters finish] and I still got chills looking at the final putt go in."

Mickelson always knew he had the talent to win. Now he also knows how to harness it.

"If I can just save a half a shot to a shot per round again," Mickelson repeated.

No way he forgets that. Not a chance.