Phil Mickelson US Open Golf Tournament
Posted in Golf, Golf News on June 19th, 2006Phil Mickelson had golf history in his grasp and smacked it into a tree at the US Open.
With the chance to join Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan as the only players to win three consecutive major professional golf tournaments, Mickelson instead ranks with Jean Van de Velde, who threw away a three-shot lead on the final hole of the 1999 British Open and lost in a playoff.
Mickelson ended with a double bogey and his fourth runner-up finish at the U.S. Open. Australia’s Geoff Ogilvy won the title at 5-over par yesterday at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, New York.
“It’s worse” than the loss by Van de Velde, said Dottie Pepper, a former LPGA Tour player, who now works as an analyst for NBC Sports. “Mickelson is a way better player than Van de Velde was at the time.”
Needing to make a par to win his first U.S. Open, Mickelson, the world’s second-ranked golfer, missed the fairway to the left by about 50 yards on the 18th hole.
When Mickelson, a 36-year-old left-hander from California, then tried to hit a right-to-left 3-iron shot around a large tree from about 200 yards, it smacked into bark. After hitting his third shot into a bunker, Mickelson needed three more shots to end his misery.
“I just can’t believe I did that, I’m such an idiot,” Mickelson told reporters at Winged Foot shortly after his loss.
Not even Rick Smith, his swing coach, could disagree.
“I’m in total shock,” Smith told reporters. “All he had to do was hit it in the fairway a couple times coming in. Par wins.”
Charted Course
Smith, along with Mickelson’s caddie and Dave Pelz, his short-game coach, spent several months alongside the golfer charting every fairway, sand trap and green of the 83-year-old course. Nobody could prepare for what happened on the 18th hole.
“It was a comedy of errors,” Kenneth Ferrie, Mickelson’s final-round playing partner, told reporters.
Woods, who missed the weekend cut at Winged Foot, won the 2000 U.S. and British Opens, the 2000 PGA Championship and the 2001 Masters. Hogan won the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open in 1953. Bobby Jones captured the U.S. and British Opens and U.S. and British Amateur titles in 1930.
In contrast to Mickelson’s adventure, which included hitting his tee shot into a garbage can on the 17th hole and off a hospitality tent on the 18th, Ogilvy finished with four straight pars, including a chip-in from the fringe at the 17th hole. He became the first Australian to win the U.S. Open since David Graham in 1981.
Strategy
Mickelson’s strategy of hitting a conservative, right-to- left fading shot off the tee was good enough to put him in a tie for the lead with Ferrie, a 27-year-old Englishman, coming into the final round. In yesterday’s final round, Mickelson hit the fairway twice in 14 attempts.
His driving accuracy tied him with J.B. Holmes for the worst of the day. Still, Mickelson never altered his approach.
Asked if his pupil should have used an iron or fairway wood over the final holes to possibly improve his chances of hitting the fairway, Smith defended Mickelson’s decision.
“He’s been confident to hit driver all year,” Smith said. “You stick with what works. But man, that wasn’t even close.”
Mickelson said the U.S. Open is the tournament he dreamed the most about winning as a child. In the end, it turned into a nightmare.
“It was like a giant culmination of a frustrating day,” Smith said. “You’d think that somehow that ball could get in the fairway on 18, and it just didn’t.”
`Superman’
While Ferrie wore a belt buckle with a “Superman” logo on it, it was Mickelson who was trying to be super-human on the course, Pepper said.
“His creativity and the flare for making the hard shot look easy, sometimes handcuffs him because he thinks he can get out of every situation,” Pepper said in an interview. “He’s got the arsenal that I think he sometimes thinks he’s bulletproof. In fact, nobody is.”
Earlier in the round, Mickelson, who has long been known for attempting risky shots that cost him the chance to win tournaments, attempted to hit a 4-wood out of 6-inch rough. He advanced it about two yards before hitting an iron on his next attempt. The decision led to his second of five bogeys on the day.
After Van de Velde’s collapse, in which he hit a 2-iron from heavy rough into the grandstand, he asked for forgiveness.
“Maybe I should have laid up,” he said at the time in Carnoustie, Scotland. “Next time, I hit a wedge, and you all forgive me?”
Mickelson, who has been a fan favorite in the New York area since losing to Woods at the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage on Long Island, was left to apologize.
“To those who supported me all week,” he told the crowd around the 18th green. “I’m sorry.”