Without Woods, only Riviera stands in his way

As far as Mickelson moments go, this one wasn’t bad, an 18-foot birdie putt on the sly and treacherous 18th hole at Riviera Country Club, just before sundown.

Roll the credits, hit the lights, please drive home safely.

Is this show already over? Or maybe they’re still roughing out the last couple of scenes.

You never really know until the end with Phil Mickelson, but once that ball jumped into the last hole Friday and disappeared as if it were allergic to daylight, it surely seemed to be trending in that direction.

This was the way Mickelson introduced himself to the Northern Trust Open, nailing the tournament in a hammerlock with a seven-under-par 64 and moving to the head of a very talented class.

Most of the time, there’s very little subtlety in Mickelson’s methodology. If a simple nudge would do, Phil gives you a forearm shiver. If a few words are called for, Phil delivers a filibuster.

So he goes out to play the second round and shoots the low score of the tournament.

Isn’t that what the greatest golfer in the world not named Tiger Woods is supposed to do anyway?

Mickelson consistently points out that he has never won here, an omission in his power to correct, if he plays the way he feels he can.

Last year, he came close, sharing the 54-hole lead with Padraig Harrington, leading Charles Howell III by one shot with a hole to play, then missing the fairway at the last and plummeting into a playoff. He lost it.

This is another chance. Wearing a bright yellow shirt and jet black cap, Mickelson looked fashionably accessorized and comfortably calm on the lush green fairways at Riviera. He wound up squeezing the kikuyu out of the place.

Even last week at Pebble Beach, where he missed the cut after making an 11 on the par-five 14th hole Saturday, Mickelson said he didn’t feel as if he was really that far off from playing well.

He said the same thing when he finished his first round of 68 at Riviera.

His explanation for what went right Friday was simple, but efficient: “A lot of putts went in.”

Actually, there was a convoy of them, one after another, many covering large areas of real estate. The long ones began adding up and sending Mickelson’s score lower, and those started when he rolled in a 10-footer to birdie the fourth.

His longest birdie putt was the 60-footer that he made at the fifth, and Mickelson knew what to call that.

“Lucky.”

But he also had a 12-footer at the ninth, where he made bogey Thursday, and an eight-foot birdie at the 11th and a 12-footer for birdie at the 17th.

Judging the speed and reading the lines of his putts is something that has eluded Mickelson, until his breakout session Friday.

Exactly how that translates into hanging on to a four-shot lead with 36 holes left to play isn’t yet known.

But here are two factors to consider: Mickelson didn’t win here last year when he thought he should have, and Woods has never won this tournament.

There are 32 PGA Tour victories to Mickelson’s credit, more than any other active player besides Woods.

If you listen to some of the other pros, Mickelson doesn’t get enough respect because he lives in Woods’ era and also in his shadow. Woods, after all, has 62 victories. But it’s a shared belief that if Woods weren’t around, there would be bridges named for Mickelson and statues erected in his honor.

That’s an exaggeration, of course, but it’s not easy standing out in a Woods-dominated era and Mickelson has managed to do it. Besides, Tiger isn’t here this week at Riviera, and Phil is. That means only one of them has a chance to win, and it isn’t Tiger.

When he finished his round Friday, Mickelson played it again in his head. What he came up with is that he can still hit it better, putt just as well, and maybe keep this thing rolling.

It won’t be easy, and no one is going to move out of his way simply because he’s Phil, but after the statement he made with his second round, Mickelson is in better shape than anyone else heading into the weekend.

It’s in his power to make some beautiful music at Riviera, but since it’s Mickelson, it wouldn’t be limited to a soft hum or a low whistle. That’s not his style. It would be the Mickelson Phil-Harmonic. And he’d like to hear it on Sunday.

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thomas.bonk@latimes.com