Mickelson Can Sleep Late Today : Golf: There’s no need to get up early to make his tee time at Torrey Pines, where he comes home as defending champion.

Phil Mickelson was 8 or 9 when he played his first round of golf at Torrey Pines. It was not particularly memorable, except perhaps for how it curtailed his sleep.

“I played with my Dad,” he said, “and we had to get here real early to get a starting time. We were here at 5:30 or 6 to get off by 9:30 or so.”

In that sense, things have not changed much at Torrey Pines.

However, things have changed for Mickelson. He has a 10:37 starting time this morning, when he tees off as the defending champion of the Buick Invitational. At 23, he is already a four-time winner on the PGA Tour.

Mickelson is unbeaten as a professional in his home county. He won this tournament last February, then started this year with a playoff victory over Fred Couples in the Mercedes Championship at La Costa.

Mickelson is paired with Payne Stewart, the only 1993 top-10 player in the field, so they probably will be followed by a Sunday-type gallery for the first two rounds. They play the North Course today and the South Course Friday, after which the field will be trimmed to the top 70 and ties for the final two rounds on the South Course.

Mickelson smiled. “It’s nice to be staying in the house I grew up in,” he said, “and playing in front of people I know and played golf with.”

The pairing--Mickelson and Stewart--is a repeat of the one for the first two rounds last year, when Mickelson won and Stewart finished third. They also played together that Sunday.

“What I remember about those first two rounds,” Mickelson said, “was that Payne shot two great rounds--six under (par)--in the worst weather you could imagine.”

In cold, windy conditions, Mickelson opened with a 75, the highest first-round score for the winner of a 1993 tour event. He shot 69s in the second and third rounds and closed with a 65, his lowest score ever at Torrey Pines.

The weather was almost perfect for Wednesday’s pro-am this year. If it sticks around for the weekend, it will take a score considerably lower than the 10-under-par total Mickelson had last year.

“But the person who wins won’t have spent much time in the rough,” Stewart warned. “There’s major league rough out there, U.S. Open-type rough.”