He Has Them Right Where He Wants Them

Can you hear him? Can you hear history creeping through the mist, stepping through the puddles, emerging from the pines?

Phil Mickelson can.

Sounds like fear.

“Tiger Woods played a very good round today, but he started six back, and he’s still six back,” Mickelson said Saturday afternoon. “For him to win, he’s going to have to shoot an extraordinary round.”

Can you hear him? Can you hear history cursing into the wind, throwing his clubs at his bag, muttering to himself while missing reasonable birdie putts on the last three holes . . . and still shooting a 67?

Stewart Cink can.

Sounds like spikes on a blackboard.

“The thing about Tiger is, he’s just not going to disappear from the leaderboard,” he said. “He’s just not.”

Can you hear him?

If you are alive and paying attention to anything beyond the end of your driveway, how can you not?

Tiger Woods is trailing three golfers today at the start of the final round of the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, but all three are chasing him.

He is six strokes behind, but six steps ahead.

It’s the bottom of the ninth with a six-tournament winning streak on the line, but his swing is strong and his mood impenetrable.

And not a Ken Keltner in sight.

Your leader, Mickelson? Ranked 134th on the tour last year in fourth-round average with a 72.50.

When asked for reasons, he said, “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

Whatever, dude. Shoot that today, and Woods will whup you by four.

Current runner-up Shigeki Maruyama? On Friday the tour irregular said he had no chance at his first Tour win.

On Saturday his interpreter offered this inspired update: “He still thinks no chance.”

And in third place, Davis Love III?

Late Saturday, his nerves were already on a Sunday afternoon drive.

“You know, if [Woods] gets off to a good start, that’s when it can get loud,” he said.

Everybody around here hears the history.

Everybody but the man making it.

Woods set up today’s dramatics with the same calm delight he uses in programming one of his beloved video games.

Then he yawned.

Do you actually expect to win again?

“Umm-hmm,” he said.

No, no, Tiger, we didn’t just ask if you wanted one of our French fries. Can you could extend golf’s best winning streak in more than 50 years?

“I’m going to try,” he said sleepily.

His sort of history is not heard in an interview room anyway. It’s heard on a wind-buffeted tee, on a mushy fairway, down a soft slippery green.

Thousands heard it for 4 1/2 hours here Saturday during another performance of the best revue in sports.

History was heard in the pager that beeped while Woods was in the middle of a four-foot birdie putt on the second hole. Seemed like everyone jumped but Woods, who sank the putt.

It was heard in the whoosh of a two-iron approach on the sixth hole that left his second shot ahead of his two partners’ second shots by 100 yards each. Another birdie.

It was heard in the clunk of two chip shots from the rough that saved par, and another one that gave him his third birdie.

“The most amazing thing for me is that, while everybody talks about his flair, his game really isn’t flashy at all,” said Neal Lancaster, Woods’ other partner with Cink. “He’s just really, really solid.”

History was also heard just before his fifth and final birdie on the par-five 13th.

As Woods walked to his ball after his tee shot, a spectator loudly and seriously asked, “Is he on the green?”

A 535-yard drive? Why not? Listen to history long enough, and anything seems possible.

You could swear you even hear it in the portable toilets.

As soon as Tiger hit his ball Saturday, some of the 3,000-4,000 gallery members noisily trotted down the course, ignoring the fact that his partners were still preparing their shots.

“It was loud, but the only time it got me was when they would all go to the bathroom,” Lancaster said. “I’d be trying to shoot, and I’d hear the banging of all these port-a-potty doors.”

That is where one traditionally finds Woods’ nervous Sunday afternoon competitors. They know it, and Woods knows that they know it.

He was asked, why is he so successful on Sundays?

“I guess that’s why I play,” he answered.

And why they wish he wouldn’t.

Finally, you can hear the history in the voice of Bryon Bell, Woods’ childhood friend from Cypress who is caddying for him here because, well, he always caddies for him here.

Unlike more experienced caddies, and Woods’ regular caddy, Bell does not step off yardage, or help read putts, or really do much but carry his bag and try to keep up.

At times Saturday, it seemed as if Woods was talking more with Cink’s caddy.

“Why should I be nervous out there?” Bell asked. “I really don’t do anything.”

Wood is so good, so confident, he is attacking history with help from nobody, yawning as if it could be done by anybody, smiling as if it will last forever.

Can you hear him?

Can you hear anything but him?

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.