No Major Changes for Mickelson

On the outside, it seems as if it would be easy to be Phil Mickelson. Win 20 tournaments, great off the tee, terrific touch around the greens, soft hands, big-time putter. And no major titles. Of course, that’s old news about Mickelson and he could change it all with a good week at the Masters.

It’s not too late for Mickelson to alter his reputation as a risk-taker who is so aggressive on the course that it eventually costs him. He hurt himself last year at the Masters when he didn’t back off a little on the back nine and even acknowledged afterward he probably should have.

But Mickelson doesn’t seem to be changing at all. On the last day at Bay Hill, he tried to reach the green with a near-impossible shot from underneath some trees but knocked it into the water. It wasn’t aggressive play but poor putting that cost him at the Players Championship, where he five-putted a hole in the third round, and at the BellSouth, where he drove a hole during the third round and wound up four-putting.

Whatever you choose to call it, Mickelson doesn’t care. In fact, after getting criticized for his Bay Hill gambit, he decided the best way to answer questions about his approach is not to answer at all.

“I don’t have anything more to add to it,” he said.

Mickelson sounds a little testy these days because he thinks he has been treated unjustly by reporters for a while now. That would be since the PGA Championship, when he said he wasn’t thinking about winning only one major, but several.

So it was no surprise what he said when someone asked him if any part of his game was in disarray and how he would handle it at Augusta National.

Said Mickelson: “I guess I would just say no to your first part. So that negates the second part.”

So there.

Maybe Mickelson is just getting his game face on for another run at a green jacket. Maybe he doesn’t like reporters anymore. Maybe none of this matters anyway.

It’s interesting to note that Jack Nicklaus called Mickelson “a good player.” Is that it? Just a good player?

“You become a great player when you win a major,” Nicklaus said.

Monty Update

News item: Colin Montgomerie takes four swings on the practice tee and then stops after tweaking his back.

Reaction: This is not good preparation.

Shark Says

Greg Norman says he doesn’t think Mickelson needs to change anything about the way he plays golf and reporters are making too big a deal out of the issue.

“I hope he never changes,” Norman said. “I think that’s just being under the microscope. People like to see that. They make a point of making it a point. Phil Mickelson’s nature is [his] nature. You can’t change that.

“I probably would have won more majors if I wasn’t that way, but I would not be the same guy as I am right now. And Phil is the same way. The risk-reward is there, and when it happens he’s great, and when it doesn’t, he looks terrible.

“Arnold [Palmer] could have won 20 [majors] if he wasn’t so aggressive, but Arnold was Arnold. So I hope Phil doesn’t change. He’s going to win his share of tournaments and he’s going to lose his share of tournaments, and that’s it.”

No Filibusters

News item: Retired U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, a long-time member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has a new job at the Masters as a media official.

Reaction: That’s good training.

She’s No. 4

In its most recent listing of the 10 most-hit searches on Google (from March 25), Tiger Woods’ girlfriend, Swedish model Elin Nordegren, was No. 4, behind the Oscars, Halle Berry and Easter, but ahead of Passover and best supporting actress winner Jennifer Connelly.

The Singer

John Daly is what, a guitar-picking, long-ball-hitting golfer Bubba? Hey, get down with it. Daly sings and plays guitar on a CD that features tunes with such titles as “Where I Am Now,” “I’m Drunk, Damn, and I Don’t Have a Penny to My Name,” “My Life,” “Got to Find It” and “All My Ex’s Wear Rolexes.”

Now you know. Consider yourself warned.

More Changes?

Masters Chairman Hootie Johnson says discussions are underway about lengthening the 435-yard par-four fifth hole, perhaps as early as next year.

“Too easy,” Johnson said.

You Know Jack

Here is the question and answer of the week, courtesy of Nicklaus.

Question: In your day you were the Tiger Woods of the time ...

Nicklaus: “That’s what they called me in those days, yeah, the Tiger Woods of my time.”

He Said It

The quote of the week is also from Nicklaus, when asked if the longer, tougher course will discourage some of the former Masters champions from competing in the future.

Said Nicklaus: “If they have got any sense.”

History Lesson

For what it’s worth, the last player to win the tournament the week before the Masters and then win the Masters was Sandy Lyle in 1988.

Lyle won Greensboro first.

Bogey Man

Davis Love III has a history of playing well in the Masters (two seconds and two sevenths in a six-year span), but he isn’t exactly coming in flushed with success. He has missed five cuts in eight full-field events.

At the BellSouth, he had 11 birdies and still missed the cut by three shots. Love also had a quadruple bogey, a triple bogey, two double bogeys and three bogeys.

Tiger Update

In 26 rounds at the Masters, Woods has played the par-three holes in 10 over par, but he has played the par-five holes in a collective 56 under.

Good Guy Award

Nick Price won the inaugural ASAP Sports/Jim Murray Award for his “cooperation, quotability and accommodation to the media.”

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Masters Facts

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