He’s a Crowd-Pleaser On and Off the Course

INDIO, Calif. -- The No. 2 golfer in the world is Hertz to these fans.

It is more than an hour since Phil Mickelson finished the 18th hole of the made-for-TV-and-real-estate-buyers event called the Skins Game. He has spent the weekend here at the Landmark Golf Club, playing in a foursome with Tiger Woods, Fred Couples and Mark O’Meara, and for his roughly four hours of work over two days and 18 holes, he has added $300,000 to the more than $22 million he had already won in his career.

So, there are a couple of ways to look at this:

* He doesn’t need to spend another 45 minutes gradually making his way along a line of fans who want him to sign anything and everything they thrust his way.

* He thinks he does. He actually wants to. And he wants to make it clear that the $200,000 birdie he made on the last hole Sunday made no difference.

“Whether I win or lose doesn’t affect the way I treat people,” he says, almost with defiance to anybody who would think otherwise.

So he signs and chats. The people stand behind a rope and wait patiently, knowing that he will get to them. They have caps and hats and golf towels and programs. One man has a framed picture of Mickelson to be signed and, while that is happening, assures Mickelson that 2003 will be his year to win a major. Mickelson smiles, just as he had earlier when a police officer approached him for an autograph and urged him to make 2003 the year he wins his first Grand Slam tournament title “because I’ve got a $50 bet on it

At 32, the best golfer not to have won a major is deflecting the ever-present mention of that as he works his way down the ropes, 35 minutes into this golf line-dance, smiling and wishing every couple of people a happy holiday.

“We have a great advantage over football, basketball, baseball and hockey,” Mickelson says. “We don’t have the stadium effect. We don’t put on helmets and we aren’t separated by walls and fences. The people walk with us, and talk to us. That is a great strength of our tour.”

He will play in Tiger Woods’ Target World Challenge, yet another event in the golf world’s November-December silly season of non-real events for very real money, Thursday through Sunday at Sherwood Country Club. Woods, the No. 1 player, attracts a field of 16 players for the event that benefits his foundation, and the 16 compete for a purse of $3.8 million.

Mickelson, normally absent during this time of year because he uses the post-tour months “to refresh myself, to work on the things that I need for the next year and to set my schedule,” is direct about why he is in the swing of things right now.

“I won’t be around much in March,” he says. “Our third baby is due then.”

He will be at home, in Rancho Santa Fe, and when the baby, this time a boy after two girls, gets to be 8 weeks old, he will be there for more than just moral support.

“I take over, at 8 weeks, when they are old enough and strong enough to pay attention,” he says. “I go in when they cry at night, and I sit and talk to them. Maybe every 15 minutes.”

And pretty soon, they sleep through the night.

To the cynic, this all sounds like so much pablum. But to the people standing in line as Mickelson signs, it is as real as they are certain he is. They know he is a multimillionaire, but everything they hear and see tells them he is also a regular guy.

He likes to put a wager down now and then, and what’s wrong with that? One of the pools he is in includes his mother-in-law, who has been redoing her house with some of their joint winnings.

His mother is a 60-year-old jock who plays competitive basketball. Mickelson says he is proud of what good shape she is in and how she has nearly beaten asthma this way.

He once broke his leg skiing. He likes to ski and he likes to win and he was racing. Other pro golfers wondered about the advisability of taking that kind of risk. Mickelson pointed out that he had won the race.

He once skipped a shot across a lake and across the green to the edge of the rough because it was the only shot he had, and he doesn’t lay up or pitch out sideways. When asked, he likes to talk about that. He took a bogey on the hole, but he still likes to talk about the shot.

In the ’97 Ryder Cup at Sotogrande, Spain, he needed to hit a shot 248 yards to a pin placement that had water on the right and the pin only a couple of yards in from the water’s ledge. He hit a two-iron to within six feet, and says, “That was a wow.”

In the ongoing Masters matter of Hootie Johnson-versus-Martha Burk, he is slightly below the radar that tracks Woods at every turn on this issue, but says it is something that should not be aired in public and that he and a number of other players are working behind the scenes with the PGA to get this settled. He smiles and says, “And I will play in the Masters next year.”

Those who stand in line as they wait for him to sign like what they see. He is the main pursuer of the main man, and as popular as Woods is, Mickelson is a huge favorite too.

He not only knows that, he keeps working at it.

“We have been talking about making the pro-am experience a lot better for the people who play in them,” he says. “Most of the time, they get done and it has been a long day, probably too long. They are happy, but tired. We need to make that shorter and better and so good that they walk away saying, ‘This was one of the better experiences of my life.’ ”

And he keeps on signing.