Mickelson Gets Jumpy but No One Blames Him

The photo of an airborne Phil Mickelson after his winning putt at the Masters was plastered across the front pages of many newspapers Monday.

Mickelson said he looked like an idiot. Hardly. The raw emotion was great, even if Mickelson is not an accomplished jumper. And consider this: If Ernie Els had ended up winning, he certainly wouldn’t have shown as much exuberance.

Asked about players being encouraged to show more personality on the golf course, Els recently told GolfWorld, “It’s hard for me to go out there and act like Lee Trevino.”

Trivia time: What was the original name of the Masters?

Headlines: The New York Post summed up Mickelson’s performance at the Masters with this: “MASTER-PHIL”

Another good headline, summing up the final-round drama, was pga.com’s “Masterspiece Theater.”

Crossing over: Mickelson did his magic Sunday on CBS, but tonight he’ll be making his first late-night television appearance with NBC’s Jay Leno.

Longer streaks: Much has been made of Mickelson, at 33, finally winning a major after going 0 for 47. But Tom Kite, at 42, was 0 for 67 when he won the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, and Mark O’Meara, at 41, was 0 for 56 when he broke through with a victory at the Masters in 1998.

The Hope connection: Mickelson and Mike Weir, both left-handed golfers, won the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and the Masters the last two years.

Tough road ahead: Tiger Woods, who said he’d eaten something for lunch that didn’t agree with him, vomited after bogeying the first hole of the Masters on Sunday.

Wonder how he’ll stomach his weeklong Green Beret training, which began Monday at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina.

Maybe it won’t be too bad.

“He’s not going to have a drill sergeant barking up and down at him and yelling at him to get in line,” a Ft. Bragg spokesman said.

Clueless: Remember when heavyweight boxer Riddick Bowe decided in 1997 to join the Marines? He spent three days of intensive training at Parris Island, S.C., then packed up and went home.

He discovered boot camp was a lot tougher than a boxing training camp.

Looking back: On this date in 1986, there was drama at the Masters that matched Sunday’s. Jack Nicklaus, at 46, won his sixth Masters.

Trivia answer: The Augusta National Invitation tournament. Clifford Roberts had suggested Masters, but co-founder Bobby Jones believed it was too presumptuous. Jones relented in 1939, to the relief of headline writers.

And finally: Rocker Jon Bon Jovi, co-owner of the Philadelphia Soul of the Arena Football League, was a guest on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” when he was asked what the AFL had to do to market itself.

“Get ESPN to cover it,” Bon Jovi said.

Larry Stewart can be reached at larry.stewart@latimes.com.