Mickelson’s Season Is Off to Slow Start, but He Still Has Hope

His season debut wasn’t much to talk about, but Phil Mickelson expected there would be some rust on his game, so his closing rounds of 78-71 and a tie for 56th at the Buick Invitational weren’t all that crushing, especially with the birdie chances coming up this week at the Bob Hope Classic.

Mickelson is the defending champion at the Hope and may find that lush fairways and perfect greens are good places to get a game into shape in a hurry.

“Going to play the Hope, you could get away with misses, the rough isn’t so bad,” he said. “The pin placements are set up for the amateurs, so it isn’t as penal.”

And after one week, it already might be time to look for a little change in Mickelson’s philosophy. He has already hinted about a change, at least, at how driving for accuracy relates to driving for distance.

Last year, Mickelson altered his approach. He throttled back a little bit, came off his distance in search of greater accuracy and enjoyed the best year of his career, winning the Masters.

But Mickelson said he feels the next move may be to make a change again to catch up and be a big player in the distance department again.

“The four guys in that area ahead of me in the ranking [Vijay Singh, Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen], I finished ahead of all four of those in driving accuracy (in 2004). But they all hit the ball past me in terms of driving distance.”

Mickelson isn’t entirely correct. He was 120th in accuracy, Singh was 149th, Woods 182nd, Els 185th, Goosen 125th.

But Mickelson ranked 30th in distance, averaging 295.4 yards, and while Woods ranked ninth, Singh 13th and Els 19th in driving distance, Goosen was 38th, averaging 294.2 yards.

Last year at the Hope, Mickelson piled up 37 birdies and his rounds of 68-63-64-67-68 got him into a playoff, where he defeated Skip Kendall on the first playoff hole.