Is Woods Up for a Challenge?

In the hot-potato toss of finding a worthy challenger to Tiger Woods, well, it’s back to you, Phil Mickelson.

It was Mickelson once before, remember, with golf eager to embrace the thought, but he went winless in his first 46 majors and that sort of foiled the plan.

Mickelson, though, has repositioned himself nicely in mid-life (happy 36th birthday Friday) and starts the 106th U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club today in a New York state of mind.

With Woods sidetracked by more immediate family matters, Mickelson has won the last two majors and proved that golf is one sport where you can get better as you get smarter.

Mickelson was the unabashed U.S. Open fan favorite at Bethpage in 2002, and again at Shinnecock Hills two years later.

Head-to-head against Woods, though, Mickelson had mostly just been bashed.

Now he is simply the favorite, no sentimental strings attached, having been unburdened since that breakthrough win at Augusta National.

“When he won the 2004 Masters there, it opened up the floodgates,” defending U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell said of Mickelson. “

Woods might have something to say about that.

In the least, Mickelson’s three-majors emergence since the spring of ’04 has redirected the cookie-cutter “Who-can-beat-Tiger?” advance angles and spawned the first real possibility of a golf rivalry to match Nicklaus versus Palmer.

Mickelson, sort of like a comet, eventually circled around again.

In between visits, a procession of would-be Woods whackers turned out to be, to borrow from golf vernacular, false fronts.

Davis Love III won the 1997 PGA Championship at Winged Foot and hasn’t won a major since.

Jim Furyk, so far, has been a one-hit wonder.

Ditto for David Toms.

David Duval has gone from top of the world to what-in-the-world?

Sergio Garcia ran up a fairway once at Medinah thinking he had a shot at catching Woods.

Garcia’s still running.

Ernie Els has been a factor, but hasn’t seemed the same since shooting a final-round 80 at wind-whipped Shinnecock two years ago.

Vijay Singh briefly overtook Woods as the world’s No. 1 player but, at 43, the fairways are only going to get narrower.

Retief Goosen, the iron-willed and otherwise expressionless South African, was positioned to win his third U.S. Open last year at Pinehurst.

Then came that final-round 81.

For Woods, winner of 10 majors before age 30, the challengers come and go like gunslingers.

He is, in the rivalry equation, the dominator and the common denominator.

“You have runs where Ernie was there for a little bit, then Vijay, Goose and now Phil,” Woods said this week. “I suppose as long as I can be part of that conversation, it’s never a bad thing.”

When you consider who can actually win this year’s U.S. Open, the 156-player field is smaller than it looks.

You can almost cross off the European continent, given no player from there has won since Tony Jacklin in 1970.

“I don’t think it’s really coincidence,” said England’s Luke Donald, a potential drought-buster. “I think U.S. Opens always set up very similar -- narrow fairways, thick rough, slopey, usually quite quick greens. This is the type of setup where a lot of Europeans aren’t used to that.”

Young Americans who can win?

Well, try to name one.

Charles Howell III?

The Australians have of late been producing fine wines and divot takers, with Adam Scott even patterning his swing after Woods’. And last year’s winner, Campbell, hails from New Zealand.

This year’s prediction pendulum, though, ultimately swings back to Woods versus Mickelson.

Anything can happen at an Open. A Michael Campbell can always sneak in there on you.

This year, though, to put it in perspective, he’s listed as a 100-1 shot.

“That’s great,” Campbell said. “Let Tiger and Vijay and Phil have all the attention, and I can just do what I did last year. Fantastic, bring it on. Look at last year, no one gave me a chance to win and I won.”

This time around, in his role as Tiger challenger, Mickelson might be able to stick.

He is a win here and at next month’s British Open from holding all four major titles at once -- a repeat of the “Tiger Slam.”

“I’m just trying to win one,” Mickelson cautioned. “I’m not trying to win three.”

Mickelson, an inveterate equipment tinkerer, finally seems to have honed in on something.

He used two drivers to win the Masters this year but will use only one this week, mostly to hit a cut-fade that will stop quickly on fairways that measure as narrow as 20 yards.

What better time for Woods-Mickelson to materialize than now, on a traditional layout at Winged Foot, a course stretched to 7,264 yards with a bevy of banked greens and pinched fairways?

The rough will be a “graduated” cut but still thick enough to create a U.S. Open at Tangled Foot.

The setup won’t be as diabolical it was in 1974, the so-called “Massacre at Winged Foot,” when Hale Irwin won at seven over par.

It was during that major that a reporter asked official Sandy Tatum whether the U.S. Golf Assn. was trying to embarrass the world’s best golfers.

Tatum famously responded, “No, we’re trying to identify them.”

It wouldn’t hurt the sport if, on the back nine Sunday this year, the USGA will have identified Woods and Mickelson, playing in the final pairing, for big money and bragging rights.

Maybe this is the week the rivalry gets real.

*

U.S. Open facts

* When: Today through Sunday.

* Where: Winged Foot Golf Club, Mamaroneck, N.Y.

* Course: 7,264 yards (Par 70).

* Purse: $6.5 million (winner’s share: $1.17 million).

* Cut: Top 60 and ties, and anyone within 10 strokes of the lead after 36 holes.

* Playoff, if necessary: 18 holes of stroke play Monday.

* Television: Today and Friday -- 7 a.m. to noon, ESPN; noon to 2 p.m., Channel 4; 2 to 4 p.m., ESPN. Saturday and Sunday -- 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Channel 4.

* Last year: Michael Campbell closed with a one-under 69 at Pinehurst No. 2 for a two-shot victory over Tiger Woods. He finished at even-par 280 and became the first player from New Zealand to win a major since Bob Charles in the 1963 British Open.