'Lefty's' mind game

Mickelson insists outlook still positive after major disaster

Lynn DeBruin, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 18, 2006 at midnight

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He is a month removed from headlines that screamed "Aw-Phil" and "I am such an idiot," a month removed from the kick in the gut that comes with booting a major the way Bill Buckner once booted a World Series or Scott Norwood a Super Bowl.

But while Phil Mickelson has insisted his mind is OK after the 72nd-hole collapse at Winged Foot last month, it will be this trip across the Atlantic that offers the best glimpse into what the future holds for the world's No. 2-ranked golfer.

Take away his drive off the hospitality tent, his 4-iron off the tree and the fried-egg lie in the bunker, and Mickelson would be gunning for his place in history Thursday at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England.

Instead, the royal spotlight will be on "Lefty" to see if one major meltdown will lead to another at the British Open.

Only adding to the curiosity was his erratic play two weeks ago at the Western Open, where critics wondered if three straight over-par rounds (he finished tied for 65th) were signs of a U.S. Open hangover.

ESPN analyst Andy North, a two-time U.S. Open champion, predicted later that Mickelson's crash and burn would haunt him for an extended period of time.

Mickelson insists that won't be the case.

"I'm not ever going to forget it, that's obvious," Mickelson said of his double bogey on the final hole that handed Geoff Ogilvy the trophy. "But what I'm not going to do is let it affect negatively my performance in upcoming majors.

"I've got two more this year. I'm playing too well. And I've got a system of preparation that has been helping me play some of my best golf. I'm excited about the chances at Hoylake."

Mickelson had threatened to curl up in a ball and stay in bed for three days after the U.S. Open.

And while he did cancel an appearance in a par-3 tournament in Michigan, saying in a release he didn't feel like being part of something that was supposed to be fun, he insists he immediately put the collapse behind him.

"That night, it was decided that I'm not going to let one hole or one bad hole affect my upcoming tournaments," he said.

Mickelson instead headed to a swim party for his oldest daughter, then took the family to Disneyland.

He then was off to Hoylake to scout the course with swing coach Rick Smith and short-game coach Dave Pelz, part of a game plan that had helped him win three of nine majors before Winged Foot.

Two days after the Western Open, he again headed to Hoylake, not only to rebound from the U.S. Open debacle but poor showings at the British.

Feel his pain

Mickelson might be the most recent example of gross misfortune down the stretch, but he's hardly the only one.

Some of the worst collapses have come from the game's biggest names, from Arnold Palmer to Greg Norman to Sam Snead.

Palmer felt the pain in 1961 when he was only one hole from donning his second consecutive green jacket at Augusta. Even a bogey on No. 18 would have put him in a playoff with Gary Player. But he made double bogey instead.

Palmer admits he became distracted, breaking his focus as he stopped to shake hands with someone who wanted to congratulate him for the impending victory.

"From that moment on, I was gone," he recalled last month.

But Palmer said he learned from the loss.

"It isn't easy to shake it off. If you dwell on it, it can take you down. It could have taken me down. I used it as just the opposite," he said. "I took it as a positive. Rather than being negative, I used it as a learning curve. It helped me win a lot of tournaments later on."

That summer, he won the first of two straight British Opens and also advanced to playoffs at the U.S. Open in 1962 and 1963.

He never won another U.S. Open, and in 1966, he suffered a loss perhaps as memorable as any of his major wins.

He blew a seven-shot lead in the final nine holes at the Olympic Club in San Francisco, losing in a Monday playoff to Billy Casper.

"I doubt if I have ever felt as alone or as devastated on the golf course," Palmer wrote in his autobiography about the 1966 Open.

Like Mickelson, Palmer was 36 at the time.

Though he never won another major after that (blame Jack Nicklaus, to some degree), Palmer sees better things ahead for Mickelson, even if he must contend with Tiger Woods.

"He's strong. He's young. He'll come back," Palmer said last month. "He might even win sooner than you think."

Player agrees the collapse won't keep down Mickelson.

"Will Phil get over the loss? Absolutely," Player said. "Just like I have and Arnold has and many others have throughout history. Phil Mickelson will still win many tournaments and might still win a major this year."

Mental approach

Whether he does might depend as much on his mind as his swing.

"It's how you allow yourself to metabolize an event, you can go away with some pretty deep scars," said Jim Loehr, a noted sports psychologist who has worked with athletes from Olympian Dan Jansen to Michelle Wie.

Loehr said certain things have to happen for Mickelson to rebound in the majors.

First, he must face the truth.

"If he had to think about it again, maybe he was too quick to pull driver. He'll have to assess that," he said.

Loehr said Mickelson also must believe in himself.

" 'I'm an idiot' doesn't work," Loehr said. "You can't move forward thinking you're an idiot, whether you're Michael Jordan or Dwyane Wade or anybody else."

Finally, Mickelson must believe that if he makes certain adjustments and finds himself in the same situation again, what happened before won't happen again.

"If (an athlete) doesn't meet these three requirements, they suffer going forward," Loehr said.

At least judging from the comments Mickelson has made recently, the "idiot" tag he hung on himself disappeared as fast as the pizza his children offered after the finish.

Woods, who has his own demons to exorcise after missing the cut at Winged Foot, said moving on is part of the game.

"In our sport we fail more times than we succeed," said Woods, who rebounded from the Open by finishing tied for second at the Western Open. "Failure is a part of our sport; that's just the way it is. You pick yourself up off the ground and you have the next week to play."

If golf were baseball, Woods reasoned, hitting .300 would make for one fine career.

"But that's normally not the case. Your winning percentage is a lot lower than that, and you have to deal with losses quite a bit," Woods said. "It's nothing new to him, nothing new to any of us. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off, come back out the next week and play."

Mickelson in the British Open

• Phil Mickelson has won three major titles, but the British Open isn't one of them. He came close two years ago, finishing third. Beyond that, he has struggled.

Year Finish

1991 Tie 73rd

1994 Missed cut

1995 Tie 40th

1996 Tie 40th

1997 Tie 24th

1998 79th

1999 Missed cut

2000 Tie 11th

2001 Tie 30th

2002 Tie 66th

2003 Tie 59th

2004 Third

2005 Tie 60th

Facing adversity

How top players responded after major meltdowns.

• Greg Norman: He blew a six-stroke lead at the 1996 Masters and finished five shots behind Nick Faldo in the biggest final-round collapse in tournament history. "It's not the end of the world. I'll still wake up tomorrow breathing - I hope. That's golf, you know. I am very philosophical," Norman said afterward.

He tied for 10th at the U.S. Open that year, tied for seventh at the British Open and tied for 17th at the PGA Championship. But he missed the cut in the next two Masters and never won another major.

• Sam Snead: He thought he needed a birdie on the final hole to win the 1939 U.S. Open, but he actually needed only par. His aggressive play led to a triple-bogey 8 and he fell two shots short of a three-way playoff that included eventual winner Byron Nelson. Snead would win six majors in the next 15 years, but he never won the U.S. Open. "That night, I was ready to go out with a gun and pay somebody to shoot me," he said of the 1939 faux pas.

• Arnold Palmer: He made double bogey on the final hole to lose by one at the 1961 Masters. He won three of the next five majors, but he never won another major after his collapse at the 1966 U.S. Open, where he led by seven with nine to play and lost in a playoff.

• Doug Sanders: He missed a 2-foot putt that would have beaten Jack Nicklaus at the 1970 British Open, then lost in a playoff. Sanders would win 20 tournaments in his career but never a major. "I look back sometimes, sadly, and think of how it would have changed my life if I had made that putt," Sanders told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001.

• Jean Van de Velde: He needed only double bogey on the final hole to win the 1999 British Open. But he squandered the opportunity with a triple-bogey 7 that included one shot off the bleachers and another while standing barefoot in the Barry Burn. He lost in a playoff to Paul Lawrie that also included Justin Leonard and didn't get another win until this year's Madeira Island Open.

• Scott Hoch: He needed a 30-inch putt on the first playoff hole to win the 1989 Masters but missed right and rolled it 5 feet past the cup. Nick Faldo won on the next playoff hole. Hoch, as in rhymes with choke, won eight more times on tour but not a major. The closest he has come is a tie for fifth at the 1993 and 2002 U.S. Opens.

debruinl@RockyMountainNews.com

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