Out of Bounds

By Gary Van Sickle

I can’t afford to go to the 2019 United States Open at Pebble Beach in June. Rooms at the media hotel are going for $350 a night, plus tax. Yikes. I can’t afford not to go, either. And I blame Phil Mickelson for that.

Well, the budget will just have to break, which won’t be the first time that’s happened in California.

I have to be there because, barring an all-out Tiger-resurrection, Mickelson is going to be the man in the spotlight at Pebble Beach.

Let’s get in the mood with a combo platter of the Phil headlines sure to come your way in June: This could be a Phil of a year. Philharmonic convergence? Time to Phil the trophy case? The Phil has come due. Past Opens have been a bitter Phil to swallow. Philler-diller! Where there’s a Phil, there’s a way.

All right, all right. What about Brooks Koepka? He’s going for history, trying to win a third straight Open. That’s a big deal. Even notorious big deal Ron Burgundy would say, “Holy tornado!”

But Phil still moves the needle for John Q. Hacker and the media. Koepka doesn’t, at least not yet.

Teddy Roosevelt was president when Willie Anderson completed the first Open three-peat in 1905. Forget such antiquity. This pre-tournament buildup is going to be all Phil all the time.

Lefty is the story that won’t go away. Start with his record six runner-up finishes in the U.S. Open. Some were heartbreaking, some were unheroically self-induced. Such as his 2006 classic at Winged Foot: “I am such an idiot.”

There’s also the Mickelson who won’t go away. He won a World Golf Championship last year at 47. Then he faded away, especially at the Ryder Cup.

That led to his Pebble Beach victory this year. His closing 66 ranks among his best final rounds. And not to invite an age-discrimination suit, but Mickelson looked really good for a 48-year-old. He’ll turn 49 in June. The U.S. Open would complete his Grand Slam, and he could do it on his birthday. What a present it could be!

So the fan favorite who’s never won the Open will play this Open at the same course he won at a few months earlier. An Open setup isn’t the same as an AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am setup, but let’s not ruin a good fake-news story with facts.

“It’s a totally different golf course,” Mickelson acknowledged after his AT&T victory. “The greens will be firm, the rough will be high.

“At AT&T, I’m trying to hit the ball as far as I can and not worry too much about the rough. So there’s no carryover other than I really enjoy this place. I seem to play some of my best golf here and that’s probably about it.”

Mickelson has won at Pebble Beach five times. The first was in 1998. He finished three strokes behind Graeme McDowell in the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Mickelson is The Horse. Pebble Beach is clearly his course, more so than any other.

“I would have a hard time arguing another course—maybe Augusta,” Mickelson said. “The thing about Pebble Beach is that when it rains, you have to put the pins on higher spots because water will collect on that spongy poa annua.

“I have the ability to hit these little low, no-spinning shots to try to get the ball to chase up the green. Those are hard shots that a lot of guys don’t practice. I’ve become very proficient at that and it’s become a strength of my game.”

Here’s another reason not to forget him: He is golf’s most resilient player.

Honestly, I wrote him off after his embarrassing spectacle at last year’s Open at Shinnecock Hills. Remember how he played hockey, hitting a moving ball to keep it from rolling off the green and violated the most sacred and trusted tenet of the game? He was frustrated, he made up a baloney of an excuse and later apologized for it. Even Oscar Mayer saw through that one.

Anyway, I felt as if Mickelson quit. Once a quitter, always a quitter and a quitter always knows he quit. He was done as a competitor, I mistakenly believed.

Well, I forgot about Phil’s bounce-back ability. He has come off as Pollyannish over the years, sometimes delusional, but he is the most positive-thinking golfer I’ve ever met. His unwavering optimism is real. That’s who he is as a golfer.

So when June arrives, don’t count out Mickelson. He may make this Open worth your trouble … even at $350 a night.

From his office in Pittsburgh, Gary Van Sickle writes about golf for several national news outlets and publications.