A Power Trio Rocks the Open

By Thomas Boswell
Friday, June 13, 2008

SAN DIEGO

By the time the three best golfers in the world had played a few holes on Thursday, the ominous early-morning mist off the Pacific, called the "June Gloom" here, had burned away and a Southern California surf's-up sun in a cloudless sky set the thermostat at 70 degrees. Thus perfection, or at least golf's version, was achieved here at the U.S. Open.

Tiger Woods, fresh off knee surgery and wincing in pain after one 360-yard drive, walked the fairways side by side, though almost never speaking, with Phil Mickelson, the hometown hero who played his high school matches here at glorious Torrey Pines. In the sidecar was Australian heartthrob Adam Scott, hampered by a broken right pinkie, a gift from a friend who slammed a car door on his hand two weeks ago.

The scorecard will show that they shot 72, 71 and 73, respectively, and that all three, in different ways, seemed far enough off their games that their chances here are not as sublime as their world rankings. Tiger is rusty, under interrogation, and admits the pain has him playing with gritted teeth. Mickelson is so wild off the tee that, for the first time in his career, he played a round without a driver in his bag. Then his 3-wood wouldn't behave. And Scott, who can't buy a putt, says his hand is "pretty miserable."

Nevertheless, their day together was pure electricity for the huge crowds that chased the trio along the bluffs and barrancas. After Mickelson birdied the 13th and 14th holes, one fan bellowed: "Come on, Phil. This is your house."

But Woods's troops were legion, too. When Tiger's tee shot at the 177-yard eighth hole seemed to have stopped absolutely, the crowd kept chanting "go, go, go" until the ball took one tiny turn, then drew slowly back down a slope 20 feet to the shadow of the flagstick to set up a birdie. "We did that for him," one little boy said in the stands, convinced of his new powers, perhaps for life.

Finally, the golf world has figured out how to make the first two days of the U.S. Open almost as exciting as the weekend rounds usually are: send out the dozen best players in the world rankings in four threesomes, forced to play eyeball-to-eyeball on Thursday and Friday. Let the current cream of the crop feel the heat of the competition right from the first shot.

In a sport where the greatest of the great are paired together far too seldom in the biggest events, the U.S. Golf Association deserves cheers. Admitting that goes against my religion (common sense). After all, this is the same outfit that also gives us, if two players are tied after Sunday's fourth round, an anachronistic 18-hole playoff here Monday before a crowd of 73 spouses and relatives. If that ends in a tie, there's a one-hole playoff. See the logic? The USGA does. But give credit, it got this 1-2-3 gimmick right. TV loves it. But so do galleries. And everybody here felt it.

"To tee off at 8 o'clock and have this many people out here, I was pretty impressed," Mickelson said of crowds that rivaled the 2:30 p.m. Sunday throngs at most U.S. Opens. " I'm so proud because this is my home town and everybody out there was so respectful. No derogatory remarks. Everybody was real cool. I was proud to be from here."

Derogatory remarks, in the land of the lotus eaters? How do you get hostile here? They've got a nudist beach down below the fourth green. If you over-club on the 3rd, 7th, 12th or 16th hole, the next dirt is in Hawaii. But the air is so clear you could see your ball land.

This setting may have helped the Big Three keep their sanity on a day when -- occasionally -- they produced amazingly bad shots. Once, Mickelson attempted a 250-yard shot from the rough and, with a mighty swing, moved the ball just eight feet. Then, same club, same rough, he knocked the ball on the center of the green. Right on, Tin Cup.

However, Woods was a one-man carnival ride all day, starting with a double bogey on the first hole.

"You couldn't ask for a worse start. You want to get into the flow of the round . . . but six shots on the first hole . . . that's a lot of shots to get into a flow," said Woods who, with age, seems far more at ease with public displays of the sarcastic self-deprecation and sly humor for which he's known among fellow players.

"What did I find out today? Oh, I can walk 18 holes. I guess I don't need a cart yet," said Woods, who described his knee as "a little sore" but with a "totally different pain" than what he had at the Masters, when "the cartilage was in there flying around."

In addition to "plenty of warmup shots on number one," Woods also double-bogeyed the 14th hole, three-putted the 18th green, failed to birdie either back-nine par 5, cold-bladed a 40-yard wedge shot far over a green, chunked a short pitch shot, hashed up a simple sand blast, slammed clubs into the ground in disgust twice, drilled two fans in the gallery and fought a hook off the tee all day. Otherwise, there wasn't a sign of rust.

"I just go play . . . tee it up and go," he said. "I'm right there. I'm only four [shots] back. I'm in good shape."

That charismatic audacity is pure magnetism to his galleries. At the 612-yard ninth hole, Woods's high wild hook smacked Rich Goaslind, 42, of Salt Lake City in the right shoulder, raising a welt in which he took great pride.

"It was cookin'. Hurt like hell. Tiger came over, asked if I was all right and said he'd give me the ball after he finished the hole," said Goaslind, who was the only fan in sight wearing a Tiger Woods hat.

After Woods parlayed the lucky bounce into a five-foot birdie putt, he walked -- in his customary Open trance -- toward the next tee. Then he stopped, thought, remembered some responsibility unfulfilled, walked toward Goaslind, somehow remembered which person he was in the mob and flipped him the ball.

"Dude," Goaslind said with the right inflection of respect.

Mickelson played his role -- always a more ambiguous one -- to perfection as well. On Wednesday, he used driver throughout a practice round and couldn't keep his ball on the planet.

"So today, no driver. Now he's hitting 3-wood just as wild, but wild and short," said a USGA official and old Mickelson playing partner. "That's Phil, always overthinking."

Just like leaving out his 3-wood in '06 on Sunday at Winged Foot, then discovering it was just the club he needed on the final holes.

Afterward, Mickelson said that leaving out the driver, if fairways were firm, had been in his game plan "for months," even though he never had done it before in his life anywhere and has won at Torrey Pines three times, always with a driver.

"I know [short-game coach] Dave Pelz has been wanting me to play a tournament without hitting driver -- just 3-woods all the way through," Mickelson said. "So here you are, Dave."

Don't miss Friday, as if anybody here would dream of it. This is unique. Weekends are played in twosomes. So you can only get a No. 1-2-3 on earth group in the U.S. Open if you schedule it. And this year, they did. Call the carnival barker, because it's a circus under the Torrey Pines big tent. Step right up. See Tiger play on one leg, Adam with one hand and Phil with, who knows, maybe 11 wedges and a mashie niblick in his bag.