what will phil do next?
Mickelson - even called himself an idiot.
By Mark Garrod, PA Sport Golf Correspondent
On September 25 last year Phil Mickelson saw no reason not to speak his mind. "I'm an idiot," he said. On June 18 this year, different event, very different circumstances, but same player, same opinion. "I'm such an idiot," he said. Frank admissions, you would have to agree. But given what had happened who could argue? At the Presidents Cup, Mickelson, thinking his vital match with Angel Cabrera was over, had to be told by British referee Andy McFee it was not. He had not understood the rules. At the United States Open nine months on Mickelson, needing a closing par to win the title and a bogey to go into a play-off with Geoff Ogilvy, double-bogeyed in the worst major championship cock-up since ... well, since Colin Montgomerie did the same thing 20 minutes earlier. But maybe it is partly because he is capable of such moments of idiocy that as he prepares for his sixth Ryder Cup appearance Mickelson is the crowd-puller he is. The adverts have said it for some time now. What will Phil do next? You tend to think that Tiger Woods simply would not commit the same blunders. That in the first situation he would know the rules off by heart - or, failing that, they would suddenly appear before him in a vision - and on the second occasion he would make his par four, of course. From one point of view that is what makes Woods great. From another it is what makes him boring. To followers of the second way of thinking Mickelson, the flawed genius, is where the real excitement is. Two years ago in Detroit, for one day only, there was no need to make a choice on which one to watch. Hal Sutton decided to put them together. It would have been a master stroke if it had come off. But it did not and the Americans never recovered. Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington combined to beat the two superstars in the fourballs, then Darren Clarke and Lee Westwood piled on the misery in the foursomes. For the following morning's play Sutton not just split them up, but dropped the left-hander. One of Tom Lehman's simplest decisions, you would imagine then, is not to discover if if would be third time lucky for them as a pairing. For the opening session at least you can expect to see Woods with Jim Furyk and Mickelson with Chris DiMarco, successful partnerships from the Presidents Cup. But it was not just the two failures with Woods that made Oakland Hills a week to forget for Mickelson. There was the change of equipment just before, which made some question the importance he placed on the Ryder Cup. There was his decision to go and practise somewhere else before the match, which appeared to set him apart from the team. And there was his defeat to Sergio Garcia. With his side needing a fast start in the singles to reignite their hopes, Woods and Furyk provided it by beating Paul Casey and David Howell respectively, but Mickelson went in the water on the 16th and lost three and two. One point from four games. Not quite what you want from your number two. And not, of course, what Mickelson wanted following the 2002 defeat to Phillip Price at The Belfry which meant that Woods, sent out last by Curtis Strange, was powerless to prevent a European victory. He knew how that felt. On his debut in 1995, Mickelson won his first two games, then was given the final spot in the singles. He beat Per-Ulrik Johansson, but it did not matter. Up ahead Philip Walton's last-green victory over Jay Haas had settled the match. In Woods and Mickelson captain Lehman has two phenomenal talents. Multi major winners both. His task is to try to make the most of them in a way that Lanny Wadkins, Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Strange and Sutton have not been able. Maybe, though, that is out of any captain's control. You can lead a horse to water, but whether they drink or not is down to them. Avoiding being an idiot again would be a good start for Mickelson.
