With Tiger Woods nursing a sore, surgically repaired paw, could this be the year Phil Mickelson seize’s the open door and — as Tony Montana would say — makes some moves of his own?
This week’s $9 million – pseudo major tournament–the Players Championship is going off on Thursday and Phil is coming in as the defending champion with a full-year of tutelage from coach Butch Harmon. Expectations could be high for Phil to breakout and roll a good performance at TPC into next month’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, his home course in San Diego. His long-game is progressing with the Harmon handling, but he’s had setbacks with the short-game:
“I thought it (my game) would be progressing about how it has,” he said. “My driving of the golf ball has been totally different. My misses have been much smaller than I had been used to, and my sight lines have been moved in tighter inside the fairway lines.
“I think in the effort to improve my long game, my short game has suffered a bit.” [link]
Phil needs to man-up with these opportunities soon. He’s no spring chicken anymore. With Woods ailing it seems like the opportune time for Phil to put down the late-night Taco Bell, crunch it out in the weight room, and bang out a few big wins here in the first-half of ‘08. But, as has been the case with most of his promising career, I’m ready to be disappointed.
