Phil Physically, Mentally Ready for New Season

PALM DESERT, Calif. -- Maybe he was being a little reckless, taking too many risks, or simply found trouble at the wrong time. Whatever the case, it was a crash Phil Mickelson won't forget, and he confessed Tuesday that it left a scar.

He was talking, of course, about a skiing accident that kept him off the PGA TOUR for three months.

"A scar happened in '94 when I broke my leg and they cut it open and stuck in a rod," Mickelson said. "That's a scar."

His double bogey on the 72nd hole at the U.S. Open?

That was a lesson.

"Losing the Open obviously hurt," Mickelson said. "But losing the PGA in 2001 hurt. Losing the Masters a number of years hurt. And losing the U.S. Open in 2004 making double (bogey) on 17 hurt. That's part of the game. And so I think it's a challenge to try to get past that, but it's also an opportunity to identify a weakness and improve it.

"And hopefully," he added, "improve my performances from here on out."

Mickelson makes his 2007 debut Wednesday at the Bob Hope Classic, and he probably won't have to wait long to see what he learned. Fourteen of his 29 victories on the PGA TOUR have come on the West Coast, and he has won the Hope twice since 2002.

It will be his first time inside the ropes since the Ryder Cup, though some might argue he didn't play there, either. Mickelson looked dazed at The K Club and went 0-4-1 for an American team that got waxed.

He really hasn't shown up anywhere since that infamous meltdown on a late Sunday afternoon at Winged Foot.

Mickelson had a two-shot lead with four holes to play in the final round of the U.S. Open, an amazing feat considering he couldn't find the fairway. It caught up to him on the 18th when he hit driver so far to the left that it clattered off trees and a corporate tent, sending him to a double bogey that left him one shot behind Geoff Ogilvy.

It wasn't the worst collapse; that goes to Colin Montgomerie, who made his double bogey with a 7-iron from the fairway. But crashes seem to look more spectacular involving Phil the Thrill.

He played five more tournaments the rest of the year, his best finish a tie for 16th at the PGA Championship.

And the speculation began.

What's wrong with Phil? How will he ever recover from such an ignominious failure?

All of which was misguided thinking.

Don't use the tail end of 2006 as evidence of emotional scar tissue, because Lefty rarely plays his best golf after the U.S. Open. Since his first full season on TOUR in 1993, only one-third of his top 10s and eight of his 29 victories occurred after the second major (that includes Pebble Beach in 1998, which ended in August).

And it's not like that was the first time Mickelson has been haunted by failure. Jack Nicklaus was runner-up 19 times in the majors, and don't think he wouldn't like to have a couple of those back. Tiger Woods went bogey-bogey in the 2005 U.S. Open when he was on the verge of tracking down Michael Campbell.

The guys more affected by calamity are those who only get one crack at a major -- Jean Van de Velde at Carnoustie in the 1999 British Open, Mike Reid at the 1989 PGA Championship, Ed Sneed at the 1979 Masters.

"Phil is in a different category," Annika Sorenstam said.