By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Bing Crosby must be smiling up there someplace. They can take his name off the tournament. They can take some of the historic plaques off the wall near the pro shop. But they can’t change that central California mid-winter climate known as Crosby Weather.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
Email Article By Art Spander
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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Phil Mickelson finished, and for a few inelegant holes he seemed to be finished off. Jordan Spieth was still splashing forward. Open your umbrella, grab that Gore-Tex jacket and we’ll add another tale to the wintry woes of the tournament that can’t escape the Pacific storms or (drip, drip) its own reputation.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
Email Article By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The great thing about Jay Monahan’s job is that he didn’t have to ask the boss if he could take the day off and play golf. He is the boss, the commissioner of the PGA Tour.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
Email Article By Art Spander
NAPA, Calif. — Phil Mickelson was right. His game wasn’t that sharp. Brandt Snedeker also was right. He does well playing with a lead.
Mickelson, everyone knows. He’s golf Hall of Famer. Snedeker, everyone should know. He shot a 59 a few weeks ago, has won the Tour Championship, finished first twice in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and appears headed for another victory in Northern California.
One of the enduring figures of the PGA Tour, Snedeker decided to try the Safeway, the opening tournament of the wrap-around 2018-19 schedule, after bypassing it the last two years. So far, it looks like a brilliant move.
Three rounds into the Safeway, Snedeker has a three-shot lead. Or should we say still has a three-shot lead? Birdies on the final three holes Saturday at Silverado Country Club, a par-5, a par-4 and a par-5, gave him a 3-under 69 and 54-hole total of 16-under 200.
Second at 203 after a 4-under 68 is Kevin Tway, whose father, Bob, in 1996 won a PGA Championship and in 1991 finished second in the Telcom Tucson Open to an amateur named Phil Mickelson.
Time does fly. And Saturday, Mickelson’s chances for a win — even though he had broken 70 the first two days — also flew away.
Starting the round in a tie for second, three shots behind Snedeker, Mickelson shot 74 to end up eight shots back, at 208.
So much for the post–second-round banter between Snedeker and Mickelson.
“I sent him a text,” said Snedeker of dealing with Mickelson. “I gave him a hard time because he said he was playing terrible, then I saw him (Friday) make six birdies in a row. He said, ‘Well, I’m not quite confident yet.’ But he’s a great California player. Won a bunch in his career here.”
Snedeker, 37, who’s from Nashville and played for hometown school Vanderbilt, has won three in California, the two at Pebble (2013 and 2015) and the Farmers in San Diego (2016). Another could be a day away.
“It was a struggle, a grind,” Snedeker said of his third round at the Safeway. “The wind kicked up on the last 12, 13 holes and made it hard to hit it close and make birdies.
“So I did a great job of kind of staying patient and surviving with sort of mediocre ball-striking. Knowing I had 16, 17, 18 ahead for birdie holes, and really proud of the way I stepped up and hit some quality shots when I needed to.”
Snedeker’s career has been kicked around by injuries. A year ago, he missed weeks with a sore sternum. Then in 2018, after the 59 and win at the Wyndham, which he thought would give him the boost he needed to make the Ryder Cup, he had another injury.
Mickelson, of course, was on the American team in the Ryder Cup in France, which ended a week ago, Snedeker followed from afar.
“I watched the Ryder Cup,” said Snedeker. “Obviously my not being there was tough. I watched and cheered for the guys. I have a bunch of friends on the team. Every time you miss that week, being together with all those guys, rekindling friendships, you feel left out.
“You don’t want to ever do it again. It gives you a hard look in the mirror.”
The look that Snedeker, a nine-time winner, has been giving this week is one of success. He had five birdies and two bogies Saturday.
“Majors and winning is all I care about,” said Snedeker.
He has a third in the Masters and a tie for third in the British Open. It you putt as accurately as he does, you can do well in any event, major or not major.
“I really care about getting that major win as many times as possible,” he said, “winning as many times as I possibly can. I’m going to do everything I possibly can to get every little bit of talent in my body.”
Which every athlete is supposed to do, no matter the sport.
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NAPA, Calif. — He once had a caddy tend the flagstick on a shot 75 yards from the cup (no, it didn’t go in). He won $400,000 by betting on the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XXX. He whacked a ball around a putting green and took a 10 in this year’s U.S. Open.
Phil Mickelson is a chance-taker, a self-believer, a fabulous putter and, contrary to the norm of lefthanders playing righthanded, notably Ben Hogan and Johnny Miller, a righthander who plays lefthanded.
And at age 48, in other words two years away from the Champions Tour (newspeak for the Seniors), Phil is in a tie for second halfway through the Safeway Open at Silverado Country Club.
You want some perspective? Mickelson, at 10-under-par 134 after Friday’s round, is one in front of Kevin Tway, whose father, Bob, was beaten by Phil 27 years ago in the 1991 Tucson Telcom Open.
That’s when Mickelson, a 20-year-old junior at Arizona State at the time, became the last amateur to win a PGA Tour tournament.
So if Phil is wonderfully unpredictable and charmingly arrogant, there are reasons. As did his rivals, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, Mickelson won the U.S. Amateur and NCAA championship. Phil was on the cover of Golf Digest before he turned pro, with the headline, “How good is this kid?”
More than a quarter-century later, we know the answer: Good enough to win five majors; good enough to be on 12 Ryder Cup teams; good enough earlier this year at age 47 to win a tournament, the WGC in Mexico; good enough to be three shots behind Brandt Snedeker’s 131 after 36 holes in this Safeway.
Phil the Thrill. “The real boss of the (winning 2016) Ryder Cup team,” tweeted Ted Bishop, former president of the PGA of America. “Phil presided over the press conference like a hawk surveying his prey.”
A father so interested in his kids in 2017 he skipped the U.S. Open, the only major of the four he never won, finishing runner-up six times, to attend the graduation of his eldest daughter Amanda from her San Diego-area high school.
A man who paid off a gambling debt with $1 million earned on an illegal insider tip, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, but according to his attorneys was not charged and was innocent of any wrongdoing — but agreed to repay the $1 million.
Mickelson was a star a few years in front of Tiger, and you wonder what Phil might have done had Woods not come along to win the tournaments and steal the attention. Not until the 2004 Masters did Mickelson, then 33, get that first major.
Now, he’s trying to get a second tournament in this calendar year but a first tournament of the 2018-19 Tour season, which starts with the Safeway. After flying from France and last week’s Ryder Cup, Mickelson isn’t sure what to make of his golf.
“Yeah, I don’t know what to say,” Phil observed. “I’m as surprised as anybody that I’m playing well. I’ve hit a lot of good shots. I’m not surprised I’m putting well. I’ve been putting well week in and week out.
“I’m just surprised I’m hitting this many good shots. I’m surprised I haven’t hit some huge drives off line. The ones that were in the rough are very solidly hit. But I’m surprised I haven’t hit any out of bounds, to be honest.”
It’s hard to smack one OB at Silverado, although a few fairways do border roads or residences. So Mickelson, who can be cocky, is giving us a bit of self-deprecation.
Not that Phil deserves to be criticized. He’s the only 2018 Ryder Cup player in the Safeway, and along with Fred Couples, Snedeker and two-time Safeway winner Brendan Steele he gives the event the recognizable names need to draw fans and Golf Channel viewers.
“I love what I do,” said Mickelson, “but now, as opposed to playing the tournaments you’re expected to play in, whatever, I’m going to play the events I like.”
One of those is a $9 million winner-take-all, pay-per-view match between Phil and Tiger over the Thanksgiving weekend.
“I probably won’t play much until then” said Mickelson. “You know at 48 it’s not a smart thing to do. It doesn’t come easy anymore.”
But as his play so far in the Safeway indicates, for Phil Mickelson it comes when needed.