Where's the Love, Phil?
Mickelson's comments a slight against Nicklaus and Columbus
By Steve Croyle |
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Back in February, Phil Mickelson told Golf World that he was skipping The Memorial this year. Apparently the course was too difficult and he didn't like the way it was set up. "They had one-and-a-half foot rough behind the eleventh green," he complained.
Boo-friggity-hoo.
Phil's certainly not the first golfer to whine about Muirfield Village. Every year it seems as though somebody needs to blame something for the fact that they played badly. The course was too wet. The course was too dry. It was too windy. It was too cold. The greens were fast. The greens were slow. The bunkers have furrows raked into them. My mommy didn't bring my binky. Nobody loves me.
Photo: KRT PHOTO
The last time I checked, everybody plays the same course and nobody ran out to the 11th green just before Phil teed off with a bucket of Miracle Gro. A busload of golfers played that same hole before Phil, and another busload more followed. Phil just didn't keep his shot on the green and he got hung up in the rough, which might have been a little shaggy, but if you hit the ball where you're supposed to, it's all good.
Which is more or less the point of golf, isn't it? Hazards are supposed to be punitive and that explains the furrows everybody complained about a couple of years ago. Jack and his course developers noticed that a lot of golfers were easily chipping out of the bunkers, so they made it harder, which forces a decision: do you grip it, rip, and hope to land safely, or do you lay up a little and make up for the difference on your second shot?
The U.S. Open has become ridiculously challenging in recent years and so has the PGA Championship. Across the pond, The Open Championship is always played on rugged old courses that give no quarter to golfers who can't hit perfect shots. Augusta National even made several big changes in order to present more of a challenge after Tiger Woods bitch-slapped the rest of the field at The Masters in 1997. So you'd think golfers would want the events in between to prepare them for these challenges, right?
Love him or hate him, you have to give Tiger some credit. He'll complain about a lot of things, but it's not often he'll blast a course for being too difficult. What separates Tiger from the rest of the PGA Tour is his ability to hit tough shots. Tiger will yell at disruptive people in the gallery and curse a blue streak when he hits a bad shot, but he never seems to let bad bounces or tough lies get the best of him. He also loves playing the Memorial, largely in part because it's Jack's event and because of the respect Tiger has for Jack Nicklaus. You're not likely to hear Tiger say anything negative about the course or the event that The Golden Bear has put so much of himself into.
Jack's been around a while and lets the negative comments slide. Most of the time they come from middle-tier golfers who just don't matter, but Phil Mickelson is a big name and a big draw. His presence is good for any tournament and he knows it, which is why he's throwing his weight around. But this isn't just some cookie-cutter country club with a corporate sponsor attached; this is an event a living legend takes very personally. If Phil doesn't want to play, that's his call, but he doesn't have to go out of his way to blame it on the course. Especially when that course has been painstakingly designed by Jack Nicklaus to test the top golfers in the world.
You don't even have to be a golf fan to appreciate The Memorial. Jack Nicklaus is the greatest golfer of all time, and he gave back to our community by building a beautiful course and bringing us a great tournament. It's something we can be proud of, and we should take it to heart when people, even if they are the second best in the world, rip on it. The Memorial means a lot to this community, and it's pretty damned rude when a ranked golfer like Phil Mickelson saddles the blame for his inability to close on the course.
Originally Published: May 1, 2009
