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"When I'm playing a course, I'm trying to take half the trouble out of play," he said. "So I want to set up down the right edge of the fairway and hit a cut, and if I miss it left, it doesn't bother me. What bothers me is if I hook it."
Lefty caught the left edge of the green and found a bunker on No. 15, making bogey. He caught the left bunker on the 17th, leading to another bogey. And his hopes effectively ended with a blocked tee shot to the left rough on the 18th.
"I don't look at that overly disappointed," he said. "Because I missed it to the side I wanted to miss it."
It would help not to miss anything at Oakland Hills, a course that some believe might prove to be the toughest major of the year. It has been stretched out to just under 7,400 yards, a real beast for a par 70, and occasional showers this week figure to make it feel longer.
"It's tougher than Torrey Pines, all things being equal," Geoff Ogilvy said.
Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in a playoff after finishing at 1-under 283. Trevor Immelman won the Masters at 8-under 280. Padraig Harrington won the British Open at 3-over 283, but Ogilvy doesn't count Royal Birkdale because of 35 mph wind.
"Nothing ever was going to get as tough as Birkdale. You could put an asterisk next to it," he said. "The irony will be that the U.S. Open could be the easiest course we play all year."
The difficulty of Oakland Hills always has been the greens, so heavily contoured that they likely will be slower than some majors to keep it fair. And the length since Rees Jones got his hands on the course after the Ryder Cup is most noticeable on the par 3s, such as the downhill, 257-yard ninth and the 238-yard 17th, which played so long into a breeze Monday that Bart Bryant hit a driver.
"If one of the big hitters is piping it, they're going to have a good week," Bryant said.
Mickelson can only hope he's one of those guys, and a decent year for him turns into a great season by any measure.
Woods was in this position a year ago — without a major for the year — when he tied a major record with a 63 in the second round at Southern Hills and went on to defend his title in the PGA Championship.
Three years ago, that was Mickelson. He had gone four months without winning until going wire-to-wire to win at Baltusrol.
"I had an OK year in 2005, a couple of wins, and looked at it as though it would make an OK year great," Mickelson said. "And I feel the same way this year. It's been an OK year, but winning the last major could turn it into something special."
