Mickelson believes he’s ready for British Open breakthrough

LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England - Phil Mickelson has won three Masters, a PGA Championship, 40 official PGA Tour events, the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup, the U.S. Amateur, two NCAA men's individual titles, and the 2004 PGA Grand Slam of Golf  (a.k.a. Golf's 5,505th Major).

He's never won the British Open. He believes he can.

You know Mickelson thinks he can win the 141st Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes not because of his tie for second at the Open at Royal St. Georges last year, a rare week in which he actually thrived in bad weather. You know it not because he finished third at Troon in '04-the year he finally learned how to get the ball on the ground quickly and without spin.

No, you can tell Mickelson believes he has a chance by the way he answered a seemingly innocuous question at his press conference Tuesday.

Q: If you were to win the Open, where would that rank in your major achievements and in terms of your overall career?

A: "Let's get out of Sunday and get back to Tuesday. We're at Tuesday, and I don't want to jump ahead. I mean it would certainly-obviously it would mean a lot for any player's career. I don't like to get that far ahead right now. It's just [a matter of] getting ready for Thursday's round."

Of all the subplots coming into this Open, Mickelson's quest to bag one of the two remaining majors that have eluded him (the U.S. Open is the other) may get relatively little attention. Tiger Woods's quest to end his majorless streak of more than four years is top of mind in light of his three victories in the last four months, while Euros are clucking over the strangely dormant Rory McIlroy and whether or not Luke Donald or Lee Westwood can finally add a major championship title to otherwise sparkling resumes.

But Mickelson's form heading into the British Open is intriguing, given how much he's improved at playing this type of golf. What would it mean to win? There was a time when he might have answered that differently, with no concern of getting ahead of himself and jinxing his chances. He was not much of a British Open player; he wasn't much of a threat in bad weather. That has changed.

"I think what was so fun for me about last year was that I was able to make a move in horrible weather," Mickelson said as rain fell outside, "and that's one of the things that has excited me because historically I've not played well in bad weather. And now I look at it a little bit differently. And I almost welcome it, in a sense."

The turning point, he said, came while working with one of his coaches, Dave Pelz, before the 2004 Open at Troon, ultimately won by Todd Hamilton.

"It took me a while to be able to understand what it meant to get the ball on the ground," Mickelson said, "because I was able to hit the ball low, but I would still hit it with spin, and it would stay in the air and kind of hover above the ground rather than getting it on the ground. It didn't really click until eight years ago.

"Now when it gets to be really bad weather," he added, "my misses in crosswinds aren't as bad as they used to be, because it's on the ground and out of the wind a lot quicker. And that's made me really enjoy and appreciate playing links golf and playing in the elements."

Mickelson vowed to bring a better attitude to the British last year, and it paid off when he and fellow American Dustin Johnson tied for second place, three shots behind winner Darren Clarke. Now, after a missed cut (Greenbrier), a T65 (U.S. Open) and a WD (Memorial) in his last three starts, Mickelson may be finally finding his stride. A late entry into the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart, he zoomed into contention with scores of 64-65 on Friday-Saturday. Mickelson went into the final round just three shots off the lead but faded with a 74 in bad weather Sunday.

"It didn't feel that far off," he said of his recent lackluster results prior to last week, "but I just wasn't holding my focus for all 18 holes."

After winning the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and losing a sudden-death playoff to Bill Haas at the Northern Trust Open in mid-February, Mickelson played good but not great golf. He tied for fourth in Houston, tied for third at the Masters, tied for seventh at the Nelson. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

It was shortly afterward, though, that his results took a turn for the worse. A family vacation seemed to sap his strength before the Memorial, and he withdrew after an ugly 79 that sparked a debate over fan cell phone use on the PGA Tour. Even after bowing out of Nicklaus's tournament early to conserve energy, he was nowhere near contending at the U.S. Open at Olympic Club, and shot 71-71 to miss the cut (by three) for the second straight year at the Greenbrier. "I just wasn't in a good, competitive frame of mind," he said. "And adding that tournament [in Scotland] has really helped get me in a much better frame now."

Mickelson will tee off with Donald and Geoff Ogilvy at 9:43 a.m. ET Thursday.