Phil Mickelson, When Will You Stop Breaking Our Hearts?
Rooting for Phil Mickelson to win the U.S. Open has become a lot like pulling for Nicolas Cage to make a good movie: we love the guy, and we want to see him prevail, but we’re getting a little tired of the disappointment.
Mickelson did it to us again today at Bethpage Black: after roaring back from huge deficit and even grabbing the lead for a time, Phil threw up bogeys on two of his last four holes, and ended up losing to qualifier Lucas Glover. The pressure seemed to get to Phil again, the same way it did a couple years ago at Winged Foot, when he pinballed one off the hospitality tent on the 72nd hole, and ended up double bogeying it, losing by one stroke to Geoff Ogilvy.
The Winged Foot meltdown, on the Nicolas Cage disaster scale, was Ghost Rider sized – a complete, unqualified disaster. Monday’s Bethpage loss was more in Lord of War territory – yes it sucked, but at least there were a couple good moments, and overall we did not feel ashamed for our hero, who seemed to try his damnedest.
People will not be too hard on Phil after this one I suspect, mostly because his wife has been sick, and because Phil comported himself so well throughout the stressful build-up, and with the fans out on the course. Phil, like Nic Cage, has built up so much goodwill that, no matter how epic his fails, we will never lose sympathy for him, and will always come back to see if he can finally get it done.
