Print      
Elusive title haunts Mickelson
Six-time runner-up is focused on Open
“This is the tournament I want to win the most,’’ says Phil Mickelson, who missed the cut in the 2007 US Open at Oakmont. (gene j. puskar/associated press)
By Michael Whitmer
Globe Staff

OAKMONT, Pa. — To be kind, Phil Mickelson has a checkered history at the US Open, with blown leads and a record six runner-up finishes.

He would be lying if he said it hasn’t worn on him, especially now, when a win in the national championship is the only thing keeping him from achieving the career grand slam.

“Well, I could b.s. you and tell you I don’t think about it,’’ Mickelson said Wednesday, on the eve of the 116th US Open at Oakmont Country Club. “I think about it all the time. This is the tournament I want to win the most, to complete the four majors.

“I have to put that in the back of my head, but there’s no question that starting this year and every year here forward until I ultimately win this tournament, it will be my biggest focus.’’

Mickelson has already had an interesting week. He flew to California Monday to attend the eighth-grade graduation of his daughter, Sophia, flew back late Tuesday following the ceremony, and is getting ready to tackle a course that hasn’t been kind to him.

He tied for 47th in the 1994 US Open at Oakmont, then missed the cut here in 2007. That was the year he injured a wrist hacking out of the Oakmont rough during a practice round.

Mickelson already had a plan in place to prevent that from happening again.

“I’d rather wait to get hurt during the tournament rather than before it,’’ Mickelson said, informing the media that he deliberately did not play any practice shots out of the heavy rough.

Fast facts

If you watch the US Open long enough this week, you’ll hear about how fast the Oakmont greens are based on something called the Stimpmeter, which is a device the US Golf Association uses to measure speed. It has a local connection, and a connection to Oakmont.

Edward S. Stimpson graduated in 1929 from Harvard, where he captained the golf team. He also won the 1935 Massachusetts Amateur at Brae Burn Country Club. That same year, Stimpson was in attendance at the US Open, held for the second time at Oakmont. He watched Gene Sarazen knock a putt off a green, and wondered how he could prove that Oakmont’s surfaces were faster than all others.

Thus was born the Stimpmeter, a 3-foot-long bar — initially made of wood, now of aluminum — that releases a golf ball at an angle on a flat part of the green. How many feet the ball consistently travels coming off the bar determines the speed measurement.

Most PGA Tour courses typically top off at 12. This week, the USGA will have Oakmont greens running at 14, which is fast, but not as fast as they can get. Club lore holds that Oakmont is the only course that actually slows down the greens for a US Open, so determined — sadistic? — are the members at playing their difficult golf course on a daily basis.

Stimpson died in 1985 in Wellesley, at the age of 80.

50 for 50?

Assuming that Justin Rose is healthy enough, every player ranked in the world’s top 50 will compete at Oakmont. That might not be a slam-dunk, though, since Rose, ranked 10th, has missed the past month because of a back injury. He started hitting drivers only a few days ago, and realizes that hacking his ball out of Oakmont’s thick rough could be dangerous. “I’m fully ready to play,’’ said Rose, who won his only major at the 2013 US Open at Merion. “In all the other parameters that I’ve been able to test, I’m passing and feeling good. I’ve done everything humanly possible to be here from a recovery point of view, from a fitness point of view, from a practice point of view, but there’s no doubt my practice schedule has certainly been on the light side.’’ The highest-ranked player not here is No. 52 Thongchai Jaidee, who withdrew last Thursday, citing personal reasons.

Change of scenery

Ernie Els won the 1994 US Open at Oakmont, and tied for 51st here in 2007. Thanks to the removal of thousands of trees, the course looks the way it did when it opened in 1904. Certainly not how it looked when Els won 90 years later. “It’s amazing how we played the game in those days and how we play today with the golf ball, and a lot of us were still using wooden drivers in ’94,’’ Els said. “It’s amazing how the golf course has also changed. You could definitely move the ball out of the rough. Nowadays, you can’t really do that. With the trees out, the look is totally different, just from an eye point of view. When you’re looking down the first fairway, you couldn’t basically see the second hole. Now you can see a lot.’’ . . . Oakmont has another local connection. William Clark Fownes Jr., who was instrumental in helping his father, Henry Clay Fownes, build and establish Oakmont, graduated from MIT in 1898 with a degree in chemical engineering. The younger Fownes also won the 1910 US Amateur at The Country Club, was the playing captain for the US in the initial Walker Cup in 1922, and served as president of the USGA in 1926-27 . . . According to the USGA, more than 800 media credentials have been issued to journalists representing 22 countries.

Michael Whitmer can be reached at mwhitmer@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeWhitmer.