SPRINGFIELD, N.J. -- On his return to Baltusrol, where a Jersey guy in the 2005 crowd had toasted his PGA Championship by inviting him to share a few beers down the shore, Phil Mickelson was one hot mess. He was 4-over par after 11 holes Thursday, playing himself out of the tournament, when a local leaned over the ropes and barked something that did not seem terribly profound.
"Hey, you've got a lot of golf left. You're not out of this. Let's get going."
Mickelson stopped himself for a moment and let the pep talk sink in.
"He's right," the golfer told himself. "Got a lot of golf left."
Mickelson immediately made birdie, his first of the day, and then made two more to finish with a 1-over 71. The runner-up in an epic Open Championship duel with Henrik Stenson just 11 days ago walked to a podium near the clubhouse and said the crowd had kept him in the ballgame, only a half-dozen shots south of Jimmy Walker's lead.
"[Of] the support that the people here in the New Jersey, New York metropolitan area have given me over the years," Mickelson said, "today was the day that it helped the most." The love affair between Mickelson and greater New York rages on without much in the way of an explanation, and Thursday's survival test in oppressive heat only reinforced the relationship. But at age 46, six years removed from a diagnosis of a potentially debilitating condition known as psoriatic arthritis, Mickelson also reminded everyone that he is the toughest player from the Tiger Woods generation -- other than Tiger Woods himself.
Durability might be the most underappreciated part of Mickelson's career. When Woods was pummeling people in his dynastic prime, most contenders dropped on command and never got back up. Mickelson at least staggered to his feet and kept working the problem. "And once Phil got over the hump," his caddie, Bones Mackay, said Thursday, "it got to a point where he couldn't wait to be paired with Tiger."
Mickelson claimed 33 of his 42 PGA Tour victories after Woods' first two victories as a pro late in the 1996 season. Mickelson also won all five of his major championships after Tiger's most dominant stretch -- the seven majors he won in an 11-major stretch from the 1999 PGA to the 2002 U.S. Open.
"If Phil has proven one thing in his career, it's that he's a very resilient guy," Mackay said. "He's the guy who can fly home before the first round of the U.S. Open, and everyone thinks he's crazy for going home for his daughter's junior high graduation, and then he comes back and is the first-round leader. If you tell him he can't do something, he's that much more likely to do it."
Before the 2004 Masters, Mickelson was the dazed and confused face of the prototypical Woods opponent. He had no majors to his name and, at 33, people weren't sure if he would ever win a big one. But he broke through at Augusta National, and then notarized his quest for greatness 16 months later at Baltusrol, where he tapped the Jack Nicklaus plaque in the 18th fairway with his 3-wood and hit a 247-yard shot into the greenside rough.
Mickelson faced a chip shot that he said he'd hit "thousands of times" in the practice area his father built in their San Diego backyard, stopped it 3 feet from the cup, and made the birdie putt to separate himself as a multiple major winner. "If anyone in the world had to make that shot," his father, Phil Sr., said that day, "I'd give the best odds to the guy who just did."
All these years later, with an injured Woods seemingly all but done, Mickelson remains a clear and present danger to the rest of the field. At Troon, he shot an opening-round 63 that should've been a 62, and his final-round 65 would've given him an 11-stroke victory and his sixth major if only Henrik Stenson had decided to take up tennis as a child.
"I want to knock on wood when I say this," Mackay said, "but Phil always had a swing that was long and loose and without much tension or torque. Fred Couples had that, and even with a bad back he's competing at the Masters when he's in his 50s, so I thought that would hopefully speak to Phil being competitive well into his 40s and 50s. I thought his swing might render him injury-free moving forward."
The caddie credited Mickelson's swing coach, Andrew Getson, for making critical changes in his man's approach. "Phil's been hitting it like he hit it at the British 80 percent of the year, and that's awesome," Mackay said. "And that gives Phil so much want, if you know what I mean."
Mickelson is on record with this want: He wants Woods to return to the tour for the good of the game. Nobody has been more consistent than Mickelson in pointing out how Woods made opponents richer and more visible, and in reminding how today's Big Four of Jason Day, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson do not compare to yesterday's Big One in a blood-red shirt.
"I hear Phil telling Tiger stories, telling people they don't realize just how good this guy was," Mackay said. "You can say X, Y and Z about what's going on out here now, but I've heard Phil say, 'Let's be clear here. This is a guy who won the U.S. Open by 15 shots and did whatever he wanted to do.' Phil to this day speaks very reverentially about their rivalry and just how great Tiger was."
Woods had his share of rivals over the years, some more legitimate than others. David Duval. Vijay Singh. Ernie Els. Sergio Garcia. Retief Goosen. Davis Love III. None won as much or held up as impressively as Phil did, not even close. That's why Mickelson could be taken seriously when he said on the eve of this PGA Championship, "I think there's a really big window of opportunity to add to my resume."
Mickelson was dreadful early Thursday, and later rebuked himself for hitting what he called "terrible shots the first 11 holes." He recovered in a way you would expect from one of the top 10 players of all time. Mickelson has never been ranked No. 1 in the world, and has never won Player of the Year, but he's already done enough surviving and thriving in Tiger's time to earn his standing among the game's greats.
In fact, in 36 career head-to-head pairings, Mickelson's record against Woods is 16-16-4 (He was 5-10-3 at the halfway point). Butch Harmon, the former swing coach for both players, helped Mickelson learn a few of Tiger's tricks along the way, but mostly, Lefty leaned on his own talent and resilience in making the comeback.
Can he do the same here at Baltusrol?
"I'm in a position where I know I'm playing well," Mickelson said. "If I go out tomorrow and just play a good round, I think I can shoot mid-60s and get back in it."
And if that happens, Bones Mackay said, his boss ought to find that fan who encouraged him Thursday and buy the man a beer. If nothing else, it would be a perfect Phil Mickelson, Greater New York thing.