Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson remain the best of enemies

The 2009 Masters was perfectly in tune with these economical times. It was the two-in-one Masters, the one that gave extra value for money.
The tournament was won by Ángel Cabrera after an incident-filled final afternoon, including the first three-man play-off for 22 years. But as major championships go, this one will be remembered as much for the final-day duel between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Perhaps more than any other, the sight of the two best players in the world going at one another on a sunny afternoon in Georgia brought the roars back to Augusta.
Billy Payne, the chairman of Augusta National, had spoken of how hurt he had been at criticism in previous years, when bad weather accentuated the testing demands of the course, making Augusta not a place of worship for golf fans but a venue where they struggled to keep warm and applaud the contestants.
It was the thrust and counter-thrust by Woods and Mickelson that brought home how the atmosphere had changed this year. They were born within a few hundred miles and less than six years apart in California. They stood on the 1st tee on Sunday afternoon within touching distance, but one looking one way, one the other. Why do they find it so hard to like one another? The historical fairways are full of rivalries. Remember the Great Triumvirate at the turn of the 20th century. Think of Ben Hogan and Sam Snead in the US and Severiano Ballesteros and Paul Azinger in the Ryder Cup. When Jack Nicklaus burst upon the scene, Arnold Palmer used to refer to him sneeringly as “the German”. Remember Nick Faldo and a number of players? Darren Clarke and Colin Montgomerie?
Perhaps Woods is more logical, cool and practical, Mickelson more artistic and harder to predict. Mickelson carried two drivers at Augusta in 2007, yet at last year’s US Open at Torrey Pines, the longest course for a major championship, he did not carry one at all. This sort of puzzling thinking may be why the Woods camp regard Mickelson as “flaky”. Mickelson once suggested that Woods’s equipment was out of date, which did not go down well in the Woods camp. When Hal Sutton paired them in the Ryder Cup in 2004, there was no chemistry between them and only Sutton was surprised when they lost — twice.
Steve Williams, Woods’s caddie, said what he thought of Mickelson in New Zealand late last year. He had been asked what the relationship was like between the two. There was no relationship, Williams replied. Mickelson, he said, was a “p****”.
Nothing more needed to be added to spice up the potency of the pairing that teed off at 1.35pm on Sunday. For 3½ hours thereafter, it was all that was expected: Mickelson, playing superb golf, reached the turn in 30, equalling the Masters record; Woods was out in 33. Two strokes told the story. While Woods’s tee-shot on the 1st went so far left it ended on the 9th fairway, Mickelson produced a stroke of pure brilliance on the 7th, a recovery from the treeline to the right, a slinging hook that curved 25 yards in the air and ended a handspan from the hole.
Goodness knows what was going through Woods’s mind as he watched this display by his rival. On many of the 23 occasions when they had played together before, Woods had come out on top. This time he was being given a masterclass. Each birdie by the world No 2 must have felt like a punch to his solar plexus.
Mickelson’s first error came on the 12th, when he failed to hit his tee-shot hard enough and his ball ran back into Rae’s Creek for a double-bogey five. His second came on the 15th, where he missed a putt that was barely longer than the shaft of his putter for what would have been an eagle three. Outplayed on the outward nine holes, Woods was slowly clawing his way back. By the time he birdied the 16th, he was ten under par and within two shots of the lead.
Then, just as it had started, it ended. It was like the popping of a balloon. Mickelson missed another short putt for birdie on the 17th, Woods bogeyed that hole and drove into the trees that line the right of the 18th fairway. The moment had gone. Mickelson finished nine under par, one stroke ahead of Woods but three strokes out of the play-off.
Rarely have two men in contention played so well. They had 12 birdies and an eagle between them over the first 16 holes. “It was a great show,” David Feherty said on CBS Television. “It was a fantastic show.”
After such a performance, you might have thought that the compatriots could forget their differences for a moment, the way boxers sometimes fall into one another’s arms at the conclusion of a title bout, or as Nicklaus and Tom Watson did at the 1977 Open at Turnberry — the “Duel in the Sun”.
But no. Perhaps the sting of defeat was too great. There was another brief handshake and that was all. Their reactions spoke a lot about their characters. Woods, stony-faced and curt, described his ball-striking as “terrible”. Mickelson, smiling, said: “Playing with Tiger was fun. We’ve had some good matches. I always enjoy it.”
And so the attention turned to Chad Campbell, Cabrera and Kenny Perry, a 48-year-old American who had a chance to become the oldest man to win a major championship. Had Perry prevailed, he would have beaten the record of Nicklaus, who was 46 when he won at Augusta in 1986, and older by four months than Julius Boros, who was 48 years and four months when he won the 1968 US PGA Championship. Instead, it was Cabrera’s day.
Rivals through the ages
Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player Known as “The Big Three”, they dominated the game in the Sixties.
Nicklaus and Tom Watson Had huge respect for one another and fought several memorable duels.
Severiano Ballesteros and Paul Azinger A tenseness was always evident in Ryder Cup play. They made up later.
Harry Vardon, James Braid and J. H. Taylor The Great Triumvirate, rivals at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries.
Source:The times