KEY POINTS:
The first-round showdown between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson was certainly living up to its dramatic billing, as one of the most eagerly awaited US Opens in recent times began here yesterday morning. Rarely have the opening hours of a major championship been filled with such tension, not to mention interest.
The USGA's bold decision to pair the world Nos 1 and 2 (Adam Scott was the significant other in the three-ball) for the first two rounds produced the intended fireworks as Torrey Pines got off to a crackling start. From the moment, Woods' drive off the first tee flew wide left and nestled behind a tree, the tone was set. Brilliance and disaster duly followed.
Woods, as is his way, overcame the double bogey with three birdies on the fourth, eighth and ninth. There was no trace of a limp following the knee operation in April that has kept him off the golf course for nine weeks.
Indeed, he swaggered up the fourth fairway following a sensational shot from a fairway bunker to 60cm. His tee-shot on the par-three eighth was just as good as he landed his iron over the pin to allow the slope to bring it back to the hole. The 1 1/2m putt was never missing, and the little pump of the fist informed California that Tiger was back in his natural habitat.
Mickelson, meanwhile, was also on ground all too familiar as his errant driving had him operating from the rough. With a couple of 1 1/4m putts slipping by, San Diego's favourite son bogeyed three in a row from the fifth, and after being two ahead of his nemesis, he was now four behind at the turn. It was an interesting contrast in styles; just as everyone had expected it to be.
In his morning column on the ESPN website, American writer Rick Reilly had called it perfectly. The galleries that descended on the municipal links were split in two - those rooting for Woods and those for Mickelson.
As Reilly pointed out, it was impossible to sit on the fence.
"It's un-American," he pointed out. Reilly was very much in Lefty's camp.
"Phil is so much more interesting," he wrote.
"Tiger's in the fairway. Phil's in a lady's Prada! Tiger's on the green. Phil is banking it off a pine, a boulder and a San-o-let!
"Tiger makes a four-footer for a what-else-is-new four. Phil makes a seagoing 30-footer for a did-you-see-that four!
"It's the difference between watching Dow Jones and Indiana Jones."
The trouble is Mickelson was rather closer to the temple of doom than his rival.
Still, the audience was not complaining. There may have been names higher up on the leaderboard, but there were only two that mattered, both at the course and on television, which was shamelessly biased towards one grouping in its live broadcast.
It all seemed grossly unfair for the rest of the morning starters. The blimp camera showed masses of humanity (and quite a few journalists, too) following the marquee three-ball and one man - minus his dog - following everyone else.
Yes, Woods, Mickelson and Scott were playing under the spotlight in the US Open, while the others were apparently playing under a peaceful sun in the Torrey Pines monthly medal.
- INDEPENDENT
