Phil infatuation

Jun 11, 2006 (Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News delivered by Newstex) --
Love can be so inscrutable.

The initial attraction that sparks a romance can't always be understood.

How else do you explain the entertainment world's pairing of Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts not so long ago?

Or Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley?

Or Kermit and Miss Piggy?

And yet none of those relationships is stranger than the passion New Yorkers are rekindling for Phil Mickelson with the Barclays Classic ending in Westchester today and the U.S. Open beginning this week at Winged Foot.

Back-to-back weeks of Mickelson is barely enough for New Yorkers because they don't seem able to get their fill of Phil as he tries to win his third consecutive major championship.

On the surface, it's a peculiar attraction because Mickelson seems so at odds with the rude, gritty and no-nonsense nature of New York sports fans.

Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, Joe Namath, Lawrence Taylor, Mark Messier and ... Phil Mickelson? New York sports idols?

Mickelson is a West Coast guy, born and raised in Southern California. He's a rich, country club kid. He's married to a former cheerleader, flies a private jet and sports a relentless smile that might get anyone else slapped on a New York City subway car.

Sure, New Yorkers love winners, but Mickelson was a bona-fide failure on golf's grandest stages when New Yorkers first fell in love with him at the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black four years ago.

He was 0 for 40 in major championships when he arrived at Bethpage. He came with the kind of credentials New Yorkers would boo at Madison Square Garden or Yankee Stadium. It wouldn't have been a stretch to hear New Yorkers jeer him as an underachieving choker in majors, to deride him as "a bum."

But you remember what they did, don't you?

They sang "Happy Birthday" to him at nearly every hole in the final round on his 32nd birthday. They cheered him at every tee box like he was the home team in the Garden. Folks bellowed that he ought to run for governor, asked if they could get him a hot dog or a beer on the tee boxes. And all the way around, he smiled and tipped his cap, looking all those New Yorkers in the eyes in a way that made them feel like he was one of them.

This was the same crowd that so frustrated Sergio Garcia with its taunts, he flipped an inappropriate finger at his hecklers.

"New Yorkers can be cruel," says Joe Rehor, director of golf at Bethpage Black. "But Phil, he's like a cult hero here."

Scott Van Pelt, the ESPN and former Golf Channel announcer, watched this relationship develop in awe.

"It's a phenomenon," Van Pelt says. "You could see New Yorkers rallying around some crooked-nose tough guy, but Phil's the antithesis of that. I have no idea what it is they identify with."

Now Mickelson has become the kind of winner New Yorkers love. He's trying to join Tiger Woods and Ben Hogan as the only men to win three consecutive professional majors in the modern Grand Slam rotation.

With two Masters titles and a PGA Championship to his credit, Mickelson is bidding to win his first U.S. Open.

"I can't think of a better place to do it than at Winged Foot," Mickelson said.

Mickelson has finished second in the last two U.S. Opens played in New York. He was runner-up to Woods at Bethpage and second to Retief Goosen at Shinnecock two years ago.

Of course, his PGA Championship title was practically in New York, coming across the Hudson River in New Jersey at Baltusrol last August. His wife, Amy, is welcomed in the area as warmly as he is.

"I love playing in the metropolitan area," Mickelson says. "People are terrific. Amy and I have had some incredible memories that have been made here in this area.

"Baltusrol was just a special memory, but it really started at Bethpage, where even though I didn't win, it was an experience of a lifetime."

Mickelson will turn 36 on Friday in the second round, and he figures to get serenaded again.

While Mickelson can't explain why New Yorkers love him so, he understands his eager interaction with fans is part of it. Nobody signs autographs longer than Mickelson. No golfer makes eye-to-eye contact as meaningfully with fans as he does. Nobody reacts as gratefully and as consistently to the warmth of fans the way he does.

"I have people in my practice who are absolutely wild about Phil Mickelson," says Dr. Richard Lustberg, a New York-based sports psychologist. "They're Phil Mickelson groupies.

"All I can tell you is that up close, they like the way he interacts with them. The way he looks at them, talks to them, smiles at them. He strikes them as a guy with no pretensions, a guy who doesn't act like a superstar but someone comfortable with common folk."

The image is at odds with the portrait Gentleman's Quarterly painted of Mickelson in February, when it ranked him among its "Ten Most Hated Athletes." The magazine billed its rankings as based on its survey of an athlete's peers, ranking Mickelson No. 8 on a list led by No. 1 Terrell Owens and No. 2 Barry Bonds.

If there's phoniness about Mickelson, as some of his critics claim, New Yorkers haven't detected it.

"He's got that Arnold Palmer quality people like," says Doug Steffen, Baltusrol's director of golf. "Athletes are put on such a high pedestal in New York, but when they acknowledge the fans, show appreciation for the support, it makes people watching them feel important. Phil comes across as genuine."

Van Pelt believes New Yorkers at Bethpage identified with Mickelson because they wanted to root for an underdog just like them. Bethpage is a public golf course, not a country club, and it was considered an upset that an everyman course like it would be selected to host a U.S. Open.

With Woods going for his second consecutive major championship at Bethpage, the eighth of what has become his 10 major titles, the major-less Mickelson was the underdog. Relatively speaking, he was the poor man seeking to upset the rich man.

"I think they identified with that," Van Pelt said.

Today, New Yorkers can't stop feeling like Mickelson's still one of them and that his ability to overcome is also theirs.

Newstex ID: KRTB-0067-9132837