Golf: Major effort to lose that tag

AUGUSTA - World No 2 Phil Mickelson is determined to rid himself of the tag of the best golfer not to have won a major championship.

"I've made a bunch of mistakes here in the past and it has cost me tournaments because of bad decision making," Mickelson said in Augusta yesterday.

"This year I am going in there with the mindset of not needing to birdie every par-five.

"I don't need to attack every pin. I'm going to try to make fewer birdies, try to make four or five a round instead of seven or eight, and I'm going to take some of those holes and just accept par.

"Now that's easier said than done, because at a lot of the holes you have to hit almost perfect golf shots just to make par."

Mickelson confessed he was concerned by his failure to win a major.

"It's disappointing," he said. "I certainly thought coming out of college, after having won a tour event while I was still in college, that I would have not just one major but hopefully more.

"However, I also feel I have improved each year. I believe I'm a better player than I have ever been, and if I'm able to put it together, make smart decisions and hit smart golf shots, then I will break through soon."

Mickelson, a five-time winner in the past year, is also eyeing his place in golf history.

"These next 10 years are very important to me because I want to be looked at in a certain light. In this next decade if I am able to win some majors I can be looked on differently than a player who has won a lot of events but never a major.

"I don't feel like it is that far away," he said.

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods yesterday opted to let posterity judge whether victory in the Masters and a fourth consecutive major would represent an authentic Grand Slam.

Deftly avoiding possible verbal traps, Woods said that winning the four majors in the course of a calendar year was more difficult than capturing four titles in succession.

"But I believe that if you can put all four trophies on your coffee table, you can make a pretty good case for that, too," he said.

Woods was asked whether three great former champions, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, had been wrong when they said the majors had to be claimed in a calendar year for them to count as a genuine Grand Slam.

"I'm not saying they're wrong," Woods replied calmly. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion."

Invited to compare his feats with those of Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan, Woods was equally sure-footed.

Jones, co-founder of the Masters, won the US and British Opens, plus the US and British Amateurs, in 1930, the Grand Slam of his day.

Hogan won the Masters, US Open and British Open in 1953, but did not compete in the PGA because the dates overlapped with qualifying for the British Open.

"Obviously, what Bobby Jones did in 1930 was just absolutely incredible and what Hogan did in 1953 was incredible," Woods said.

"Whether I do it or not, just to be able to say, or to have people start saying those kinds of things, means I've done all right for myself."

- AGENCIES