An Underwhelming Start to TPC

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- OK, time's up. We can only get so far with patience, waiting politely for Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson to start acting like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.

The leaderboard after the first round at the Players Championship reads Crane, Mallinger, Johnson, Cejka and Byrd. This is not what we signed up for. It's only the first round, yes, but the PGA Tour really wants to have a major championship of its own, seeing how it doesn't run any of the true majors, and it can't convince anyone with Crane, Mallinger, Johnson, Cejka and Byrd.

Woods went early in the day, shooting 1-under, 71, in what looked at the time like the definition of mediocre on a hard course. Was the round more frustrating or disappointing?

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"Both," Woods said. "I hit the ball well enough to -- this is probably the highest score I could have shot today, and I didn't get a whole lot out of my round today. That's the way it goes."

But as the day went on, and other scores came in, Woods' day was reframed into something that was doing a slow swirl down the toilet bowl. Thirty-eighth place. Mickelson was in 79th, at 1-over, 73. Ben Crane, the leader, shot 65.

"I just played terrible," Mickelson said.

You try not to draw too many conclusions from a first round. So we twiddle our thumbs and wait, as golf has been doing since Woods came back from knee surgery a few months ago. They had one moment, as a pairing on the final day of the Masters. Both came from nowhere to get close and then choke in the end.

They so overwhelmed the day that it took away from the old guy who won the tournament. No wait, old guy blew it, too, Some other guy won.

Can Crane hold your interest for a day? We love these guys-out-of-nowhere stories, like Cinderella teams in the NCAA Tournament. They're usually gone soon. But Crane wasn't much of a player in high school or college, and slowly, piece by piece, pulled himself up.

He sat in the media room afterward, talking to a bunch of empty seats and a couple of writers about his dream round. Not exactly the scene you'd expect for a leader at a near-major. Someone asked him about his round, and he took a big bite of a Yammit protein bar, which apparently is chewy and tough to swallow.

We waited.

"You know, people always ask when do you know you're good enough to make the tour," he said. "The day I made the tour. When do you know you were good enough to win? The day I won in Atlanta.

"There's no question I would much rather be known as a hard worker than a phenom who's come out and expected to do a lot of things, because when I face adversity, then I realize I need to work hard and do these things as opposed to ... I think some guys who are labeled great players before they come out, sometimes adversity is tougher."

Is that what's happening to Tiger? Phenom pressure? No. Phil? Maybe.

Woods has been driving much shorter than he did before having major reconstructive knee surgery. But he says he isn't in pain, and he can practice after rounds and play consecutive tournaments. It's all one step and the next on his way back to the mountain top.

I don't believe he buys that himself anymore. When he's thinking about different drivers, different shafts, tinkering like all the other nervous Nellies in golf, well, that suggests he has lost confidence.



"I hit it right there the first four holes right out of the gate, inside 15 feet on all four of them, and didn't make any of [the putts]," Woods said. "No, I hung in there, and unfortunately just didn't make enough putts today. I was in position all day."

Woods insisted that he was hitting better off the tee. But during his practice round a day earlier, wasn't he pushing it off the tee?

"I was flinching all the time," he said. "All the cameras were going off in my downswing. I didn't have that problem today, which was nice. And I can go ahead and actually play a little golf."

Patience. Stalling. This was as easy as this course can play. Lee Trevino said he'd like to help Woods work with his driver.

For Mickelson, there is the pressure of the possibility of finally taking Woods' No. 1 ranking. He practiced for two hours before Thursday's round, twice his normal, because he knew he wouldn't have time before Friday's early-morning round.

"So that was my practice for two rounds," he said.

Then he wore out.

So we wait, and talk about other things. Mickelson practiced early in the week with quarterback Tim Tebow. They even had a contest to see who could throw a football farther.

"He beat me by two yards," Mickelson said.

Pretty good.

"He threw from his knees."

What else is there? Mickelson took off the white belt he had been ripped for lately, and wore what looked like brown alligator with brown striped pants and brown shoes. So I asked Mr. Style, who writes a golf style page for Golf Digest.

"I think Phil looks like a million bucks today," he said. What about his new look in general lately, with the pushed-up sleeves, the too-tight shirt and the, gulp, white belt?

"If your age or your waist size are more than 38," Mr. Style said, "you shouldn't wear a white belt."

So that's it. Woods is taking a little too long to get it back together and Mickelson can't decide if he's going to be great or to disappear. That's golf's grand rivalry.

And the PGA Tour's signature moment has Crane, Mallinger, Johnson, Cejka and Byrd.