Golf Central

Phil Mickelson is either the nicest man in the world or crazy. Standing at the third tee on day four of the FBR Open, his caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay approached Drew Fockler and his father saying Mickelson wanted to talk to them. Sure enough, an envelope was handed to the pair with Super Bowl tickets inside.

“I thought it would be fun to give it to a father-son (group),” said Mickelson when asked about his kind gesture. “What an incredible humanitarian Phil Mickelson is,” said the elder Fockler, John.

If Mickelson had known when he gave away his Row Ten Seat One ticket to the 11-year-old that the Giants would beat the Patriots 17-14 in a classic for the ages, maybe he would have given up his “please like me image” for a bit of self-greed. Mind you, not much surprises us: We've seen Pedro Guerrero, perhaps one of the most vilified players of baseball's steroids era, give away a wad of tickets for baseball's All-Star Game with just a smile and no strings attached. Here's what our pals at the Arizona Republic had to say.

On this day in 1971, at the end of the second successful moonwalk of the Apollo 14 space mission, US Navy Captain Alan B. Shepard became the only person (to our knowledge) to hit a golf ball on the moon.

Conspiracy theorists, internet wackos, and all sorts will say that Shepard was never even on the moon at all, let alone crushing a golf ball for "miles and miles and miles" with a 6-iron that he smuggled onboard the spacecraft inside his space suit. Let's just say that modern-day big-hitters like JB Holmes and Tiger Woods couldn't hit one quite as far as Capt. Shepard muscled up on his 6-iron, many moons away. We like the story just the way it is ...

On this day in 1966, one of golf's finest but unluckiest golf champions of the modern era was born in Hondarribia, in Spain's Basque region: José María Olazábal.

Breaking onto the scene as a junior, Ollie won the (British) Amateur in 1984 at the age of 18. And it wasn't long before Olazábal made his mark as a pro: Despite a career plagued by bizarre injuries, Olazábal is the proud owner of two Green Jackets, has been a force on Europe's Ryder Cup teams, and is renowned as one of the most creative scramblers of the modern day ...

And now we see how the big the gap is between No. 1 and No. 2 in the world ...: Big. You've got that right. Just when you thought the FBR couldn't produce nearly the drama of what happened in Dubai, we had Lefty charging back to nearly win the thing from four shots down.
That's what Tiger did in Dubai, isn't it?: He sure did. But hometown boy Phil Mickelson just couldn't pull it off for his 33rd PGA Tour win. He played a brilliant closing round, got to 14-under, which should have been 15-under had he not been unlucky with a putt that grazed the hole on the last.
Still, Phil got into a playoff, didn't he?: Yes, but instead of sealing the deal, he got overpowered by young JB Holmes, who had a slice of the lead for most of the last three rounds. But JB got it done. And that's two wins now for the huge-hitting 25-year-old from Kentucky, both in Scottsdale.
How did JB do that?: He simply overpowered Phil Mickelson. He came up with a clutch birdie on the 18th to tie Phil in the clubhouse in regulation, then blew Phil away with pure power on the first playoff hole.
That was a heck of a tee shot ...: I'm not sure heck describes it properly. It was herculean. Phil split the fairway with his driver, then JB cranked a 359-yarder that left him a little wedge to the green. He outdrove Mickelson, who is a long hitter, by nearly 80 yards.
So all this stuff the club-makers say about distance is true, then?: In this case it was ... it was a matter of feet and inches. Mickelson had a gap wedge for his approach on the playoff hole, but he was wide by 20 feet from 137 yards out. Whereas Holmes just flipped a little wedge shot onto the green from 72 yards out and made the eight-footer ...
And the rest, they say, is history ...: And Phil Mickelson will just have to wait to carve out another niche of his history, while Tiger just did it ... again.
What's next?: Well, Tiger takes a couple of weeks off and Phil Mickelson regroups himself for Pebble Beach, where he's defending champ. And you should re-group a bit, yourself ...
Speaking of re-grouping, or should I say re-groupie-ing, where did Camilo Villegas finish?: I shouldn't even answer that question, but since you asked, 5-under, tied for 34th.
So-so week for him after his hot start ...: I didn't say what he was 5-under ...
We'd better clean it up before we hit Pebble Beach ...: We'd better had.