Mickelson Says He’ll Be Putting His Game in Drive

MAMARONECK, N.Y. —  When he won the Masters, Phil Mickelson used a two-driver strategy, and when the U.S. Open begins Thursday, he has an even grander plan for drivers: four of them.

He’s not going to carry all of them at once at Winged Foot, of course, and Mickelson said Tuesday that he probably would almost exclusively use the same fade driver with the 45-inch shaft that helped him win at Augusta National.

“You can hit driver on basically every hole,” he said. “And the holes that you can’t, I feel very comfortable with a fairway wood. So distance not being a factor here, although it’s a long course, the premium is on getting the ball in play.

“I won’t be using a longer driver, trying to get distance like I did at Augusta; I’ll be using a driver that hits that controlled cut and keeps it in play.”

The left-handed Mickelson said he probably would hit a fade off every tee, except the eighth and 17th, where he’ll hit a draw.

The narrow fairways at Winged Foot, 28 yards across at their widest points, have made Mickelson’s decision easier. “I’m trying to get the ball just to come in a lot softer,” he said. “I don’t want to hit a draw where the ball runs.”

If he wants to use it, Mickelson said that Callaway made a special driver with a 43-inch shaft that plays between a driver and a three-wood and travels about 15 to 25 yards shorter than his regular driver.

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Madalitso Muthiya, 23, qualified at Columbus, Ohio, and will be the first player from Zambia to play in the U.S. Open. Muthiya turned pro last year after attending the University of New Mexico and has played two events this year on the Canadian Tour -- missing one cut and tying for 27th in the other. His total professional winnings: $892.

From Kitwe, Zambia, Muthiya played soccer until he was 9 and his father gave him a set of his old golf clubs. Muthiya turned that into a scholarship at New Mexico, where he was named to the All-Southwest Region team.

Muthiya said he never had a lesson until he went to college.

“I wanted to swing like Nick Faldo,” he said.

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Tiger Woods was asked about the motorcycle accident suffered by Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

So what is it about high-paid athletes that makes them want to do dangerous things?

“I look at it this way,” Woods said. “I’ll live once, and I enjoy going for the par fives in two. It’s an adrenaline rush ... “

Woods has driven a race car, among other pulse-raising pursuits.

“I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, so I don’t know what the rush is there, but I’m sure there is,” he said. “I’ve bungee jumped and done other crazy things.”

What other crazy things?

“I’m not going to talk about it,” he said. “Mom is probably watching.”

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Michael Campbell hasn’t had much success since being the surprise winner of last year’s U.S. Open at Pinehurst.

Based on how many times he used the word “very” in the following sentence, however, don’t count him out this week at Winged Foot.

“I’m very confident,” Campbell said. “I’m a person who rides on a wave for a very long time. I’m like a switch, and I can turn on very, very quickly. And I feel that being here this week makes me very excited, makes me feel very at ease with myself and very comfortable with my defense. I’m feeling very, very, confident right now.”

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While Michelle Wie was busy Tuesday filming a Nike commercial at Bonnie Briar Country Club in nearby Larchmont, another teenager from Honolulu was getting ready to play the U.S. Open. Tadd Fujikawa, 15, a high school sophomore, won the regional qualifying event on Kauai and is the youngest in the post-World War II era to accomplish the feat. The youngest player in U.S. Open history is Tyrell Garth, who qualified at 14 in 1941.

“When he qualified, we were all in shock,” said Lori Fujikawa, Todd’s mother.

Wie, 16, missed out at sectional qualifying last week at Summit, N.J., but would have been the first female to make the U.S. Open field.

Fujikawa made a 65-foot birdie putt in a playoff to advance out of local qualifying in the same field as Wie, who was the medalist.

If Fujikawa hadn’t made the U.S. Open field, he would be playing in the AJGA Footjoy Boys Invitational.

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From Ernie Els, about the nine appearances by Mickelson at Winged Foot leading up to the U.S. Open: “He’s obviously taking it quite seriously.”