Questions remain for Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson

Reporting from Dublin, Ohio — Tiger Woods began his scorecard with 3-3-3-3. Phil Mickelson chipped in for a thrilling birdie — one hole after a kick-in eagle continued to clean out his skins-game foes.

Save it for Sunday, guys. Or at least Friday.

If golf’s two leading men sought to ease concerns about their form with the year’s second major around the corner, Wednesday’s Memorial tournament prelude offered encouraging signs. But the questions really don’t start to get answered until the curtain goes up for real.

“It was just a total mess-around,” Woods said. “It was having a good time.”

Two weeks before the U.S. Open doesn’t offer much time for messing around. It’s a time for the game’s top pros to start bringing their games to a peak, and right now Woods and Mickelson are dogged by more questions than answers.

For Woods, the Memorial is his first start since his injury withdrawal at the Players Championship, where neck pain prompted him to walk in after just six holes of the final round. After a winter full of sex-scandal discontent, he has just 9 1/3 rounds to his season.

Mickelson, meanwhile, won the Masters but has come up empty in two recent chances to overtake Woods for the No. 1 spot in the world rankings. Last week produced a stunner, missing the cut on a Colonial course where just about everyone else broke par with ease.

Never before have Woods and Mickelson both arrived at the same venue trying to rise above an early exit in their previous outings. And the timing isn’t exactly ideal.

“I haven’t been in this position before,” said Woods, who until this year had never went back-to-back starts without cashing a paycheck. His withdrawal at the Players, though, followed an ugly missed cut at the Quail Hollow Championship.

“I’d like to see where my game is at going into the Open. I’d like to get a full tournament in, which I haven’t had since the Masters.”

That fourth-place finish in his 2010 debut remains the highlight of his year. Then came the missed cut in Charlotte, the withdrawal at Sawgrass and the May 10 blindside when swing coach Hank Haney opted to sever their affiliation.

Woods said his neck is behaving well enough to return to action — to the point that he played 54 holes Sunday back home at Isleworth. The coaching vacancy will remain unfilled, choosing to rely on video in searching for the swing that won six events last year.

“That’s the great thing about technology. We can use video,” Woods said.

Wednesday’s result wasn’t bad. Though he still missed his share of fairways, he opened birdie/eagle to win the first two holes of his skins game and claimed the final four skins in a chip-off.

Mickelson, meanwhile, has no explanation for his struggles last week. But if Wednesday served as any indicator, it might have been a mere blip.

The lefty won five holes and all nine skins of his competition, including a three-wood/two-iron combo at the par-five15th that led to a three-foot eagle.

“He just killed us,” Ernie Els said. “Made the eagles, made the birdies.”

Mickelson said: “Usually it’s just little tweaks here and there. I think that’s all it was.”

jshain@orlandosentinel.com