SAINT-QUENTIN-en-YVELINES, France — Phil Mickelson played a Ryder Cup practice round Tuesday with Tiger Woods, who’s fresh off his Tour Championship victory Sunday, and was astounded with what he witnessed.
“This is the best I think I’ve ever seen him swing the club, even going back to 2000 when I thought he was at his best,” Mickelson said. “He’s striking it so solidly that nobody was surprised that has played with him that he won, and I think that now that that first win is out of the way, I think he’s going to start rattling off some more.”
Mickelson, who finished last in the field last week in Atlanta, then joked about the Thanksgiving one-on-one, pay-per-view match he has coming up with Woods.
“I was talking about it [Tuesday]; Tiger striped it today, I think he missed one fairway for the round, and I’m trying to negotiate a shot a side,” he said. “It didn’t go over very well in the initial discussions, but I’m still working on it. We’ve got some negotiating to do given how well he played last week.”
When Mickelson’s press conference was complete and Patrick Reed entered the room, Mickelson asked Reed, “Do you think one a side is enough with the way [Woods] is playing?”
Reed shook his head and said, “Nope.”
Mickelson was asked if he would like another chance to be paired in the Ryder Cup with Woods. They were paired together in the foursomes by 2004 captain Hal Sutton and lost badly.
“I think we would both welcome it,” Mickelson said.
Asked if that pairing is a possibility this week, Mickelson said with a wry smile, “I do have an idea of what captain [Jim] Furyk is thinking, yeah.”
And that was it.
Woods said he hasn’t had a chance to soak in the fruits of his first win in five years because the last couple days have been a whirlwind. What he did recall was the madness of the scene on 18 Sunday with thousands of fans following him and the sounds he heard.
“You know, the art of the clap is gone,” Woods said. “People don’t clap because how can you clap when you have a cellphone in your hand? People are now screaming and they are pretty loud, and especially late in the day when it’s hot and they have tipped back a few, it gets even louder. I think this week will be the same … but even louder.”
The European players and captains are wearing a yellow ribbon this week to honor 22-year-old Spanish golfer Celia Barquin Arozamena, who was murdered last week on a golf course in Iowa.
“The golfing family extends way beyond what we are trying to do this week,’’ European captain Thomas Bjorn said Tuesday. “Those events in America with Celia being killed playing golf is something that’s hit everybody in the golf family, and obviously our two Spanish players very much. And we felt like that after a conversation from Ryder Cup Europe with Celia’s mother, that we would honor her this week.
“That’s what we are doing, and it’s nothing about us, but it’s just more about that the golfing family gets touched by these things all over the world. It’s terrible when things like this happen. Such a great prospect for the game of golf, she was, but also a wonderful person. And when you speak to Sergio [Garcia] and Jon [Rahm] about it, they couldn’t talk highly enough about her. We felt like that was appropriate for the week.”
On a lighter note, Bjorn joked that Justin Rose, who won the $10 million prize Sunday for winning the FedEx Cup playoffs, “will pick up the bill this week.”
