It was 1:50 p.m. on Masters Sunday, exactly one hour before the day’s final tee time, and Fred Couples was running late.
Hustling down the central corridor of the clubhouse at Augusta National, he neared the reception desk, made a U-turn, and headed up a flight of narrow, creaky stairs. When he reached the top he turned left, and crossed the threshold of the Champions Locker Room, the most exclusive room in all of golf.
As he entered he saw Billy Casper, the 1970 tournament winner, sitting with his son Bob at one of three small card tables. They were watching the closed-circuit telecast on a television in the corner. They appeared to be the only people there.
Couples breezed past them on his left on the way to his locker. He was oblivious to the figure on his right, a man lying on a padded bench with his eyes closed and a rolled-up towel under his head.
Now, less than an hour before his and Couples’ tee time, Phil Mickelson was flat on his back, fast asleep.
You couldn’t blame him. It had already been a long day. Because of the usual bad weather—there hadn’t been a dry Masters since 2001—the third round had to be completed that morning. Mickelson began his day at 7:45 a.m., on the 6th hole. He finished at about 11:20, signing for a 70, which lifted him into the lead.
Then he had time to kill. He hit some post-round practice putts, came back to the locker room, and had a sandwich with the Caspers. Although they were both San Diegans, Mickelson had only gotten to know Billy in 2005, at the previous year’s Masters. But already he trusted him enough to use him as an alarm clock. At about 1:30, right after lunch, Mickelson lay down, and told Casper to wake him at 2:00. Then he shut his eyes and was out like a light.
Mickelson was still asleep as Couples slipped on his saddle shoes. What was going through his mind was anyone’s guess.
Maybe he was replaying, on the undersides of his eyelids, his breakthrough 2004 final round. Maybe he was watching a highlight reel of other great Masters moments, like his pal Fred’s final round tee shot at the 12th hole in 1992-- which, hanging up in the grass near the front of the green, refused to roll down into Rae’s Creek, and made his victory seem like the will of the gods.
Later, no one could say what Mickelson was dreaming about, or if he was dreaming at all. Not his wife, nor his caddie, nor Billy Casper, nor even Bertis Downs, a friend who seemed to be present at every memorable dinner Mickelson had that month.
Mickelson couldn’t remember himself. Who knew? He might even have had a premonition about winning the 2006 Masters for his second straight major, and doing the unthinkable: making people believe, just for a moment, that Tiger Woods wasn’t the best golfer in the world.
Maybe that was it. Or maybe it wasn’t. But whether he dreamed it or not, it was about to come true.
. . . .
Back in 1975, in Sports Illustrated, Dan Jenkins wrote that the Masters doesn’t begin until the back nine on Sunday.
But it’s not true. At least not for Phil Mickelson. His 2006 Masters began a full ten days before he hit his opening tee shot.
After signing for a final round 74 at the Players Championship (good for a tie for fourteenth), he got onto his plane—a GII with the monogrammed tail number N800PM-- and took off for Augusta. With him were Jim Mackay and Dave Pelz. They landed at the little private airfield on the south side of town, near the Augusta Municipal Golf Course, hopped into the Ford Explorer that reliably awaited him at every Tour stop (compliments of a local dealership) and rode to their hotel.
The next morning Mickelson played a practice round at the National. Such pre-tournament visits were by now a staple of Mickelson’s Masters preparation. Every year since 2004 he had spent Monday and Tuesday of the week before the Masters in Augusta, then left to compete in that week’s PGA Tour event. The idea behind playing the week before a major was to keep his game “tournament sharp.” He kept the same schedule for the other U.S. majors and, beginning in 2005, for the British Open.
His preparation for this Masters, however, had a novel wrinkle. The night before, when they left the Players, Mickelson pulled a second driver from his locker and tucked it in beside his normal driver. His regular stick was forty-five inches long, with the clubhead weighted to produce a controlled cut, for accuracy. The new one was an inch longer, designed to produce a draw: he could fly it about 305 yards, fifteen farther than the other. Mickelson had been testing longer drivers for almost a year, even putting one into play for two rounds at February’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. But he hadn’t yet thought about using both during the same tournament. Until now.
On Monday morning at Augusta, he hit the draw driver on the first tee. It soared into the distance with a tight, left-to-right ball flight. On the second hole, a downhill par-five, he hit the cut driver, again producing the desired effect. As Mickelson stepped off the tee box with Mackay and Pelz, he said to his coach, “You know, I’m going to keep doing this all day, just to see how it works.”
By the time he made the turn during his Tuesday practice round, he had made a decision. He would play the Masters with both drivers in the bag. He would also do it, just to get used to it, over the next few days at the BellSouth Classic in Atlanta, the lead-in to the Masters.
Getting used to it didn’t take long. In Atlanta on Thursday afternoon, Mickelson birdied six of his first seven holes and shot 63. On Friday morning he backed that up with a ho-hum 65.
The early end to Mickelson’s Friday round gave him liberty to split town. Just before rush hour he and Mackay jumped into the Explorer and headed north to Athens. By 7:30 they were being seated on the veranda at Five & Ten, on South Lumpkin Street, a couple of blocks from the University of Georgia campus.
To say Five & Ten was the best restaurant in Athens didn’t quite do it justice. It was often listed among the ten best restaurants in Atlanta, even though it was seventy miles outside the city limits. Its chef and owner, Hugh Acheson, a 35-year-old Canadian who looked like a harder-working version of Josh Hartnett, had in 2002 been named one of Food & Wine magazine’s ten best new chefs in the U.S.
Dining with Mickelson and Mackay were Mike Mills and Bill Berry. Mills is the lead guitarist for R.E.M., the unassuming little Athens band that, with fellow locals The B-52’s, accidentally conquered large chunks of the music world in the early ‘eighties. Berry, the band’s former drummer, retired, for the most part, after an suffering a near-fatal brain aneurysm onstage in 1995. (He still appears with the band on special occasions).
Also at the table were Bertis Downs and his wife, Katherine. Downs, 50, is R.E.M.’s longtime manager. Raised in Georgia, he is a lawyer by training, and looks like one. His rock ‘n’ roll hair left him long ago, and his heavy brow seems built to think. It’s not hard to pick him out in photos of him and the band. He’s the one wearing a tie. His manner, however, is anything but staid. His enthusiastic, energetic way of talking is just like Mackay’s, which helps explain their long friendship.
Mackay—who lived in Athens before moving to Scottsdale-- first met Downs, Mills and Berry in 1994. A longtime R.E.M. fan, he heard that the two musicians would be playing that year in VH1’s “Fairway to Heaven,” an annual charity event bringing together rockers and golfers. Mackay wrote a letter to Downs introducing himself and volunteering his services. He got the gig, and brought his brother, Tom, along for the ride. Jim looped for Berry and Tom for Mills.
Before long Mackay was part of Downs’, Mills’, and Berry’s casual games at Athens Country Club. Mickelson too soon began coming by for social rounds. After Berry’s aneurysm, Mackay organized a campaign to lift his spirits, convincing every PGA Tour player who had ever heard of the band to fax get well wishes to the drummer at the hospital.
As Downs became part of Mickelson’s and Mackay’s social circle he began throwing a regular Masters Friday dinner party in Augusta. The affair—catered, of course, by Five & Ten owner Acheson—always included Mackay, Couples’ caddie, Joe LaCava, and Davis Love’s man, Cubby Burke. Couples and Love themselves often came by. That’s how those two players, along with Mickelson, became part of Downs’ personal “Big Three.”
Mickelson grew fond enough of Downs to include him in spur-of-the-moment golf outings. In 2002, Downs had flown to Scotland for the British Open at Muirfield. The Wednesday of that week was supposed to be a day of pre-tournament rest for Phil, so on Tuesday night Mackay and Downs hit the pubs, and Bones wound up crashing at Downs’ rented house. Early the next morning Mackay was in the kitchen eating a piece of toast when his phone rang. It was Mickelson.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Not much,” Mackay blearily answered.
“What are you doing?”
“Hanging out with Bert.”
“Well,” said Mickelson, “I’m going to come over and pick you guys up, and we’re going to play St. Andrews.”
Two hours later, the three men were standing on the first tee at the Home of Golf.
At home in Athens, Downs is a regular at Five & Ten. He likes the New American fare, but he loves the wine list. Although he pshaws such terms as “connoisseur,” he vacations in places like the Napa Valley, and keeps a well-stocked cellar whose most valued items are first-growth Bordeaux from great years.
Downs’ oenephilia has always influenced his gift-giving habits. When Davis Love won the 1997 PGA Championship, Downs sent him a vintage bottle from his cellar. Unfortunately, Love didn’t realize how special it was, and ended up drinking it with barbeque. After Mickelson won the 2004 Masters Downs repeated the gesture. Again, it wasn’t just any bottle. It was a 1982 Château Margaux, one that (a vulgarian might point out) would retail for about $3,000. Mickelson never opened it. He told Downs he was waiting for him to come out to San Diego and drink it with him.
Now, at dinner at Five & Ten during BellSouth week, the diners tried not to talk too much about golf. Such is the protocol of dining with a tour pro: after a long day on the course, the last thing he wants to talk about is his game. But with Mickelson trampling the field in Atlanta, they couldn’t resist. Downs, in fact, couldn’t help pointing ahead to Augusta.
“Wait ‘til you see the bottle I’m going to send you if you win the Masters this year,” Downs said....
