Mickelson's under par start encouraging to more than just the player

UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. -- There is no cheering in the press box. The theory is, we ink-stained and pixilated scribes should cheer only for a good story. So I begin today with a pre-emptive apology for cheering in the press box, just this once, because I just want to, and because there's really only one great story in this U.S. Open, anyway. It's Phil Mickelson.

He came to Chambers Bay three weeks ago, on a Thursday and Friday. Thursday, he played the front nine all day. Friday, the back nine all day. Back home in San Diego, he told a friend that the Chambers Bay fairways were a hundred yards wide. "I can't miss em," he said. Even better, the greens reminded him of British Open greens, a fescue grass, with some poa annua.