PHIL MICKELSON has been telling golf’s young guns the kind of play Tiger Woods produced the last time they played together at Sawgrass had to be seen to be believed.
The old sparring partners will go head to head at the Players Championship tomorrow and Friday, for the first time since 2001, when Woods was on his way to the Tiger Slam.
And Mickelson, 47, said no-one – before or since – has produced the same level of golf as Woods did back then, especially when he won the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots to launch his all-conquering spree.
Woods also won the 2001 Players a few weeks before completing the Tiger Slam at Augusta, and Mickelson said: “I don’t think anybody today who wasn’t there that witnessed it – and I don’t think anybody before – will ever see that level of play again.
“It was the most remarkable golf in the history of the game. And I think it’s unrepeatable. It was that good. I look at the 2000 US Open as being the benchmark, as the greatest golf I’ve ever witnessed, and I believe ever has been played.
“And it sucked to have to play against him. It really did. You look at it, and you say how am I going to beat this?
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“There was a stretch there of a number of years that it was so impressive that it was hard to imagine that it was actually happening, that he was hitting some of the shots that he was hitting and playing that well.
“The guys today look back, and they say, come on, how much better could he have been and so forth. It just goes to show you that they weren’t there to witness it. So they can’t fully appreciate just how extraordinary his golf was.
“My record against him also used to suck, but it’s gotten better over the years. And I love the fact that we’ve been paired together again. It hasn’t happened anywhere on Thursday-Friday for about four years.
“Now that it’s happened, it’s cool to pick up the local newspaper and see it on the front page. I guess that shows how much interest it has created. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and hopefully it will add something to the tournament.
Woods, 42, admitted he looks back at the highlights of that run to try to inspire him to more success – especially as he has now gone five years without a win, and ten without adding to his 14 Majors.
He said: “I do go back and look at those tournaments, because I was on a pretty good run. I held all foru Majors, the Pklayers, and two World Golf Champion ship trophies, so I had won pretty kcuh every big evernt we play.
“And my level of play was like that not just for one year, but for a long period of time. I played well, I fought well, I putted well – I did everything well. And that’s what I’m trying to get back to.”
Mickelson suggested a “high stakes” battle between the two would also be a huge draw – and Woods added: “Yeah. That would be cool – we should play for whatever would make him feel uncomfortable!
“I love playing against Phil, because it hasn’t happened often enough. But our relationship had grown over the years to the stage where we go in for a lot of banter, where we like to needle each other.
“We spent a lot of years as the number one and number two players in the world, and we’ve had some great battle. It’s always fun competing with him.”
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