Is Phil less than thrilled?

While Phil Mickelson has gushed publicly about how excited he was to play with Tiger Woods today and Friday in the U.S. Open, Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post finds that the truth may be a little different. This from today's Post:

Interestingly, Johnny Miller, the NBC analyst, said a conversation he had with Mickelson made it sound as if Mickelson was not happy with the Woods pairing.

"I did talk to Phil about it, and I can't say that he acted like he was too thrilled about it," Miller said. "But he knows how to play with Tiger and he wants this championship more than any other that he has ever played in. The fact that he grew up in this area, I would say Phil would trade any of his championships for this United States Open, and I really believe that.''

Be Good Johnny

It's been awhile since I've heard that Men At Work tune, but I'm actually referring to NBC's Johnny Miller. He might be the best thing the Players Championship has going this weekend. Few announcers move so deftly between throwing jabs and enlightening the viewers. As Phil Mickelson stood on the par-3 17th tee today -- a hole that has bedeviled him for years -- Miller showed no mercy in describing his past mistakes. "He's found more water than Magellan," Miller said. When NBC then showed a slow-motion view of Mickelson's swing -- shorter and tighter under the tutelage of Butch Harmon -- Miller observed: "If he'd had that swing in his 20s, I'm not sure he wouldn't have had a career similar to Tiger's."

Miller goes back to the future

Johnny Miller is one of my favorite announcers, and he might be the only person in the game not afraid of Tiger Woods*. So I don’t want to slam him, but his comments about Tiger and the Grand Slam this week highlight a troubling trend in sports: the after-the-fact prediction.

The Toronto Globe and Mail recounts Miller’s remarks this week about Tiger’s Grand Slam hopes, which of course ended last month with Trevor Immelman’s surprise win (to everyone but Gary Player) at the Masters.

With his usual candour and edge, Miller said Woods made a mistake and was perhaps presumptuous to speculate in January that winning golf's Grand Slam was "easily within reach."

"I'm not taking a slam at Tiger," said Miller, during a conference call to publicize NBC's coverage of The Players Championship at the Sawgrass golf course in Florida.

"But I think the Grand Slam is something you start thinking about on the first of August, after you've won the three other ones."

That’s fine, Johnny, but your analysis would have been more insightful had you offered it, you know, before the Masters. Maybe later we can get your predictions on the Democratic primary and The Sopranos’ last episode.

*In a recent radio interview, Tiger said he sometimes watches TV broadcasts but never listens to the commentators. If that’s true, how does he know who he’s mad at each week?

(Photo: Chris Condon/PGA TOUR/Getty Images)