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How do you spice up a Tuesday practice round on the PGA Tour?
By publicly goading Phil Mickelson into a money match via Twitter.
Harry Higgs set the bait a few weeks ago and Mickelson quickly bit. But it was Higgs who would end up paying the piper after he and partner Keith Mitchell were taken down by Mickelson and Joel Dahmen 3&1 two days before Thursday’s opening round of the Northern Trust at Liberty National.
“I ran my big mouth and a Hall of Famer put me in my place,’’ Higgs said afterward. “I would have liked to have won, but I do think it was great preparation. The lead-up to it probably created some nerves, which is not something you usually experience on a Tuesday of tournament week. It was fun to have a little of juice to a Tuesday.’’
None of the players divulged the exact financial stakes, which were set by Mickelson, who joked before the match that the players would be playing for “industry standard.’’ But a source close to the players said it was between $2,000 and $3,000 per player.
Mickelson, channeling his “Meet the Parents’’ Greg Focker character, described his and Dahmen’s winning performance as “strong … to quite strong,’’ adding that he relished the “smack talk.’’
“Harry Higgs is such a funny guy, has great energy and is fun to be around, and he’s a heck of a player,’’ Mickelson said. “It was fun to have the banter leading up to it. We had a great time and we had the right outcome.’’
The chatter began right away and didn’t let up.
When Higgs piped his tee shot down the first fairway, he chirped, “One down,’’ referring to his counterparts. A few minutes later, Higgs backed up his trash talk with a birdie putt on No. 1 that gave him and Mitchell the early lead.
Higgs buried a 20-foot birdie putt on the fourth hole to take him and Mitchell to 2-up and it looked like he was en route to becoming a Twitter hero by backing up his bravado. But Higgs and Mitchell cooled and Mickelson and Dahmen heated up.
After Higgs missed an 8-foot birdie putt on No. 5, Dahmen made his 6-footer to shave the deficit to 1-down.
Then came Mickelson’s so-very-Phil moment, on the par-5 sixth hole, where he hooked his tee shot some 100 yards right into the seventh fairway. With 260 yards to the flag over water and into a stiff breeze, Mickelson throttled a 2-wood off the deck to about 15 feet from the flag.
“Nice shot, partner,’’ Dahmen yelled.
“It’s nice over here,’’ Mickelson shot back with a smile.
To his delight, Mickelson drained the eagle putt to square the match.
“When we close them out on 15 or 16, we’ll be talking about it all changing on No. 6,’’ Mickelson said to no one in particular as the four players walked to the seventh tee.
“He hit a horrible drive and boy he hit a great second shot and of course he holed the eagle putt,’’ Higgs would lament later. “I guess I got the true Phil Mickelson experience.’’
A Mickelson birdie on the seventh hole gave him and Dahmen a 1-up lead that they’d never relinquish.
“I can see when you’re 2-up through four you’re thinking, ‘We might actually win this thing,’ ’’ Mickelson quipped to Mitchell as they walked up the 17th fairway.
The match was born a few weeks ago when Higgs told a follower on Twitter he felt he could take Mickelson down with any partner. Mickelson quickly replied via Twitter that a match was on and invited Higgs to play him at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude in Memphis.
Higgs was not qualified for that event and Mickelson, when asked if he knew that, said, “Child please … of course I knew he wasn’t in Memphis. I wouldn’t be dropping those lines if I didn’t know. It’s like a lawyer: You don’t ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.’’
Mickelson, after the match, dripped of sarcasm when he said the “key’’ to the day “was to win in a way that is not so dominant that they believe they can win and they come back for more. That was the challenge for Joel and I. They actually want more.’’
After the match, Mickelson invited Higgs and Mitchell to play Baltusrol, where he’s a member, for a rematch.
Outside of the banter and ribbing, the match served as an invaluable five-hour experience for Higgs, Mitchell and Dahmen as each of them picked Mickelson’s brain about strategy, preparation and what it takes to win.
“I learned a lot without even having to ask a whole lot of questions,’’ Higgs said.
In that sense, Tuesday was worth every penny lost by Higgs and Mitchell.
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