At the Safeway, Snedeker stays and Mickelson tumbles

By Art Spander

NAPA, Calif. — Phil Mickelson was right. His game wasn’t that sharp. Brandt Snedeker also was right. He does well playing with a lead.

Mickelson, everyone knows. He’s golf Hall of Famer. Snedeker, everyone should know. He shot a 59 a few weeks ago, has won the Tour Championship, finished first twice in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and appears headed for another victory in Northern California.

One of the enduring figures of the PGA Tour, Snedeker decided to try the Safeway, the opening tournament of the wrap-around 2018-19 schedule, after bypassing it the last two years. So far, it looks like a brilliant move.

Three rounds into the Safeway, Snedeker has a three-shot lead. Or should we say still has a three-shot lead? Birdies on the final three holes Saturday at Silverado Country Club, a par-5, a par-4 and a par-5, gave him a 3-under 69 and 54-hole total of 16-under 200.

Second at 203 after a 4-under 68 is Kevin Tway, whose father, Bob, in 1996 won a PGA Championship and in 1991 finished second in the Telcom Tucson Open to an amateur named Phil Mickelson.

Time does fly. And Saturday, Mickelson’s chances for a win — even though he had broken 70 the first two days — also flew away.

Starting the round in a tie for second, three shots behind Snedeker, Mickelson shot 74 to end up eight shots back, at 208.

So much for the post–second-round banter between Snedeker and Mickelson.

“I sent him a text,” said Snedeker of dealing with Mickelson. “I gave him a hard time because he said he was playing terrible, then I saw him (Friday) make six birdies in a row. He said, ‘Well, I’m not quite confident yet.’ But he’s a great California player. Won a bunch in his career here.”

Snedeker, 37, who’s from Nashville and played for hometown school Vanderbilt, has won three in California, the two at Pebble (2013 and 2015) and the Farmers in San Diego (2016). Another could be a day away.

“It was a struggle, a grind,” Snedeker said of his third round at the Safeway. “The wind kicked up on the last 12, 13 holes and made it hard to hit it close and make birdies.

“So I did a great job of kind of staying patient and surviving with sort of mediocre ball-striking. Knowing I had 16, 17, 18 ahead for birdie holes, and really proud of the way I stepped up and hit some quality shots when I needed to.”

Snedeker’s career has been kicked around by injuries. A year ago, he missed weeks with a sore sternum. Then in 2018, after the 59 and win at the Wyndham, which he thought would give him the boost he needed to make the Ryder Cup, he had another injury.

Mickelson, of course, was on the American team in the Ryder Cup in France, which ended a week ago, Snedeker followed from afar.

“I watched the Ryder Cup,” said Snedeker. “Obviously my not being there was tough. I watched and cheered for the guys. I have a bunch of friends on the team. Every time you miss that week, being together with all those guys, rekindling friendships, you feel left out.

“You don’t want to ever do it again. It gives you a hard look in the mirror.”

The look that Snedeker, a nine-time winner, has been giving this week is one of success. He had five birdies and two bogies Saturday.

“Majors and winning is all I care about,” said Snedeker.

He has a third in the Masters and a tie for third in the British Open. It you putt as accurately as he does, you can do well in any event, major or not major.

“I really care about getting that major win as many times as possible,” he said, “winning as many times as I possibly can. I’m going to do everything I possibly can to get every little bit of talent in my body.”

Which every athlete is supposed to do, no matter the sport.

Phil (The Thrill) Mickelson keeps on pace in the Safeway

By Art Spander

NAPA, Calif. — He once had a caddy tend the flagstick on a shot 75 yards from the cup (no, it didn’t go in). He won $400,000 by betting on the Baltimore Ravens in Super Bowl XXX. He whacked a ball around a putting green and took a 10 in this year’s U.S. Open.

Phil Mickelson is a chance-taker, a self-believer, a fabulous putter and, contrary to the norm of lefthanders playing righthanded, notably Ben Hogan and Johnny Miller, a righthander who plays lefthanded.

And at age 48, in other words two years away from the Champions Tour (newspeak for the Seniors), Phil is in a tie for second halfway through the Safeway Open at Silverado Country Club.

You want some perspective? Mickelson, at 10-under-par 134 after Friday’s round, is one in front of Kevin Tway, whose father, Bob, was beaten by Phil 27 years ago in the 1991 Tucson Telcom Open.

That’s when Mickelson, a 20-year-old junior at Arizona State at the time, became the last amateur to win a PGA Tour tournament.

So if Phil is wonderfully unpredictable and charmingly arrogant, there are reasons. As did his rivals, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus, Mickelson won the U.S. Amateur and NCAA championship. Phil was on the cover of Golf Digest before he turned pro, with the headline, “How good is this kid?”

More than a quarter-century later, we know the answer: Good enough to win five majors; good enough to be on 12 Ryder Cup teams; good enough earlier this year at age 47 to win a tournament, the WGC in Mexico; good enough to be three shots behind Brandt Snedeker’s 131 after 36 holes in this Safeway.

Phil the Thrill. “The real boss of the (winning 2016) Ryder Cup team,” tweeted Ted Bishop, former president of the PGA of America. “Phil presided over the press conference like a hawk surveying his prey.”

A father so interested in his kids in 2017 he skipped the U.S. Open, the only major of the four he never won, finishing runner-up six times, to attend the graduation of his eldest daughter Amanda from her San Diego-area high school.

A man who paid off a gambling debt with $1 million earned on an illegal insider tip, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, but according to his attorneys was not charged and was innocent of any wrongdoing — but agreed to repay the $1 million.

Mickelson was a star a few years in front of Tiger, and you wonder what Phil might have done had Woods not come along to win the tournaments and steal the attention. Not until the 2004 Masters did Mickelson, then 33, get that first major.

Now, he’s trying to get a second tournament in this calendar year but a first tournament of the 2018-19 Tour season, which starts with the Safeway. After flying from France and last week’s Ryder Cup, Mickelson isn’t sure what to make of his golf.

“Yeah, I don’t know what to say,” Phil observed. “I’m as surprised as anybody that I’m playing well. I’ve hit a lot of good shots. I’m not surprised I’m putting well. I’ve been putting well week in and week out.

“I’m just surprised I’m hitting this many good shots. I’m surprised I haven’t hit some huge drives off line. The ones that were in the rough are very solidly hit. But I’m surprised I haven’t hit any out of bounds, to be honest.”

It’s hard to smack one OB at Silverado, although a few fairways do border roads or residences. So Mickelson, who can be cocky, is giving us a bit of self-deprecation.

Not that Phil deserves to be criticized. He’s the only 2018 Ryder Cup player in the Safeway, and along with Fred Couples, Snedeker and two-time Safeway winner Brendan Steele he gives the event the recognizable names need to draw fans and Golf Channel viewers.

“I love what I do,” said Mickelson, “but now, as opposed to playing the tournaments you’re expected to play in, whatever, I’m going to play the events I like.”

One of those is a $9 million winner-take-all, pay-per-view match between Phil and Tiger over the Thanksgiving weekend.

“I probably won’t play much until then” said Mickelson. “You know at 48 it’s not a smart thing to do. It doesn’t come easy anymore.”

But as his play so far in the Safeway indicates, for Phil Mickelson it comes when needed.

Mickelson: From Ryder Cup pond to 6 straight birdies at the Safeway

By Art Spander

NAPA, Calif. — So it’s back to the PGA Tour, the Safeway Open, where golf once again is a game of strokes and not words. And America’s failure in the Ryder Cup remains in that other wine country, France.

What surfaced again at the Safeway was Phil Mickelson’s game — or at least the most important part, putting.

Phil’s last shot at the Ryder Cup, six days ago, plunked into a pond and gave Europe the winning points. But Thursday, in the first round of the first tournament of the 2018-19 season, the Safeway at Silverado Country Club, Philly Mick birdied six straight holes, 9 through 14, and shot a 7-under 65.

He was two behind rookie Sepp Straka, who is making his first Tour start and shot a spectacular 63, one back of Chase Wright.

Mickelson, reminding us he’s 48 and not quite able to handle monster courses with narrow fairways and high, thick rough, as he encountered during the Ryder Cup at Le Golf National near Paris, was asked about the apparent bickering among American Ryder Cuppers.

Patrick Reed’s wife whined that he was blindsided by, presumably, U.S. captain Jim Furyk, when Reed was separated as a playing partner from Jordan Spieth, with whom he formed a winning pairing in the 2016 Cup.

Then, wham, another anonymous golfer said Reed was full of spit, or something, and the U.S. players were very much involved in the pairing decisions.

If that weren’t enough, then came a report that two of America’s literal big men, the 6-footers Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka — who together have won the last three U.S. Opens — had a punch-out. Fiction, Koepka insisted.

“I don’t know what to say,” Mickelson responded, “because I didn’t see any of that stuff happen. I only saw one of the best weeks and team unities that we’ve had in a long time.”

There’s an adage that you can learn more about a person in a single round of golf than in a month of dialogue. What we seemingly learned about some of the members of the U.S. team is they didn’t so much need a captain as a nursemaid.

“Well, we got outplayed,” a candid Mickelson said Thursday, discussing the result of his 12^th Ryder Cup. “I thought we had a great week in the sense we worked really well together as a team in deciphering some things and over the course of 20 years we’re looking at this as a big-picture thing.

“We were 2-8 the last 20 years (the Ryder Cup is biennial). Our goal is take the wins and losses and build on them. We’re having the opportunity to build something special, and so we’ll be judged on how we do the next 20 years. Our goal is to go 8-2, but after losing this time that might not be possible.”

Anything’s possible in golf. Mickelson flew 11 hours to his San Diego-area home from France on Monday, rested, came north to Napa on Wednesday, hit the ball poorly in warm-ups Thursday and shot 34-30.

“I hit it terrible,” Mickelson said, “one of the worst warm-ups of the year. I was hitting the fence on the range. To the left, not straight ahead. But I’ve been putting well, like I can putt. The big thing is making the short ones. Don’t let the good round fool you.”

The real question is: were we fooled by the tales of disaffection among the U.S. Ryder Cuppers? Or is it that the Euros care more about winning the Cup, while the Americans care about winning the majors?

Fred Couples has done both, his major the 1992 Masters. He is 59 and playing the Champions Tour, but as a spectator attraction — Fred always has been one of the more popular golfers — he is entered in the Safeway, where Thursday he shot a 1-over 73.

“I wish they would just leave it alone,” Couples said about the Ryder Cup complaining. “We got smoked, give it a rest. You go down as a team. … Why did they (Europe) win? They played better. They’re not better friends or attached more. They just flat beat us.”

Fortunately, Justin Thomas, the son and grandson of pros, and the 2017 PGA Champion, had the proper approach after playing in his first Ryder Cup. “To the fans and people of France,” Thomas tweeted, “y’all were amazing. So loud, supportive and classy to both the Europeans and US team. They are what makes the @rydercup so special…”

Thanks, Justin.

Tiger, 0-4: ‘I’m one of the contributing factors why we lost the Ryder Cup’

By Art Spander

SANT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — It couldn’t have ended in a more appropriate fashion, a Phil Mickelson tee shot splashing into a pond, immediately followed by the European Ryder Cup team splashing Champagne to celebrate a victory that was inevitable.

Once more, an American team of stars — Phil and Tiger Woods, who didn’t score a measly point between them, and Dustin Johnson, a recent world’s No. 1, who at least did score a measly point — was beaten, make that overwhelmed, by Europe, this time 17½ to 10½.

You now can amend the adage; there’s nothing sure but death, taxes and an American defeat when the Ryder Cup is held on the far side of the Atlantic. This was the sixth straight time the Euros have won in Europe. Also the ninth time in 12 matches, wherever they have been played.

That the 48-year-old Mickelson, making a 12^th and surely farewell Ryder appearance, didn’t score in two matches at Le Golf National near Paris — one of those the Sunday singles — could be excused.

But what about Tiger getting blanked in all four of his matches? Or Johnson picking up only a single point in four matches? And that wasn’t in singles, where Sunday he was whipped by Ian Poulter.

Tiger, Phil and Dustin combined for one point of a possible nine, which is unimpressive even if the 42-year-old Woods is exhausted from his win a week ago, even if Mickelson has been slumping as he is aging, and even if Johnson reportedly has domestic problems.

“I did not play well this year,” conceded Mickelson. “This could very well, realistically, be my last one.”

America basically lost the Cup it had won two years ago at Hazeltine near Minneapolis after three sessions this time, when Europe made history by taking all of Friday’s alternate shot foursomes and then Saturday morning taking three of the four fourballs (or better balls).

For those who want to dodge reality and find wonderful French pastry in this mess, the U.S. trailing 10-6 before the 12 Sunday singles briefly cut the margin to 10½-9½. Hey, Gert, here they come. No, sorry. There they go again.

“It’s disappointing because I went 0-4,” said Woods candidly, “and that’s four points to the European team. And I’m one of the contributing factors why we lost the Cup, and it’s not fun.

“It’s frustrating because when we came here I thought we were all playing pretty well. I just didn’t perform at the level that I had been playing and just got behind early in the matches and never got back.”

Whether or not he was worn out, Woods said, “Yeah, I mean, I played seven out of nine weeks ... So a lot of big events, and a lot of focus, a lot of energy goes into it. I was fortunate enough to have won one, and we were all coming here on a high and feeling great about our games, about what we were doing, and excited about playing this week.”

But as Mickelson and the team captain, Jim Furyk, agreed, they were outplayed.

Patrick Reed, “Captain America,” got back a bit. He won Sunday. So did three other Americans, Cup rookie Justin Thomas (who beat Rory McIlroy), Wade Simpson and cup rookie Tony Finau. That was it for the red-in-the-face, white and blue.

Jordan Spieth? Crushed, 5 and 4, by a Swede named Thorbjorn Olesen, who has three fewer major victories than Jordan but Sunday had a lot more birdies, seven compared to Spieth’s two.

“I had some in-between numbers,” said Spieth of his yardages to the greens, meaning he was unsure what club to use. “And I didn’t really pick the right shot, and I got in trouble. Chipping let me down. I had a couple opportunities to save par and stay even, dropped to two, three down, and then he out-putted me.”

This from a 25-year-old who is known as a brilliant putter.

Road games bring out the best — or worst. Every course has 18 holes, but on the European Ryder Cup courses those holes are surrounded by huge crowds chanting “Ole, ole, ole….oh-le” and rattling the American pros. Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus never seemed to mind, but the new kids are bothered.

And Euro pros such as Olsen, Sergio Garcia and Poulter seem never to miss a putt in the Ryder Cup. The contention is the Euros bond better, but most of them, Poulter, Justin Rose, Jon Rahm, Henrik Stenson, play the U.S. PGA Tour. Besides, this isn’t basketball. You don’t pass a golf ball around. It’s an individual game, even when you have a partner.

“Let’s be honest,” said Mickelson. “The European side played some exquisite golf. I mean, it was some phenomenal golf, and they flat-out beat us.”

As they always do in Europe. Ole, ole, ole, ohh-le.

U.S. Ryder troubles: Phil sits out, Tiger shut out

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Phil Mickelson sat out. Tiger Woods was shut out. And so two days into the Ryder Cup, that biennial golfing dilemma, America seems headed for another wipeout.

Phil and Tiger are not entirely to blame for the U.S. falling behind the Europeans, 10-6 — Patrick Reed and Byron DeChambeau also haven’t provided anything but disappointment — but Mickelson and Woods presumably were going to show the young guys how to win. Wrong!

Mickelson and DeChambeau were crushed Friday in foursomes, alternate shot, and Saturday U.S. captain Jim Furyk benched Phil, who in effect then contributed as much to the U.S. score as Woods.

In his three matches, a four-ball Friday with Reed, another four-ball Saturday with Reed and a foursome Saturday with DeChambeau, Tiger didn’t get a point, Of course, Reed and DeChambeau, his partners, are as much a reason.

It’s an old story — and, for America, a sad one. When the Cup is held in Europe, the U.S doesn’t win. Or hasn’t won the last five times. And unless the kids from the U.S. of A. can perform better in Sunday’s 12 singles matches than they have in the team format, the number will increase to six in a row. And if you’re counting, nine of the last 11, home or away.

Europe needs only 4 1/2 points from the 12 singles — a draw gets a half-point, a win a full point — to take the Cup.

American golf just doesn’t travel well. Maybe it’s jet lag. Or the food. Or the clever manner in which the European Tour sets up the course, as it prepared Le Golf National, some 20 miles from Paris, for these matches — narrow fairways and thick rough.

Then again, golf gets down to who makes the putts and, wow, the Euro team of British Open champ Francesco Molinari and U.S. Open runner-up Tommy Fleetwood — “Moliwood,” someone nicknamed them — have been making putts from everywhere. Small wonder they have won all four of their matches, only the second team of same players to win each of its four.

“You have to make birdies,” said Tiger. A week ago he made them to win for the first time in five years, the Tour Championship. He, along with Mickelson and DeChambeau, already had been selected by Furyk as captain’s picks, wild card. And the choices seemed brilliant.

But instead of getting birdies, the Americans are giving explanations.

“The three matches we played,” said Woods about facing Molinari-Fleetwood over the two days, “they never missed a putt inside 12 feet. That’s hard to do. Playing against a team like that, you have to make a lot of birdies, and we didn’t.”

Overseas, the Americans never do. Or haven’t since their last Ryder Cup road victory, 1993.

The Euros seem to draw strength and confidence from the team format. Sergio Garcia couldn’t win a major until last year’s Masters, but he was a terror in the Ryder Cup, a reason this time Euro captain Thomas Bjorn picked him despite playing Garcia having a relatively poor year.

“Everything feels pretty good,” Woods said about his game. “Just really pissed off at the fact I lost three matches and didn’t feel like I played poorly. That’s the frustrating thing about match play. We can play well and nothing can happen.”

You know the gripe: There’s no defense in golf. You can’t do anything to stop an opponent from playing well — shouting on his backswing is not proper etiquette. You just have to play better than he does. The Euros play better than the Americans do. It’s that simple.

“We need every single man on the course to do their bit,” said Bjorn, the Euro captain. “When you look at those 12 American names, that’s a strong lineup.”

Strength isn’t the issue at a Ryder Cup in Europe. Accuracy is required, finesse is required and most importantly a great putting touch is required. Getting to the green is a small factor. Getting into the cup is a big factor.  

Americans Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas, both major champions, paired to win both fourballs and foursomes.

“It was great,” said Thomas. “We went out and did what we needed to do in both sessions, not just hit the shots when we needed to but make the putts when we needed to.”

They did. Other American golfers did not.

Furyk on U.S. Ryder Cup shutout: ‘I bet we’ll be fine’

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — It was historic. It was embarrassing. The supposedly unbeatable United States Ryder Cup team turned out to be as soft as a croissant.

Not only did it fail to win any of the four afternoon matches Friday on opening day of the 2018 Cup, it couldn’t even come close.

In the alternate-shot format that vexes Americans even more than trying to correctly pronounce “Chantilly” — one golfer hits the tee shot, his partner the next shot — the U.S. couldn’t extend any match beyond the 16^th hole.

So Europe, which lost three of the four-ball or better-ball matches in the morning, roared back to take a 5-3 lead and seemed destined to continue America’s frustration each time the biennial event is held on this side of the Atlantic. The U.S. hasn’t won in Europe since 1993.

With fans hooting and chanting as if they were at a soccer match and not a tournament at Le Golf National some 20 miles southwest of the Eiffel Tower, the Euros became the first team ever to record a shutout in alternate-shot, or foursomes, and the first to get a sweep in any session since 1989.

This wasn’t a match, it was a mismatch. It was Alabama against Arkansas State. It was bewildering, mystifying and nonsensical. The pairing of Phil Mickelson, at 48 surely playing his last Ryder Cup, and Bryson DeChambeau, at 25 playing his first, lost seven of the first eight holes, including five in a row to Sergio Garcia and Alex Noren.

On the 10^th tee, Mickelson-DeChambeau were 7 down. Or if you want to make a drink of it, Garcia and Noren were 7 up. That Mickelson-DeChambeau lost only 5 and 4 proves something, but what no one is sure.

Mickelson was a captain’s pick by Jim Furyk, who apparently wanted Phil’s experience (this is his 12^th Ryder Cup). Well, Mickelson now has a new experience with which he can relate: getting stomped.

Tiger Woods, another Furyk pick, didn’t play the afternoon alternate shots. In the morning, Tiger was paired with Patrick Reed, the Masters champion, and they were flattened by Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari, 3 and 1. A good job selecting by Furyk.

Of course, as the Euro captain Thomas Bjorn reminded, “The players play; we just try to get them ready.”

The U.S. hardly was ready for its collapse, or should it be Europe’s resurgence?

“They played great golf,” said Spieth of Fleetwood and Molinari. “Hats off to the Europeans. They were even or under par (in all four afternoon matches), and on this course, in that wind, that’s just fantastic in this format.”

You might presume that Furyk would be depressed the way his foursomes got whipped, but he carries a golfer’s eternal optimism, the belief that the next round will be, if not near perfect, then at least highly rewarding.

“In match play,” said Furyk, “you lose 6 and 5, you lose 2 and 1, it’s the same result. We have to shore things up. And I’m guessing we’ll switch things in the afternoon (Saturday). We’ve already been thinking about that.

“Does it pose a problem? I think our guys will respond. I really do. I have a lot of confidence in our guys. It’s going to leave a sour taste in their mouths, and they have to sleep on that. We’ll come back. I bet we’ll be fine.”

There are four more four-ball matches and four more foursomes Saturday. On Sunday, there are 12 singles. That used to be where the U.S. could be counted on to dominate, but in the 2012 Cup, in Chicago, it was the Euros who came from behind with victories in singles.

“There will be adjustments,” Spieth said of the alternate-shot session Saturday. “Foursomes, it’s a tough one. You know what team to throw out there.”

On Friday, whatever the team, it appeared to have been thrown under the bus.

“We knew it was going to be a grind,” said Rickie Fowler, who paired with Dustin Johnson was a 3 and 2 loser to Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson. “We struggled to get the momentum going, and when we did it was too late.”

It is no secret that the course was set up for the home team, narrow fairways to negate the power of people such as Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka. But the Americans should have been able to adapt.

“We thought this would be a good format for the tee shots,” said Mickelson, “hitting a bunch of irons off the tee. We just didn’t play our best.”

But the Euros did.

Ryder Cup is Phil Mickelson’s cup of coffee

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The critic had mellowed. Or more accurately, swallowed. “The coffee here is unbelievable, isn’t it?” said Phil Mickelson, not waiting for an answer, as if anyone dared disagree.

“The chocolate,” Mickelson continued, “the food. I had two pieces of bread the other night. I can’t remember the last time I did that.”

Oh yes, Lefty, on stage, off the tee, full of opinions and occasionally himself, playing the game of life along with the game of golf, a personality with personality and one of the great short games.

He’s back for another Ryder Cup, his 12^th, knocking balls around Le Golf National, a course some 20 miles from Paris, rather than knocking anyone in charge of the U.S. squad, a veteran who knows what club to hit and knows what to say — even when, perhaps, he should remain silent.

“You would think I would get desensitized to it,” Mickelson said of his years as part of the American team, “but I have come to love and cherish these weeks even more, this week especially, with the amount of not just talented players but quality guys that are on our team.”

He is 48, a generation apart from teammates Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Bryson DeChambeau, nearly six years older than Tiger Woods, his longtime rival.

Along with Woods, Mickelson, or “Philly Mick” as they call him in New York, was a captain’s pick for this year’s team, chosen as much for reputation as performance — although in March he did get his first Tour victory in five years.

Phil was not playing in Friday morning’s four-balls, or better ball, as America tries to end a streak of five straight defeats in Europe, and Mickelson was asked if that happens, after his insistence on change following the loss four years ago in Scotland, would it be one of the crowning achievements in his career.

“I would not look at it that way,” said a magnanimous Mickelson, “because this is a team event and this is an event for all of us to cherish and be part of, and every person from the caddies, the spouses, the captains, vice captains and every player plays an integral part of the puzzle to do well and succeed.”

Of course, four years ago, when the U.S. was pummeled at Gleneagles, Scotland, it was one man, Mickelson, who found a reason and pressed to correct that. Mickelson said that Tom Watson, the captain that year — and for a second time, overall — was unable to communicate with his players and removed them from any part of the decision-making.

The PGA of America, which controls the Ryder Cup — not to be confused with the PGA Tour — took Mickelson’s advice, altered the method selecting wild-card players and the made other fixes. The plan worked, and in 2016 the U.S. won the Cup at Hazeltine, near Minneapolis.

In the 2004 Cup at Oakland Hills outside Detroit, Mickelson was paired with Woods, a dream team that turned into a nightmare. In foursomes, when players hit alternate shots with one ball, Phil might drive into the rough and a glowering Tiger would be forced to extricate the ball with the subsequent shot. They barely looked at each other.

But 14 years make a difference. Now Tiger and Phil, relative golden oldies compared to a Spieth or Brooks Koepka, have arranged to play each other in a multimillion-dollar match. And Phil said he willingly would join Tiger in this Ryder Cup, although U.S. captain Jim Furyk did not give his endorsement,

“I think when we (Woods and Mickelson) really started to work together to succeed,” said Phil, “going back in the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup, we have a lot more in common than we thought, and we came to appreciate working together to achieve things.”

If time doesn’t cure all ills, it does help change perspective. Woods and Mickelson have reached detente at a time in their careers when they can’t always reach the green of a par-5 in two shots.

“When we go over the little details as to why we were or were not successful,” said Mickelson, “it sometimes comes out like I’m taking a shot at somebody. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Peace in our time.

Ryder Cup nastiness runneth over

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Tiger Woods was talking about applause in golf. Or really the lack of it. “The art of the clap is gone,” said Woods. Fans have one hand wrapped around a cell phone and their minds wrapped around the idea of creating chaos.

In his advice to spectators — patrons, they’re called — at the Masters, the late Bobby Jones said it would be impolite and improper to cheer a competitor’s mistakes. Which brings us to the Ryder Cup, a tournament where virtually anything goes and everything is yelled, especially insults.

The Cup’s nastiness runneth over. And ain’t it wonderful?

It you’re not familiar with the Ryder Cup, it’s a biennial event that matches golfers from the United States against golfers from Europe, many of whom live at least part-time in the United States. The 2018 Cup is Friday through Sunday at Le Golf National, a course about 20 miles from Paris.

Nobody in America seemed to notice the Cup, much less care about it, until back in the early 1990s when, whoops, Europe, with players such as Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam and Nick Faldo began to kick America’s you-know-what.

As Davis Love III, a player and then a two-time American captain, recalled, “I got home, and a friend had two questions: What’s the Ryder Cup and how did we lose it?”

With considerable regret, that’s how. All those handshakes at the close of the tournament cover up a great deal of deep-felt irritation that once became public in comments by Paul Casey.

In the Sunday Times of London, Casey was quoted as saying he learned to “properly hate” Americans during the Cup and went on to explain that U.S. fans can be “bloody annoying” and the vast majority of American fans don’t know what’s going on.

The story made its way to the tabloid Daily Mirror, where a headline quoted Casey as saying, “Stupid Americans. I hate them.” That Casey, an Englishman, attended Arizona State, was married to an American and is based in Arizona didn’t seem to matter.

Casey, who plays the U.S. PGA Tour, is back on the European Ryder team, saying very little, unfortunately.

It’s football season in the U.S. (also in Europe, if a different brand of football). The Cup can use a few vocal barbs to get attention.

The Euros have grumbled about the manner American fans acted and bellowed during the 2016 matches at Minneapolis. Surely there will be a response this time around.

Tom Watson, the Stanford guy and five-time British Open champion, gets some of the blame. The 1991 Ryder Cup was held at Kiawah Island in South Carolina shortly after the U.S. military operation Desert Storm. To whip up interest, Watson, the U.S. team captain, called the matches “The War by the Shore,” and the fans roared at every missed Euro putt.

Six years later, 1997, the Cup was in Spain, and the Americans were harassed as much as possible. The next chapter was in 1999 at The Country Club in Boston, when Justin Leonard of the U.S. sank an enormously long birdie putt near the end of day three and his U.S. teammates and some of their wives and girlfriends celebrated on the green — even though opponent José Maria Olazabal had yet to putt.

That was 19 years ago, but a writer from Scotland brought it up the other day. These people have long memories and sometimes short fuses.

Sergio Garcia, the Spaniard, is a captain’s pick. Through the years he’s also been a pain in the neck for the U.S., holing long putts at the most opportune times — or inopportune for the Americans.

Someone suggested the U.S. has copied the camaraderie long evident among the Euros. “It may seem they are doing a little bit better,” said Garcia. “I don’t know what goes on in their team room, but I know what goes on in ours. It comes easy. It comes naturally.

“Then we will go out there and play the best we can and make sure we have a shot at winning the Cup.”

From the American team, we hear the sound of one hand clapping.

Tiger to his young challengers: ‘Alright, here we go’

By Art Spander

SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — The hero who became the outcast again has become the hero, raising his sport as he raised his game, and turning back the clock as he turned away the skeptics.

Once more golf has been distilled to two words and one name, Tiger Woods, who was nearly lost in a crowd of enthralled fans as, for the first time in five years, he won a tournament, giving a new generation an idea of what he was like in the old days.

Now after a singular and — from the response in the TV ratings — wildly popular victory in the Tour Championship at Atlanta, Woods, along with some of the people he subdued, has crossed the ocean to play in the Ryder Cup, the biennial team competition between the U.S. and Europe.

That for the first time the Cup, Friday through Sunday, is being held in France, at Le Golf National, a course some 20 miles from Paris and maybe five miles from the glorious royal chateau of Versailles, seems appropriate.

One of golf’s more recent kings has been restored to his throne, and those involved in the game, even peripherally, are ecstatic. Why, during interviews on Tuesday, an American broadcaster, ignoring the dictum of no cheering in the press box, even figurative, thanked Woods “for all of us who earn our living in the golf business.”

Some journalists cringed. Tiger merely smiled in appreciation.

It all gets down to personalities in golf and tennis, to ladies such as Serena Williams, men such as Woods, whose simple presence — or absence — becomes a story.

Tiger, winning majors repeatedly, was an idol, if a distant one given the way he walked fairways without a wave or sideways glance. Then came the revelations about his womanizing, which alienated a percentage of his fans and the media. That was followed by surgery on his back, and who knew if he would play — or if he could play well?

The answer is in. U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk’s decision in early August to add Woods to the 12-member squad was more than justified with Tiger’s victory, one achieved against players such as Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas, who were not on Tour when Woods was in his prime.

When asked why one of Woods’ friends, Phil Gordon, said that Tiger just wanted the new kids on the block to feel the heat of facing him down the stretch of a back nine, Tiger had a ready explanation.

“Well. a lot of these guys were — well, the younger guys were on their way in when I was on my way out,” said the 43-year-old Woods, who of course, still very much is in. He was alluding to Thomas, Koepka and Jordan Spieth, in particular.

“You know, they never had played against me when I was playing well. It’s been, what, five years since I won a tournament?”

Now it hasn’t even been five days.

“I think that when my game is there,” said Woods, trying to temper his self-belief, “I’ve always been a tough person to beat. They have jokingly been saying, ‘We want to go against you.’

“Alright, here we go. And we had a run at it. And it was a blast, because I had beat Rory (McIlroy) head-up in the final group. Rosy (Justin Rose) was tied with Rory ... Those guys had both ascended to No. 1 in the world. They both have won major championships, and I have not played a whole lot of golf the last few years.”

He played a lot the last few months, taking leads in the British Open and PGA Championship, and then winning the Tour Championship. That put him face-to-face with an unfortunate aspect of a career with few unfortunate aspects, his record in the Ryder Cup. Only once in his seven appearances has Woods been part of a winning team.

“Yeah,” agreed Woods, “looking back on my entire Ryder Cup career, that’s one thing I’ve not really enjoyed or liked seeing. I’ve sat out one session. That was the last (team play) session at Medinah (2012). Otherwise I’ve played every match. We haven’t done very well.”

Not at all, but this 2019 team is one with Koepka, Spieth, Thomas, Phil Mickelson and Woods — who, for better or worse, is the guy who the game is all about.

Gruden after the 0-2 start: ‘No regrets’

  ALAMEDA, Calif.—This is what Jon Gruden wanted. Well, not exactly. He didn’t want to lose the first two games on his return to coaching. He didn’t want to feel forced to trade away probably his best player, Khalil Mack. He wanted to be in charge of an NFL team once more, and so he is, with all the problems that brings.

  Even Monday, another day after, another day to get peppered with the questions he used to ask—or at least hint at—Gruden indicated there were no regrets.

  Coaches coach. Maybe John Madden secure in his well-earned reputation, not to mention the East Bay real estate holdings, was able to resist the call. But Dick Vermeil, Joe Gibbs and one of Gruden’s recent ESPN colleagues, Herman Edwards, stepped away from microphones and back into the line of fire.

   Gruden was not naïve. He knew the drill. He knew the misfortunes. He knew he was a star on Monday nights with a salary equal to his status. But deep down he was and is a football coach, and that can bring as much pain as satisfaction.

   A game the Oakland Raiders never trailed. Until the final 10 seconds. Until the only time that mattered. A game the Raiders lost on field goal, 20-19, because the Denver Broncos were able to move the ball from their own 20 to the Oakland 18 in a minute 48 seconds, allowing that 36-yard kick in the gut—uh, over the crossbar by Brandon McManus.

  A game that perfectly set up questions about the defensive line and the lack of Mack, who might have made a difference on that drive. Might. Gruden knew that was coming. He understands the game and the business.

   “I think we said after the game,” Gruden said to a packed media room at Raiders HQ, “we got to make improvements there. Across the board we got to make improvements.”

  But he doesn’t have to second-guess himself, at least in a public forum, with cameras and microphones and oh so many digital recorders and note pads.

  “No,” he answered about sending Mack away. “It doesn’t make me regret. We made the trade. We made the trade.”

  Not so nice had had to say it twice, but he did.

  “There has got to be hindsight. 50-50, all that stuff.”

  To be sure without Mack, the pass rusher, the All-Pro, there was no stuff, the type that stops an offense where he tried to start.

  “I would have loved to have had him,” said Gruden, quite forthright. “And I’m not going to keep rehashing this. I would have loved to have coached him, loved to have had him here. But he’s not here. Somebody’s got to step up.

  “We got to keep building our football team, and that’s what we’re going to do. Hopefully, we see more from Arden Key, we see more from P.J. Hall when he gets healthy. Hopefully we prove that in the long term we did the right thing.” 

  Players win games. Derek Carr, criticized obliquely the previous game, against the Rams, for not being decisive, nearly won this one, setting a team completion percentage record. Amari Cooper, 10 receptions for 116 yards, nearly won this one. Marshawn Lynch, 65 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries, nearly won this one.

  It’s hard to know whether Mack could have won this one, but the future draft picks the Raiders acquired didn’t do a thing. Indeed, that’s a gratuitous comment. The Raiders are what they are, which is an NFL team on the verge—of what no one can say, including the head coach.

  Gruden was asked what he saw from the first two games--two losing games, one of them well played, that made him think the Raiders still could be a contender—although truth tell he never even implied that, much less said it directly.

   “I’m not going to sit here and make predictions here today,” he said, sitting there. “I’m not going to do it. We’re going to keep building our football team. Whether that translates into one win or four wins or any wins . . . I’m not going to make any predictions about anything other than we’re going to play hard and provide the best effort we can.”

 As he departed, Gruden walked through the door and into one more question. Did he wish he hadn’t left ESPN for what surrounded him?

  “Not at all,” Gruden said. You sensed he very much meant it, and the heck with Khalil Mack.

For 49ers, a win is a win

  SANTA CLARA, Calif.—The result is what matters, the final score. It’s wonderful to perform flawlessly, to play to a level worthy of coaching texts and highlight videos. But however you do get there, at the end what matters in the NFL is who has the most points.

   On a warm Sunday in September, with the 75,000 seats at Levi’s Stadium maybe three-quarters full , at most, and with imperfection all too evident in the passing game—are six sacks enough evidence?—the San Francisco 49ers were able to beat the Detroit Lions, 30-27.

  Which means they now have a 1-1 record and unlike his rookie season as head coach, 2017, Kyle Shanahan will not continuously be asked when he’ll get his first win of the year. After two games, he has it and has a measure of satisfaction.

   “The win feels good,” said Shanahan. “It took me a while last year to get that win”

 Ten games to be exact. But this time only two games, which in Shanahan’s mind was one game too many.

 “I wish it was last week,” he said, “but I’m very happy. It was tough last year. I’m happy for our guys. I thought our defense played its butts off.  Our special teams made some huge plays, especially D.J. Read.

 “I thought we ran the heck out of the ball. There was a little struggle in the passing game, with the receivers, tight end and quarterback, but we found a way to win.”

  Or the 0-2 Lions, who botched up an interception that brought the ball to the Niners seven with 2:24 to play, with a penalty that nullified the pick, found a way to lose.

  Why the Niners, leading by three with the ball on their own 43, were throwing is beyond comprehension—or coaching.

  They got away with it, and maybe that once outdated slogan about the fans, the faithful, should be revised to “Faithful then, fortunate now.”

 Nothing goes perfect, said Shanahan, the offensive coordinator for Atlanta’s Super Bowl team before he took over the 49ers.”But we’ve got to do a better job with our passing. It’s not all on the blocking. We’ve got to get men open, and the quarterback shouldn’t hold the ball that long. We’ll look at it and correct it.”

  No correction is needed for Matt Breida, who along with Alfred Morris is sharing the position of starting running back, fill-ins for Jerrick McKinnon, who is on injured reserve. In the third quarter, gliding effortlessly following his blocking intelligently—including a juke near the goal line—Breida raced 66 yards for a touchdown.

   To echo the head coach, yes, they ran the heck out of the ball.

   “It was just a great job y the O-line,” said Breida. “They opened up a big hole on the play, and I found Pierre (wide receiver Pierre Garcon. He became my fullback down th4e field essentially . . . He’s a monster. He’s fearless, and he’s not afraid to block.”

  So running worked well. Passing worked less well.

 Jimmy Garoppolo held the ball too long at times. Often the quarterback takes six sacks, the team takes a loss, but as Shanahan said the running game was effective, 190 yards of the Niners 346 total. The Lions’ total was 427, including 329 passing on 34 of 53 by Matthew Stafford (Garoppolo was 18 of 26 for 206 yards and two touchdowns), but Detroit was stymied near the goal line.

  “Too many penalties,” said first-year Lions coach Matt Patricia. Detroit had 10 for105 yards, the Niners 9 for 66. “Too many mistakes. Too many plays there that obviously cost us the game. We had a game-changing play there that got called back”

The interception negated by defensive holding.

   “That was a good thing,” said Garoppolo.

Getting pummeled while waiting to throw was not

   “Got to get the ball out quicker,” said Garoppolo, “The offensive line played great today. We had a chance to blow them out. I think that comes with mental toughness. You can’t let human nature take over.”

  What he meant was the tendency to ease up.

  .Cornerback Richard Sherman emphasized that.

  “A win’s a win,” Sherman agreed, “but it feels like a loss because we played like crap.”

Gruden and Raiders: Can he go home again?

ALAMEDA Calif.—You’re a Raiders fan—an Oakland Raiders fan—and you wonder what they’re going to do to you next? Your loyalty goes unrewarded. Your frustration is ignored.

  The new coach, who used to be the old coach, said he came back because he had something to prove. Where’s he going to prove it, in Las Vegas?

  The team isn’t very good, which can’t be blamed on the coach—except he was involved in trading the team’s best player, Khalil Mack, for draft picks,  some of whom, it the timetable holds, will not be on team until it’s no longer in Oakland,.

  The coach ought to know about giving up people who matter for potential. draftees. Nearly 20 years ago he was the guy who mattered, the coach of a Raiders team that was in the playoffs, that in a couple seasons would win a Super Bowl. But Jon Gruden had been swapped for draft picks who never did very much.

  When Gruden arrived the first time, 1998, he was 35 and loving it. He cracked jokes, taunted the writers. He worked for Al Davis, yes, nerve-wracking. Still it was his first NFL head coaching assignment. This was what he always wanted, so how could he not handle everything with a smile?

  Now he is 55. And famous, more so as commentator for ESPN—hey aren’t you the guy we saw on TV?—than for his coaching background. The Raiders were pounded by the Rams, 33-13, Monday, Gruden’s return game, and Tuesday Gruden was confronted by the media, for a second time in maybe 14 hours. There weren’t a lot of laughs.

  Mack wouldn’t have made the Raiders a winner, although he would have made them more competitive. Defense wins. Everyone in football knows that. You don’t get rid of a once-in-a-decade pass rusher.

  You know the line. It was given to Thomas Wolfe by an English writer, Ella Winter, and he was so enamored Wolfe used it as the title of his last novel,”You Can’t Go Home Again.”  You can walk in the door of the old house years later, but nothing is quite same. Different viewpoints, different situations.

  After he left as head coach of the 49ers, winning three Super Bowls, Bill Walsh returned to Stanford, where he had earned his reputation. But it didn’t quite work. He didn’t have the same enthusiasm and the student-athletes, as the label goes, were not the way he remembered. Society changes. Sports changes.

  Gruden knows the game.  He was less a commentator than an instructor and critic on those “John Gruden Quarterback Camp” segments, one of which dealt with a kid named Derek Carr, who the second half Monday night played less than favorably, throwing interceptions,

  Still, it you’re always behind because the other team (i.e., Rams) is sharp on offense and you’re less than sharp on defense—or offense—the quarterback, in this case, Carr, is going to be heaving balls in desperation.

‘There were a few plays when unchacteristically (Carr) wasn’t at his best,” said Gruden. No quips. No double-entendre. No TV commentary. Just a cold, hard serious observation.

  “Sometimes,” Gruden pointed out correctly, “you have to credit (Rams defensive coordinator) Wade Phillips.” As if Phillips didn’t receive all the credit possible as defensive coordinator of the Denver Broncos when they stiffed Carolina in Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium.

  “They gave us multiple looks out there,” said Gruden of the Rams defense. “They have some talented people out there. It’s just disappointing. But I think knowing how good Derek is it can all be solved.”

  Is that coach talking or the TV announcer?

  Gruden knows his stuff. He also knows what his team lacks—a top pass rusher, like Khalil Mack. Funny you should mention that.

  One thing that hasn’t changed in the 10 years since he left coaching and the 20 years or so since he first game with the Raiders is that defeat remains painful.

  “It stinks,” he said candidly, “Losses all feel painful. Especially Monday night losses when you have to get up and get ready for a team like Denver.”

   What do you think it is for Raider fans who have to get ready for losing their team in Oakland?

For Serena the day after: A $17,000 fine and plenty of support

  NEW YORK—And now it’s not merely sport. Now it’s sexism and racism and people who are quick to try to get control by getting into someone’s wallet, or purse—but isn’t the distinction between those two sexist?

 Tennis is back to its schizophrenic stages of lunacy, which perhaps is the way to get noticed at the start of the NFL season.

   What happened to Serena Williams? Virtually everybody except Trump and Obama had an opinion. I mean, it wasn’t surprising that Billie Jean King would weigh in on the chaos. It’s her tennis center where the U.S. Open is held. At least it’s named for Billie Jean.

 Naturally John McEnroe, Mr. Controversy his ownself when he played in the 1980s, currently announcing the tournament on ESPN, along with younger brother Patrick, would give an “I’ve been there” comment—because he has been there.

  Maybe the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos, was a trifle impatient with Williams on Saturday night, snatching a game from her in the second set of her, 6-2, 6-4, finals loss Saturday night to Naomi Osaka. All right, more than a trifle.

   Still, the emotion, arguments, confusion, distress, heresy and general lack of civility didn’t seem to have as much of an impact as does the eternal war between female and male

    Everybody appeared to be wrong at the women’s final, except poor Ms. Osaka, 20, the first Japanese to win a Grand Slam tournament who with the booing (of Ramos) and irritation of Ms. Williams, was almost made to feel like a victim not a champion.

  A percentage of the media should also be included, the ones who applauded after Serena closed out her post-match interview saying, “I just feel I have to go through this for the next persons who want to express themselves and want to be strong women”  No cheering in the press box?

 Sunday, the U.S. Tennis Association, which runs the Open, fined Serena $17.000, a pittance compared to the $82.500 she was fined for telling a line judge who called a rare foot fault in a ’09 semi against Kim Clijsters, “I’m going to stick this bleeping racquet down your throat.”

What set off the figurative fireworks Saturday night was when Ramos warned Williams for being directed from the stands by her coach Patrick Mouratoglou, She disagreed, and when she broke a racquet the warning became violation and a penalty point. Outraged, Williams yelled at Ramos, who then gave Osaka the game and 5-3 lead. Boooooo. That was the reaction of 23,000 fans.

  This was the consensus the day after. All coaches give signals from the stands, which is against the rules but rarely called, except apparently against female players, although Rafa Nadal got nailed a while back.

   And there are different tolerances, unspoken certainly, for men and for women.

. “Several things went very wrong during the U.S. Open women’s finals,” Billie Jean King, a multiple winner from years past, Tweeted after the Osaka-Williams match. “Coaching on every point should be allowed in tennis. It isn’t and, as a result, a player was penalized for the actions of her coach. This should not happen.

“When a woman is emotional, she’s ‘hysterical’ and she’s penalized for it,” the Tweet continued. Williams said male players never are penalized for outbursts, even profanity “When a man does the same, he’s ‘outspoken’ and there are no repercussions. Thank you, Serena Williams, for calling out this double standard. More voices are needed to do the same.”

  John McEnroe said of Serena’s observations, “She’s right. The guys are held to different standards. It’s like, ‘How dare she do that?’” Why the hell did (Ramos) go by the book? Do it like an NBA ref, telling a player to back off or he’ll be called. She needed some leeway. I said far worse”

   One reason Ramos and other chair umpires have so much power is because of a situation at the1979 Open, naturally involving John McEnroe and another hothead of the era, Ilie Nastase.

  The umpire, Frank Hammond, did what Ramos would this time do to Serena, giving Nastase a game for a 3-1 lead. Fans hurled empty beer cans at Hammond, who walked away before the match would end with McEnroe the winner.

  The other McEnroe, Patrick, reminded the television audience nobody understands Serena.  “None of us has walked in her shoes,” he said. “She’s an African-American woman who’s had to struggle. That’s where her response came from. But at the same time she has to be responsible.”

  Since when did responsibility become important in tennis?

Serena after the controversy: ‘Let’s make this the best we can’

 NEW YORK—The other lady, the new champion, Naomi Osaka was better on the court, which is supposed to be what matters. But because tennis is a sport o Byzantine rules and emotional players the last women’s match of the 2018 U.S. Open women became as much a war of words as a battle of forehands.

 When it was done Saturday, Osaka, a mere 20, defeating the great Serena Williams, 6-2, 6-3, we were left with accusations—by the loser—and tears, from both contestants, some in joy and some in anger.

  Yes, Serena, 36, still is working her way back after giving birth to a daughter a year ago and not returning until February to the sport she dominated for two decades.

   But Osaka, the first Asian to win a Grand Slam—she was born in Japan but holds U.S. citizenship—outran, outshot and out-angled Williams.

  And to her credit, Serena, very much a part of the controversy, as was the chair umpire, Carlos Ramos ,did her best, after she said the worst was done to her, to calm an outraged, booing crowd during the trophy presentations.

  “I don’t want to be rude,” Serena said to fans, lifting her arms for quiet. “She played well. I know you guys were here rooting for me. But let’s make this the best we can.”

  It was an upbeat comment after what was a very distressing match, not because Serena failed to pick up her seventh Open and 24th Grand Slam victory, but because she and Ramos had what Williams called “issues.”

  First she was given a warning in the second of game for coaching by her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou.  When she protested, telling Ramos. She’d “rather lose” than cheat.”  Ramos issued a warning.

  Williams said she wasn’t being coached but rather just offered thumbs up signal by Mouratoglou.  Ramos, from Portugal, then called for a second violation for breaking her racquet in disgust.

  She unwrapped a new one—no, neither she nor any of the others pay for them—and went on court and resumed arguing about not being coached,

  "You owe me an apology,'' she told Ramos, sitting above her, who had docked her a point Then she grew outraged. "You stole a point from me. You're a thief, too."

  When Williams wouldn’t back off—you’ve seen it in baseball when the manager won’t return to the dugout after being ejected—Serena was assessed a game penalty. Suddenly or maybe it wasn’t that suddenly she was behind 5-3. She was done figuratively and a few moments later literally

  Asked if the penalties were in part responsible for the defeat, Williams said, “That’s a good a good question. “  But she didn’t answer it.

   “I don’t know,” said Williams. “I feel like she was playing really well, but I feel like I really needed to do a lot to change  in that match to try to come out in front, to come out on top.

  “It’s hard to say because I always fight to the end, always try to come back, no matter what. But she was playing really well. It’s hard to say I wouldn’t have got to a new level, because I’ve done it so many times.”

   She wasn’t going to do it this time. Osaka, who grew up in New York, who as a kid watched Serena in the very place they played, Arthur Ashe Stadium, had only 14 unforced errors to Serena’s 21. Osaka was quicker to the ball and more effective when she arrived.

  Osaka appeared distressed during the post-match award presentations. “I feel I had a lot of emotions,” she explained, “so I kind of had to categorize what was which emotion.”

   She tried earlier to stay clear of Serena’s debate with the umpire, which was  hard.   “The crowd was really noisy, so I didn’t hear,” said Osaka. And when I turned around, uh, it was 5-3, so I was a little bit confused then. But for me, I felt like I really had to focus during the match because she’s such a great champion.”

  So too, after the chaos, after knowing the fans, mostly were cheering for her opponent, is Naomi Osaka.

 Think what you will, but she was the better tennis player this match.

The pain of tennis: Nadal out, Del Potro in once more

  NEW YORK—There’s no backup quarterback, no pitcher to come in from bullpen. There’s no disabled list, no injured reserve list. In tennis you keep going, from court to court, country to country, wearing down, wearing out.

  A few months ago it was elbow trouble for Novak Djokovic. And now again, it’s knee pain for Rafael Nadal, who Friday, two sets into the U.S. Open, semifinal had to withdraw—in tennis you “retire—which was both sad and because he was facing Juan Martin del Potro, who had to fight his way back from  numerous wrist surgeries, ironic.

  Yes. Del Potro, whose career was derailed for months, indeed years, after he won the 2009 U.S. Open, is finally back in the final because Nadal, the defending champ, once more has been derailed by an injury.

   Don’t try to tell these guys tennis isn’t a tough sport.

   Del Potro, from Argentina, with a blue-clad cheering section—“Del-po, Del-po,” they chant at change-overs—was ahead, 7-6 (3), 6-2, when the top-seeded, top-ranked Nadal was unable to continue.

  “I waited as much as I can,” said Nadal. “You can imagine very difficult for me to say good-bye before the match finish.”

No less difficult for the 23,000-plus fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the majority of whom were backing Rafa—excluding, of course, the Del-po guys who pay their way from Argentina, Del Potro’s homeland.

  “But at some point you have to take a decision. It was so difficult for me to keep playing at the same time that way. Having too much pain.”

 Nadal, from Majorca, a part of Spain, can be forgiven for his awkward English, even at age 32. Until a few years he needed a translator.”

   “This was not a tennis match at the end, no?” said Nadal. “It was just one player playing, the other one staying on the other side of the court. I hate to retire. But stay one more set out there playing like this is too much for me.”

  Del Potro, 29, offered condolences. “I saw him suffering a lot during the second set. I was just trying to do my game.”

 A game that after a third operation on his left wrist and one on his right—he uses both on a two-handed backhand— Del Potro was prepared to leave.

  “The worst moment,” Del Potro said reviewing a down period, “was in 2015. I was close to quitting this sport because I couldn’t find a way to fix my wrist problems. I (had) been suffering a lot. “I got depressed for a couple of months also. I didn’t feel better with myself to do this again.”

  His friends, among them the travelers from Tandil, Argentina, persuaded him to stay the course. He did. But only after the fourth wrist surgery.

 “I said I am not available to keep going to surgery again, put my body at risk because you never know what will happen after surgeries. I got lucky, because it did well. And now it’s working again. My wrist is OK. Not 100 percent, but I can play tennis in this condition.”

  And, obviously, play well. He beat Nadal in the semifinal of the 201`6 Olympics, lost to Nadal in a semifinal of the 2017 U.S. Open, lost to Nadal in a semifinal of the French Open, beat Roger Federer in the final at Indian Wells in March and now beat Nadal again. 

  Yes, Rafa was injured. But for months Del Potro had been injured.

Nadal’s game is rough-and tumble. He crashes from sideline to sideline and then not so much strokes a ball as batters. That style has gained him17 majors, second to Federer’s 20, but it also has created havoc with his knees. shoulders and wrists.

  “I know what I have,” Nadal insisted.  “Similar thing than always Just about to do treatment. It is not an injury that tells you three weeks off.  It is tendinitis, an injury that in one week you feel better.”

  It’s also an injury that ended his try for the championship, an injury that kept alive Juan Del Potro’s try, or does that make it seem like Del Potro wouldn’t have gone on it Nadal didn’t stop going?

  “I cannot believe that I will have a chance to play another Grand Slam in here, which it my favorite tournament,” said Del Potro.”I’ve been fighting with (against) many problems to get to this moment.”

  Problems that are a part of big-time tennis

Triumphant Serena, fearless off court and on

   NEW YORK—Serena Williams is a lady without fear, unafraid off the court to take an unpopular stand—supporting Colin Kaepernick in his controversial commercial—unafraid on the court to change the style of tennis that has been so effective through the years.

  Did you read what Serena said about Kaepernick, whose defiance is celebrated by Nike, admittedly also one of her sponsors?

  “He’s done a lot for the African-American community, and it’s cost him a lot,” she said. “I think everyone has a choice to do what they choose to do.”

  What Serena chose to do Thursday night was less momentous socially but quite significant athletically.

   A baseline player—“I usually only come to the net to shake hands,” Williams quipped—she moved up shot after shot, and in their U.S. Open semifinal thwarted the slice and drop-shot game of Anastasija Sevastova to win, 6-3, 6-0.

  After losing serve in the first game and then dropping the second, to go down, 2-0, Williams won 12 of the other 13 games in a tidy 1 hour 6 minutes under the roof at Arthur Ashe Stadium, closed before play began because of forecast of rain.

  The rain never materialized. Neither, after those first two games, did the supposed threat from the 28-year-old Sevastova, a Latvian who was in her first Grand Slam semi.

  A year ago the 36-year-old Williams was recovering from complications in the birth of her daughter, Olympia. Now she’s in the U.S. Open final for a ninth time with the opportunity for a seventh victory—and a record tying 24^th Slam win.

  “It’s been an incredible year,” said Williams, who will be 37 in a couple weeks. “A year ago I was fighting for my life in the hospital. No matter what happens in any match I feel like I’ve already won. To come this far . . .I’m just beginning guys.”

  It’s confidence tempered by possibility that perhaps makes Williams willing to take chances.

   Sure she has the money and backing of Nike, but stepping forward for Kaepernick, the onetime 49er quarterback who has been ostracized for kneeling down during the national anthem, is unnecessary and among many tennis buffs, an elite gathering, unpopular.

   “Whether people protest it, which is a peaceful protest actually, or not, that is the choice of being American,” said Serena. “It doesn’t make them less American. And I think that’s also something that’s really interesting, is the fact that we all make up this world, because we have different views and different views on different things, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be loving toward each other.”

   The sellout crowd of 23,000-plus certainly was in love with Serena. She’s been competing in the Open for almost 20 years. In tennis familiarity brings respect. She’s old guard but not too old to go unappreciated—even having been out of the game for 14 months, until March.

  She did get to the final at Wimbledon in July, if against a draw from which all the top 10 seeds were gone the first week. Angelique Kerber beat Serena in that final. Then Williams was smacked around in a couple of tournaments. Now she’s doing the smacking.

  “I’ve been practicing coming to the net,” said Williams. “I Lost matches against players like that.”
  She means players who have slicing backhands or cutsy little shots that land softly in the forecourt and are unreachable.

  “I’ve come to the net before,” she said, “I know how. I’ve volleyed when I play doubles. I just need to do it more.”

  Sevastova, who beat last year’s Open winner, Sloane Stephens in the quarter-finals, said of Serena’s movement, “I think she should come to the net for sure. I don’t know if I was surprised. But again she was serving well.”

  Which she does most of the time.

  At the end Williams seemed to be holding back tears.

  “Yeah,” she agreed, “I was a little emotional because last year at this time I was fighting for my life.”

    The fearless lady also won that one.

Rafa and Thiem: 4 hours and 49 minutes in the Twilight Zone

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — The Yankees game against the A’s had ended about 45 minutes earlier. And that was in Oakland.

In New York, three time zones — and one twilight zone — to the east, they were still playing tennis.

Well, Rafael Nadal and Dominic Thiem were still playing tennis. You’ve heard of breakfast at Wimbledon. This was insomnia at Flushing Meadows.

Nadal, 32, the world's No. 1, would win, defeating Thiem, who is a solid No. 9, in a bizarre five-set quarterfinal, 0-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-7, 7-6 (5), on Tuesday evening. Actually, on Wednesday morning, since the final point was at 2:03 a.m.

Nadal was resilient. So, too, were the fans at Arthur Ashe Stadium who stayed until the end.

You know the line from that Kander and Ebb song, popularized by the great Frank Sinatra, about waking up in the city that never sleeps. How about holding America’s tennis championship, the U.S. Open, in the wee small hours — to quote another song by Sinatra?

Officials and ESPN, which to its credit stayed with the match the full 4 hours and 49 minutes, love these late matches, as much for the attention as anything. Let’s see what’s on the tube. Oh, yeah, another John Wayne rerun. And, what’s this, a Rafael Nadal forehand?

Weary and sweaty — it was in the high 70s when the match started and headed back to the 90s Wednesday afternoon — Nadal, in a sleeveless shirt, stretched his arms at 90-degree angles in triumph. If some saw a religious connotation, that’s their choice.

Nadal’s choice is to play quicker. Then again, he was the one who staggered through the first set, which he “bageled,” to use the pros' term, a big zero, 6-0 for Thiem.

“After the first set,” Nadal said, “the match became normal.”

Not that there’s anything in sports happening after midnight to which the word “normal” can be applied.

When Nadal was told that besides his 17 Grand Slams, second to the 20 of Roger Federer — who didn’t win his late-night match Monday — the after-dark match would be another sort of record. His response was what one might expect at that hour, a smile.

“What is important about this match is the level of tennis,” he said, “the drama. When the things happen like this, the atmosphere and the crowd become more special. People get involved.

“Yeah, it has been great match, great atmosphere. Happy to be part of it. Not because it’s 3 in the morning (when he did his interview), I am happy about the ending.”

Thiem, a 25-year-old Austrian (yes, as in The Sound of Music and skiing), was not that unhappy. He went against one of the best and only lost in a fifth-set tiebreak.

“My earliest memory of Rafa,” said Thiem, “was when he beat Roger (Federer) in the French semis in 2005, I was 11 back then. Didn’t really think that I would also play him one day, but it’s very nice.”

Nadal’s win was not unappreciated by the tennis people. The Open is a one-of-a-kind event, with the late matches, the party atmosphere, the huge crowds that some days surpass 70,000.

The Open is New York in the extreme. Still, the top names — Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Federer and Nadal — are necessary for TV ratings and headlines.

The Yankees, the most important team in this town, are trying to get to the postseason. The New York football Giants and the rest of the NFL teams are about to start the season. There’s only so much space in the papers — the Post had a full story on Nadal-Thiem Wednesday morning — so second-raters get squeezed out.

Nadal, on the A-list, fortunately, squeezed in.

“I played a lot of long and tough matches in my career,” said Nadal. “This is one more. I like this feeling, but at the same time you feel tired. I lost at Wimbledon in a match like this. Today was for me.

“It’s just that someone has to lose. That’s part of the game. But personal satisfaction, when you give everything and you play with the right attitude, is the same ... Tennis is not forever, but you know the chances to play these kind of matches every time are less and less.”

He had the chance and did something with it.

Federer makes excuses after making too many mistakes

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — There had to be a morning after. It arrived hot and clear Tuesday — but without clarity about what happened a few hours before, the upset of tennis upsets.

Another match was starting right there at Ashe Stadium, one in which another surprise would take place, U.S. Open women’s defending champ Sloane Stevens losing to Anastasia Sevastova of Latvia.

So quick the turnaround. So lasting the results. We had awakened in the city that doesn’t sleep wondering — and for his legions of fans, many who follow him if not to the ends of the earth at least to locales such as Melbourne, Indian Wells, Stuttgart, Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows — worrying.

What the heck happened as Monday night, Labor Day, crossed into Tuesday? How could Roger Federer, acknowledged as the greatest male player in history, winner of 20 Grand Slam championships, not only get beat but truly get embarrassed in his fourth-round match against a journeyman named John Millman?

When the match came to a merciful close at 12:51 a.m. Eastern Time, after some three and a half hours of poor serves and unforced errors on a steam bath of an evening, there was Federer looking gaunt and whipped, and his disbelieving fans looking miserable.

Millman, No. 55 in the rankings (Federer is second) won, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6. 7-6, Roger made 10 double faults. Roger made 77 unforced errors. Roger made what could be interpreted as an excuse, saying, “I thought it was very hot tonight. I guess I couldn’t get air. There was no circulation at all. For some reason, I just struggled in the conditions.”

Even if they were the same for both players. “He practices in the humidity in Perth,” Federer said of Millman, an Australian.

Federer was 37 in August. He insists it was the weather that had an effect, not the age. He began the year by winning the Australian Open in January. That was a long time ago.

At Wimbledon he lost to Kevin Anderson in the quarterfinals, here to Millman a round before the quarters.

Roger Federer is not finished. He may, however, be finished as the Roger Federer we once knew. As he sank in his chair courtside after the final point, he looked ancient.

Great athletes decline, some faster than others, some slower. Tom Brady, still a starting NFL quarterback, is 41; Willie Mays, in his 40s, seemed to lose it overnight, unable to get fly balls and striking out. Federer was sharp enough in the third-rounder against Nick Kyrgios. And yet…

“The roof is on,” said Federer about the stadium that has a retractable middle, which can be closed when it rains but permanent sides. “I think it makes it totally different. Plus conditions were playing slower this year on top of it.

“You had soaking wet pants, soaking wet everything, Plus the balls are in there too. You try to play. I’ve trained in tougher conditions. I’ve played in the daytime. Some days, it’s just not the day where the body can cope.”

Novak Djokovic, who was going to meet Federer in the quarters if the predictions stood up — they didn’t — did play in the afternoon Monday. He’s younger than Federer, if that means anything. Federer would tell you that it doesn’t.

Federer, as losers often do, was talking what could have been, what might have been, If only that return hadn’t gone long. You know the routine, never wanting to bring up the slightest chance for self-doubt.

"I wish I could have led two sets to love, and then maybe the match would be different and I would find a way,” said Federer. "It was just tough. I thought John played a great match in difficult conditions. I'm happy I'm getting a rest now. Then I come back for the Laver Cup and hopefully finish the year strong."

Which he might do. Or might not. The longer one plays, the more his skills and quickness diminish.

The next major, the Australian Open, isn’t for another four-plus months. Time is not on his side but on the other side of the net.

Djokovic, from comedian to champion

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — He used to be more comedian than champion. Novak Djokovic could imitate the physical idiosyncrasies of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal for laughs. Then he began to beat them, and the laughter turned into accolades.

His style gets on the nerves of some. A New Yorker article said his detractors call him “Djoko-bitch.” His father ran a pizzeria in a Serbian mountain community that was home to a ski resort in winter and a tennis and basketball complex after the snow melted.

He was labeled “The Third Man,” the assumption that he was behind Federer and Nadal and ahead of recovering Andy Murray, when the sport’s big four are mentioned. He can be arrogant, but he also acts self-effacing.

On a very warm Labor Day, Monday, Djokovic disposed of the less-accomplished Joao Sousa of Portugal, 6-3, 6-4, 6-3, in a fourth-round match to advance to the U.S. Open quarterfinals, and then moved to the microphone for his thoughts and words — the latter in virtually flawless English, one of five languages in which he is able to converse.

This is a comeback year of sorts for Djokovic, 31, who missed weeks of competition before undergoing surgery on his right elbow in February. His win at Wimbledon in June not only indicated he had returned to brilliance but also was his 13th Grand Slam.

Federer has 20, of course, and Nadal, who is the same age as Djokovic, has 17. Djokovic, who has a winning record against both of them, was pressed to consider his place in history, since there wasn’t much to talk about regarding the Sousa match other than the 90-degree heat.

Marriage, two children and the natural progression of growing older have turned Djokovic from the flippant mime of a decade past into a more reflective and responsible individual. Also, unmentioned, he is a more successful one. The confidence comes through.

“Once you win more than a match against your top rival,” he said, probably meaning Nadal but not excluding Federer, “you have maybe a little bit of a mental advantage. It just depends, again, on how you feel playing against them, which kind of surface, what time of year and so forth.

“I feel my rivalry with Nadal especially is quite amazing as well. We played the most matches against each other than any other two tennis players ever in the game.”

Fifty two, with Djokovic holding a 27-25 edge.

And yet Djokovic alluded to a documentary, Strokes of Genius, built around Nadal’s epic win over Federer in the Wimbledon final of 2008.

“I watched a couple days ago,” he said. “That was really cool. I was glued to the TV, watching Rafa and Roger, really celebrating the greatness that they really are. I feel like these guys have been role models on court and off.”

Asked what stood out for him about the film, Djokovic said he wasn’t watching the actual match 10 years ago.

“But through the documentary,” he explained, “I could actually understand how good that match was, with interruptions of the rain and everything; Nadal losing a couple of finals in a row and then getting back ands fighting hard and showing a champion's sprit; Roger going back from two sets down, saving match points.”   

So rare, until their retirement, their dotage, to hear great athletes discuss other great athletes with awe and respect. So few don’t want to allow the other man, the other team, to get a psychological advantage.

The mental edge is as important in tennis, a sport in which self-belief counts as much — maybe more — than a forehand or backhand.            

Consider Sousa, 45th in the rankings, facing Djokovic, the No. 6 seed with all those major titles. “It was very special for me,” said Sousa, “to play out there against a great player like Novak is. We were suffering in the heat. But no excuse. I think he was the better player today.”

The better player and the more introspective.

“I felt a huge relief when I won Wimbledon this year,” said Djokovic, “because of the period of the last couple of years before that, what I’ve been through with the injury, inspiring myself to get back on the track and try to win majors and be one of the best players in the world.”

A very accessible goal.

Oh, mama, Serena makes U.S. Open quarters

By Art Spander

NEW YORK — She’s still going. Serena Williams made the declaration about herself. As if there were any doubts, and maybe when she was crushed in a match at Stanford five weeks ago, winning only one game in two sets, there had to be more than a few.

But that was then, and there were mitigating factors, besides the apparent one of trying to return to big-time sport only months after giving birth. And this is now, the U.S. Open, America’s historic tennis championship.

Serena has reached the quarterfinals for a 10th consecutive appearance.

Williams, who will be 37 this month, defeated another comeback lady, 33-year-old Kaia Kanepi of Estonia, 6-0, 4-6, 6-3, Sunday, at Arthur Ashe Stadium and announced, “It’s been 20 years since I won the Open. I literally grew up on this court. I played here when I was 15, 16. And now I’m still going.”

She missed the date of the championship by 12 months — she won her first of six Open titles in 1999 — and she also mis-used the word literally. But those are trifles compared to what she has accomplished.

It’s become a standard part of the Serena references, having a baby a year ago, missing weeks of competition and practice. We know what she’s been through. Or do we?

“I think society puts it out there that you’ll just kind of snap back,” Williams said of her recovery and return following a C-section delivery and subsequent blood problems.

“That’s a myth. I feel like it’s important for women to know it doesn’t happen like that in an Instagram world. In the real world, it takes a while for your body to come back. Especially after a C-section. And not only that, like mentally and physically dealing emotionally for a child. I thought it would just automatically come together.”

It was together in the first set. That took only 18 minutes. Then Kanepi broke Williams' serve to begin the second set. And so we had a test.

Kanepi was going to retire at the end of 2016 because of her own various medical problems. But like Serena, Kanepi felt attached to the game. And in this Open, in her first match, she knocked out the top-ranked woman, Simona Halep.

On July 31, Williams was defeated by Johanna Konta, 6-1, 6-0, in the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic at San Jose State. It was difficult to believe. But People magazine reported that the man who shot to death Serena’s sister Yetunde in 2006 had been paroled from prison, then arrested. That might be the reason Williams said, “I have so many things on my mind, I don’t have time to be shocked.”

What she’s thinking about now is adding a 24th Grand Slam championship to tie the record held by Margaret Court.

The victory over Kanepi, two days after the domination of sister Venus in a third-round match, indicate that Serena has returned to being among the best in the game, and never mind her ranking of 26th.

“I don’t think I want to win more,” Williams said of her current play. “I don’t think my desire to win could have been more five years ago … It has remained at an incredibly high level.”

That certainly is what makes a champion, a yearning to be the best, to finish in front. You read the tales of John Elway or Joe Montana, who even in supposedly friendly games, cards, backyard sports, played every point to win. So does Serena.

“I’ve still remained at that incredibly high level to compete and to win,” said Serena.

As understood by the scream she let fly when a backhand gave her the win over Kanepi.

“I don’t know, it’s just a Serena Williams scream,” she said of the outburst. “I don’t try to do it. It just comes out, and it’s just emotions. You’re out there. This is my job. This is what I do. This is how I earn a living. I’m going to do it the best I can.”

The victory, two days after the domination of sister Venus in a third-round match, indicate that Serena has returned to being among the best in the game, and never mind her ranking of 26th.

Which very well could be the best by any woman ever.