Koepka’s as tough as Torrey Pines

SAN DIEGO — Brooks Koepka is the sort of guy you want on your side. Or on the first tee. He’s as tough as the courses he plays, never making an excuse and as likely to get irritated by an interviewer’s question as he is by his own missed putts.

He wanted to be a ballplayer but was limited to golf when, as a 10-year-old, his face was crushed in a car accident and he had to give up rough and tumble sports. If his game changed, his attitude did not.

Somehow, maybe intentionally, maybe accidentally, Brooks and Bryson DeChambeau got involved in a very ungentlemanly feud, the sort you’d never expect in golf but the sort that has developed.

What makes it more interesting is that both have won major championships — and this week, among shots both verbal and literal, are trying to win another, the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.

The course is a bitch, stretched out more than 7,800 yards on a bluff above the Pacific. The rough, poa annua grass, is gnarly. The wind blows. And for good measure, jets from the Marine air base at nearby Miramar roar above with unnerving consistency.

In other words, give us a golfer who can be as nasty and unrelenting as Torrey Pines. A golfer like Brooks Koepka.

He shot a 2-under-par 71 Thursday in the first round, and if that wasn’t the lead it was close enough. Asked if it were important to get off to a good start, Koepka offered a response that was both repetitive and accurate.

“You can’t win it today,” he said, “but you can definitely lose it. Pretty pleased. Not the best, but I’ll definitely take it.”

Not that he has another choice.

Koepka is 6 feet, 205 pounds. He looks like a linebacker, or a major league catcher — in other words, an athlete. After leaving Florida State, he missed qualifying for the PGA Tour, then he went to Europe, played where conditions are difficult and the living is different. Toughening up, you might say.

When Koepka returned to America after winning in Europe and Britain, he was ready. He won the U.S. Open in 2017 and then again in 2018, becoming the first to repeat since Curtis Strange in 1988-89 (and only the second since Ben Hogan in the 1950s).

He followed that double with another double, victories in the 2018 and 2019 PGA Championship. Some players never win a single major. Koepka won four major majors in two years.

Then there was knee surgery and rehabilitation, which kept him from entering the 2020 Open at Winged Foot (won by DeChambeau). “Didn’t even watch it,” he said.

Now we’re all watching — and listening

“I’ve got a good game plan,” he said of success at the majors. “Focused. I know what I’m doing.”

That would seem an understatement.

“And I don’t try to do anything I can’t. It’s just all about discipline in a U.S. Open. That’s the gist of it.”

What some wonder about is the gist of the apparent disagreement between Koepka and DeChambeau — personality, philosophy, just plain dislike. Brooks looks away.

“As far as perception, I'm not really too concerned,” Koepka said of the public guesses. “I’m worried about what I've got to do and what I'm doing. I'm not concerned about what other people think. If I was concerned about what everybody else thought, I'd have been in a world of pain.”

He means the mental agony, as opposed to the physical, the knee.

“I've got more mobility right now than I ever have,” he said, “so that's a solid thing where I can start building some strength again and just keep the progress going.”

No nonsense, no pretense, good sense.

It’s Phil’s hometown, but it’s been Tiger’s course

SAN DIEGO — He had his renaissance and his record only days ago. So how much more can we expect from Phil Mickelson? Even in his hometown? Even on the course he played as a kid?

There will be no tears shed now for Mickelson’s game. Not that there should have been.

What he accomplished in May, at age 50 taking the PGA Championship, becoming the oldest to win a major, gave him a deserved place in the history of the royal and ancient game.

And yet this is the U.S. Open, America’s golfing championship, the tournament in which Mickelson — through failings of his own, through brilliance by others — has finished second six times but never finished first.

His 51st birthday was Wednesday, the day before the start of the 121st Open. Too old to compete in what presumably will be his last Open. Or is it? He had no chance in the PGA, right?

Five men have won each of the four majors, Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods. Mickelson would be a perfect sixth. Especially winning at Torrey, where he once played high school matches.

Then again, in a field that includes Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau — feuding, fussing and not-yet fighting — and Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas, all younger, let us not drift too far from reality.

If Phil were going to win an Open at Torrey, it would have been in 2008. He was paired with Tiger, who was hurting and would require leg surgery immediately after the event. But Tiger smoked Mickelson, smoked everybody, and so much for what could have been.

In Phil’s town, Torrey remained Tiger’s course.

As has been pointed out, Phil, in fact, was Tiger before Tiger, winning the Tucson Open while still an amateur, being touted as America’s next great player — before, indeed, Tiger became America’s next great player.

Whatever Mickelson honestly thinks of what transpired, he comes across as someone accepting of his fate and status. And of Tiger’s, who although growing up some 45 miles away from Phil, because of the six-year difference in ages, never faced him in the juniors.

“I don’t have any particularly funny stories,” Mickelson said of his first two rounds with Tiger in the ’08 Open. “I remember Tiger bogied — or double-bogied — the first hole, and I think both days and still won the tournament.”

Woods also had numerous victories at Torrey in the Farmers insurance or Buick Open, whatever the name of the event was each February at Torrey, and so the mayor of San Diego is going to put a plaque honoring Woods at the course.

Thinking back to Woods’ over-par starts in that Open, Mickelson said, “I thought that was pretty inspiring the way he didn’t let it affect him. He stayed to his game plan. Stayed focused. Stayed patient picking his spots where he could get a stroke here and there.

“And he ended up winning. That’s impressive.”

So was Mickelson winning the PGA Championship at an age when many people thought he should be shifting full-time to the Champions Tour, the seniors.

Phil has established his own standard.

“At the age of 50, he’s been playing on the PGA Tour for as long or longer than I’ve been alive,’’ said one of the favorites this week, Jon Rahm, who was born in 1994, three years after the first of Mickelson’s 45 PGA Tour wins.

“He still has that enthusiasm and that drive to become better and beat the best,” Rahm said. “I hope that in 25-plus years, I still have the same enthusiasm and the same grit to become better.’’

A fine tribute, especially in a person’s hometown.

Tiger’s Torrey win inspired an amateur named Spieth

SAN DIEGO — One champion, Jordan Spieth, was musing about another, remembering how Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open another time it was played at Torrey Pines, remembering the drama, remembering the inspiration.

Thirteen years ago, in 2008, Spieth was at the University of Texas with a ton of talent and a great many hopes.

Meanwhile, on the bluffs above the Pacific, Woods overcame a broken femur and Rocco Mediate in a thrilling tournament that would take 91 holes to decide. 

Golf courses, like battlefields, are famous for the men and women who won — or lost — on them. Pebble Beach always will be connected to Jack Nicklaus; the Olympic Club forever linked with Arnold Palmer and Billy Casper; and Torrey with Tiger.

“I remember watching the ’08 Open,” said Spieth on Tuesday after a practice round for this ’21 Open, “and dreaming of being out there and competing on this course and (in) this championship. What a phenomenal Open that was.”

Spieth was able to follow his dream. He’s on Tour, has won an Open, a Masters and a British Open. Tiger, of course, was involved in that near-fatal auto accident in February and requires rehabilitation.

That he’s not able even to attend this Open at the place where he won in ’08, the place where he won numerous PGA Tour tournaments, is unfortunate and ironic. One never knows what’s around the next corner.

Asked what he thought of Tiger’s victory here, Spieth thought of the injury that would require surgery only days after his triumph.

“Something you shouldn’t be playing on,” said Spieth, “then he went and won the U.S Open on it — which if you’re having to hack out of this rough, and obviously it’s one of the tougher walks, that’s something else.”

That stretch of three Opens within 800 miles in California — ’08 at Torrey, ‘10 at Pebble (won by Graeme McDowell) and ‘12 at Olympic (won by Webb Simpson) — was historic and unique. Olympic has chosen to host a PGA Championship, meaning the PGA Championship won’t be back, maybe ever.

Spieth was low amateur in the ’12 Open at Olympic. Three years later, as a young pro, he won at Chambers Bay near Seattle, his second major in three months, and some observers thought he might be the new Tiger.

What he is after playing Torrey in its most difficult setup is even more appreciative of Woods’ play here in ’08.

“It’s up and down on the 72nd hole from the rough,” said Spieth of Woods, “and obviously one of the most memorable putts in major championship history.

“I remember where I was watching it, and it was so exciting. Obviously, he was an inspiration for all of us younger generation (now) out here to go and practice a putt like that and to tie or win the U.S. Open.”

Which Spieth would do, if not exactly in the same circumstances.

Spieth spent much of the last three and a half years trying to regain the success that, as one of the mysteries of sport, inexplicably disappeared. Finally at the winter events in the desert, the new Jordan played like the old Jordan, and he won the Valero Texas Open in early April.

His outlook has changed. Particularly with an Open about to begin.

“Winged Foot,” he said of last year’s Open, “it was, oh boy, here we go. And I’m thinking this week I’m in a position where I can stand on the 10th tee on Thursday (he starts on the back nine) and win this golf tournament.”

Just as Spieth, the amateur, watched Tiger Woods do.

Olympic Club again more curse than course

SAN FRANCISCO — The Olympic Club remains more curse than course, a place where leads are squandered and favorites are trampled. It kicked Ben Hogan in one U.S. Open and smacked Arnold Palmer around in another.

And Sunday, in the U.S. Women’s Open, it ruined the hopes and plans of Lexi Thompson — in virtually the same way it did to Arnie in 1966.

Lexi had this Open, with a five-shot lead and nine holes to play, as surely as Arnie, a seven-shot lead and nine to play, had that Open.

But Billy Casper, making putts and making history, caught Palmer and beat him in an 18-hole playoff. Golf has never been the same.

Now, after what candidly must be called her collapse, you wonder if Lexi will be.

“That's what this course can do,” Thompson said of how she made a mess of things, and in the process was unable to give a jolt to ladies golf in America. “Just got the wind wrong on a few shots coming in. But overall, I'd be the first one to tell you that I hit some bad golf shots, and I deserved it, but it's golf.”

Thompson shot a 5-over-par 41 on the back and came in with a 4-over 75. She sunk to third and missed the playoff by a shot.

The winner on the third extra hole was Yuka Saso, beating Nasa Hataoka after both finished with totals of 4-under 280. Saso, from the Philippines, was as sharp at the end as Lexi was not, ending up 4-4-4 (birdie, birdie, par) on 16, 17 and 18, compared with Thompson’s 5-6-5, a total difference of four strokes. Lexi ended at 281.

They say golf is a cruel game, and it definitely was cruel for Thompson. On a cool, sunny day along the coast, Thompson was having a ball. The crowd was alive. The stakes were high — no American had won the Open in five years. She and the women’s game were poised for the breakthrough.

Maybe on another day, on another course.

There are no water hazards and only one fairway bunker on Olympic’s Lake Course, but there is a reputation that taunts. When virtually every conversation about Olympic dwells on what has gone wrong, it’s perhaps difficult to think of what to do right.

And that rough, although trimmed a bit during the week, doesn’t help.

Thompson is 25. She first qualified for an Open when she was 12, at the time the youngest girl ever to do so. She’s won other tournaments, including that one now known as the Inspiration, one of the four ladies’ majors. But this Open, and the way she couldn’t hang on, has to hurt. 

“Yeah, of course it's hard to smile,” she conceded, “but I mean, it was an amazing week. Yeah, I played not so good today with a few of the bogeys coming in on the back nine, but the fans were unbelievable, hearing the chants just gives me a reason to play.”

There’s always a reason. With her success and endorsement deals, Thompson has earned a bundle. A native and resident of Florida, she has an interest in stock car racing. In that sport, as in golf, there are mishaps.

“You know, 17,” she mused about a bogey hole, “I mean, I didn't hit a bad drive. The wind just never got it and then I tried to bounce right, and I've never seen a lie that bad. That's what this course can do. Just got the wind wrong on a few shots coming in.”

An old tale in an Open at Olympic, and not a happy one.

At the Open, Lexi and Megha give boost to American golf

SAN FRANCISCO — A tantalizing nickname, right out of a Hollywood studio: Lexi. We’ve seen and heard it for years, mostly for history — Lexi Thompson played in the U.S. Women’s Open at age 12 — and occasionally in misery, the inability to meet her own expectations.

But there she is again, leading this 2021 Open with only 18 holes to play, maybe destined to be the first American in five years to win the national championship

Thompson, now 25, shot a bogey-free 5-under-par 66 on the Olympic Club’s Lake Course, the low round on Saturday, and with a 54-hole of 6-under 207 moved a shot ahead of Yuka Saso of the Philippines.

And indeed, the charming, talented Megha Ganne, the New Jersey teen, remained very much part of the story, hanging in with a 2-over 73 that left her tied for third with Jeongeun Lee of South Korea at 210.

“It’s all about patience,” said Thompson of her round and her standing. She meant hers, not ours, although either could be accepted. “I just realized I needed to change my mindset.”

A win by Thompson — she tied for second in 2019 — would give the woman’s game a jolt. The American golf community has been waiting for a U.S. female star in the few years since Michelle Lee was a winner and waiting even longer for Thompson

It isn’t a case of being provincial, but of being practical and commercial. In team sports, you root for the uniform. In golf and tennis, you cheer for the personality, or better yet the nationality.

So Thompson, who went sleeveless on the day the sun finally made a cameo appearance along the coast, and Ganne, 17, who is headed for Stanford in another year, are exactly what the American game has lacked: stars with whom even the casual fan could identity.

Alexis Thompson, from a golfing family in Florida, made an impression when in 2007, at age 12, she made the field for the Open, at the time the youngest girl ever to qualify. (Seven years later, the record was surpassed by Lucy Li.)

Thompson’s amateur career was decent enough, and she won 11 tournaments after turning professional including the Kraft Nabisco (now the Inspiration, one of the four LPGA majors). And yet her name seemed to be missing until recently.

“I haven’t really struggled,” she said, “but I haven’t played to my standard.”

The problem was mental, as so frequently the problem is in golf.

“I was just taking it too seriously,” she said about the game. “I just got into a state (thinking), I’m going to hit bad shots.”

So she returned to pro John Denny, who knew how to make a correction. “I’m focusing on the good in life,” she said, “just the blessing of being out here. I mean Covid didn’t help. No fans and all that. Just seeing those little kids here and the chants, it brings me happiness and reason for playing golf again.”

Megha Ganne has expressed similar thoughts. Golfers are part athlete, part actor — those arm pumps from Tiger — and Ganne said she feels like she’s on stage when the crowd responds.

“I’ve always imagined myself engaging with the fans,” Ganne explained after an afternoon of engagement and impressive golf. “Because when I was younger and watching events, I knew I would love it when I see the pros just even look at the crowd and smile.”

A pro called Lexi and an amateur named Megha smiled frequently on Saturday. For good reason. They were winning. As was women’s golf in the U.S.

At the Women’s Open, Megha Ganne grabs the spotlight

SAN FRANCISCO — They say a golf ball doesn’t care how old you are. Nor does it care about your heritage or history. Just put it on the tee and swing away.

A man, who likes golf, and his wife immigrated from India to New Jersey, where their daughters are born. On the promise of treats, he coaxes them to join him at the driving range. The older one develops into a champion.

Maybe not the latest version of the American Dream, but in these so-called challenging times, with minorities under attack, an encouraging tale.

Hari Ganne, Megha Ganne’s father, a tech guy, surely couldn’t have imagined she would become the golfer she is, at 17, still in high school, grabbing headlines and for one day grabbing a share of the lead in the U.S. Women’s Open.

In the second round on Friday, Ganne was overtaken, slipping to a tie for third, two strokes back after an even-par 71.

She remained low amateur and also remained a topic for the news channels. And was enjoying it immensely.

It’s not easy to tromp up and down the hills of the Olympic Club’s Lake Course, not on an all-too-typical early summer day in Northern California, where “June Gloom” was more like “February Freeze” (brrr).

But bad weather had never stopped good golf fans or great golfers.

The crowd was relatively large, the response relatively loud.

“I love it so much,” said Ganne. “I wish every event I had a gallery watching me because it just makes me play better, I think. And I love being in the spotlight, so it's been really fun.”

If she seems a like the Stanford type, well, she’s already committed to the university. Apparently joining Rachel Heck, who as a freshman at Stanford last year won the NCAA tournament and played in the Open.

Aline Krauter, who won the British Amateur, also is at Stanford and played in the Open. The Cardinal keep adding female golfers like Alabama adds football players.

Whether Ganne can add the Open to her resume is questionable, however.

Only one amateur has won the women’s Open, Catherine LaCoste in 1967. Yes, the daughter of the French tennis ace, Henri, “The Crocodile,” whose shirt with the reptile logo is as famous as the man. Second in that Open was Shelley Hamlin, who, fitting well in the narrative, went to Stanford.

For a while, until the fall of 2022, Ganne’s school will be in Holmdel, N.J., where she has a full load of subjects to keep her busy. In fact, she was about to take a semester-ending calculus test that her mother, Sudha, said was creating much more stress than the golf. 

Why not? Golf still is a game. To borrow a phrase from baseball, you play golf, not work golf.

“I was way more calm than (Thursday),” said Ganne about her 33-38 round Friday that began at the 10th hole. “I received a great amount of support after the first round, and my motivation came from that.”

Asked the biggest difference between rounds one and two — other than four shots — Ganne said it was the weather. A perfect response from a visitor to San Francisco, where parkas and knit caps were numerous.

“The course played pretty similar,” Ganne said, “but it was chillier. And there was some fog in the morning, adding some yards.”

What Ganne added was another bit of excitement, as is fitting for someone with growing star quality.

She said she began to feel comfortable in the spotlight during the 2019 U.S. Amateur, where as a 15-year-old she reached the semifinals in match play.

“Yeah,” she said of the attention, “that’s when I really liked it.”

Right now, Ganne is being liked by practically everyone in American golf.

Open course is tough, and so is Mel Reid

SAN FRANCISCO — Mel Reid looked at the course, literally, and knowing the history, virtually, with the same honesty she looked at herself.

Reid knew what was out there and could accept it.

Now a day into the U.S. Women’s Open, Reid tied for the lead with amateur Megha Ganne and can accept that.

On Thursday, in weather that was Marine Layer dreary, Reid, prepared mentally for what she would face, had five birdies and a 4-under-par 71 on the Olympic Club’s Lake Course.

“I didn’t think that score was out there,” said Reid, who very much is out there, in more than one definition.

“I’ve got a lot more scars on my body than most of the girls,” Reid told Golf Monthly of Britain.

And for Gay Pride Week, in the city where the event is historically celebrated, she has a golf hat with a rainbow logo.

The 33-year-old Reid, from the Midlands of England, came out as a lesbian last fall, just before she came to the United States. Her pal and adviser is four-time major champion Brooks Koepka, now a Florida neighbor.

Her game is to be admired. So is her attitude. She showed up Monday and, after practice, said of the same Olympic course that had others fearful, “This is how a U.S. championship should be, really tough. If you shoot even par around here, you’ve got a really good chance of winning the tournament.”

She knew at the last men’s Open at Olympic, in 2012, Webb Simpson won at 1 over.

“I think it’s going to be a great test,” she predicted. The course that got the best of Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson in men’s Opens always has been.

Maybe no female golfer has been tested as often or in so many ways as Melissa Reid. Nine years ago, Reid’s mother was killed in a car crash en route home from one of Mel’s tournaments in Germany. Unsettled and also uncertain about her sexuality, she went a bit wild, partying and rarely practicing.

But she regained her bearings and her game, although going without a win more than three years she was left off the 2019 European Solheim Cup team, a considerable blow to her confidence and ego.

But with Koepka’s advice and with her own determination, Reid played herself into the spot as England’s best female golfer, a position she didn’t hurt with the first round she’s ever played in a U.S. Open.

“Level par should be winning this thing in my opinion,” she said. “I love how tough it is. These are the kind of golf courses we want to play.”

You love how tough Reid is. She kept her sexuality as secret as possible while playing in Europe, worried that she would lose financial support if it became an issue.

“I protected my sexuality for a long time,” she told the Times of London, “because I thought I had to in order to help my career and to get more sponsors.

“Then I started to wonder why these companies would want to sponsor me and have me represent them if I couldn’t be my authentic self. There is only one of you in the world and you have one life, so be the best version of yourself and be proud of who you are.”

She definitely can be proud of her game.

“I think if you play well,” Reid said, echoing a long-held belief, “you get rewarded. If you don’t, you can get punished very quickly.”

Koepka, who won back-to-back men’s Opens and PGAs, well understands that and has been able to make Reid understand it as well.

“I texted Brooks on Tuesday,” said Reid. “We had a long conversation, then we FaceTimed. He gave me a few things he follows in a major. What he told me was invaluable, and it made me have a little different approach.”

An approach that was very successful.

The ladies take on the course that victimized Ben and Arnie

SAN FRANCISCO — So, it’s another U.S. Open at the Olympic Club, where Arnie and Ben became victims, not winners; where you can see the Golden Gate Bridge from the third tee — but because of the rough you often can’t see the ball after a shot — and where reverse camber fairways make the course almost as zany as the city where it’s located.

But it’s not another U.S. Open starting on Thursday at Olympic, wedged along the Pacific on San Francisco’s western edge. For the first time, it’s the Women’s Open, meaning the best female golfers will get to know the misery that Olympic can inflict.

No water hazards. Only one fairway bunker — on the sixth hole — but trees, cypress and pine by the hundreds, and rough by the foot. 

“Really thick and long,” said Inbee Park, a two-time champion. “You have to hit the fairways on this course. It’s an automatic bogey if you don’t.”

Opens — this is the 76th women’s — are infamous for difficulty. And griping. And, of the five men’s Opens at Olympic, for unexpected champions: in ’55 Jack Fleck, not the favored Ben Hogan; in ‘66 Billy Casper, not the favored Arnold Palmer; in ’87 Scott Simpson, not the favored Tom Watson.

What this means for the ladies we’ll find out soon enough. The oddsmakers — yes, there’s betting on everything, including women’s golf — made Park the favorite, followed closely by Jin Young Ko, Lydia Ko and Sei Young Kim.

Probably the best bet would be on Olympic’s Lake Course, built in the 1920s. literally on one end of the San Andreas Fault. The late Ken Venturi (who won the Open at Congressional) grew up in San Francisco. He said the property where Olympic is located was changing constantly. That wasn’t the cause of reverse camber, where, as at the par-4 fourth, you need to play left while your feet are aimed downhill right.   

Then there is the way the course is prepared, not the way the Women’s Open entrants would prefer. Add the typical June weather — Mark Twain never actually wrote that the coldest winner he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco, but whoever did was accurate — and few are happy.

“I was terrified,” Angela Stanford, who has played in 21 U.S. Women’s Opens, said after her first shots in the opening practice round. Maybe she thought it was an Alfred Hitchcock setting, not a sporting venue.

There is, however, a legitimate fear in having to negotiate an Open course with small, hard greens and not much room to land a tee shot. Strokes can multiply all too quickly.

In only four of the five previous men’s Opens, just four players finished with under-par totals, winners Casper and Simpson, and runners-up Palmer and Watson. Stanford, after playing, said, “That makes sense.”

To John Bodnehamer, the U. S. Golf Association’s director of championships, so does a course that is testing. If the Open is the hardest tournament of the year, well, shouldn’t that be the case for a national championship?

“These players are good!” Bodnehamer told Tod Leonard of Golf Digest. “They’re going to find a way to hit those fairways, they’re going to make putts, and you’re going to see players under par. You’re just gonna!

“I’ll say that now. I don’t know what it will be. But they’re damn good, and we want to showcase that. And it is hard, and when they do excel, and they shoot under par on a hard place, I think it just showcases that side of what they do.”

It’s the other side that worries them. No athlete wants to look bad, and on a course as challenging as Olympic is under tough conditions, the possibility of looking bad is, well, quite good.

Michelle Wie West sympathizes with ‘incredibly brave’ Osaka

SAN FRANCISCO — She knows all about expectations. And pressure.  It’s not exactly accurate to say that Michelle Wie West was an earlier version of Naomi Osaka — after all, their sports are different — but there are similarities.

As surely there are for other young women who find athletic success and fame before they find their bearings.

You know what’s happened the past few days to Osaka, the tennis ingénue, how after winning the first match she refused to attend a required news conference at the French Open. Then, after being fined, she chose to withdraw, eventually explaining at age 23 that she was haunted by depression and anxiety.

Wie West sympathizes. At 31, now she is married — to the son of a basketball legend — as well as a mother and a champion in her own right.

“My lows have been well documented throughout the years,” she said when asked about relating to Osaka’s trouble.

“And there’s a lot of tough times. I thought what Naomi did the past week was incredibly brave. I also understood that part of being an athlete is speaking to the media, because that’s how the tournaments get the media coverage.”

Which on this chilly, damp Tuesday morning is what Wie West was doing, after a practice round for the U.S. Women’s Open at the Olympic Club, where competition starts on Thursday.

If there is a phrase to sum up Wie West, it’s “been there, done that,” because there are few places she hasn’t been, and few things she hasn’t done.

“I'm really proud of athletes taking charge of their mental health and making it a priority. More conversations need to be had about that,” Wie West said.

“From a player’s perspective, I am totally understanding,” she said about Osaka’s difficulty. “I also get anxiety talking to the media right before (a tournament) because I know it’s the same questions every week. You guys are just doing your job, and I really appreciate that. But the last thing you want to do after a bad round is talk to anyone.” 

So, we talk about Wie West, who starting before she was 10 became worthy subject matter, winning events in her native Hawaii, the state amateur, the state public links.

She became one of the boys, smashing prodigious drives and in 2004, at 14, being invited to play against the figurative biggest of those boys, the PGA Tour pros, in the Sony Hawaiian Open. She missed the cut by only a couple of swings.

She herself turned pro — was it at the urging of her father? — before she turned up at Stanford as an undergrad. The joy and freedom she found on campus was gone once more when she returned to the LPGA Tour. And even Michelle taking the 2014 U.S Women’s Open, the ultimate prize, didn’t seem to satisfy the doubters.

It appears that unlike Osaka, Wie West has satisfied herself.

In 2019 she married Jonnie West, who works in the front office for the Golden State Warriors; yes, his father is NBA Hall of Famer Jerry West. They have a daughter, Makenna.

The golf still matters, but as Serena Williams said after becoming a new mother, on court the baby remains foremost in her mind.

Next, perhaps, is protecting the wrists that were injured a few years back. An Open, especially at Olympic, where in 1955 the great Ben Hogan couldn’t extract himself from the deep stuff, would appear to be the worst place.

“It’s tough,” Wie West said of the course, hosting its first women’s Open after having hosted five men’s Opens. “It’s a beast. Couple weeks ago when I played here, the rough wasn’t as long.”

You can trim the grass, unlike the demands on young female athletes.

For Giants, June once meant swoon

SAN FRANCISCO — Yes, June — and to those who have followed the San Francisco Giants through the years, that brings the most painful of rhyming words — swoon.

April and May were great. And then? Well, as Jim Murray wrote way, way back in 1965, “A falling figure shoots past a window, and a man says, ‘Oh, oh. It must be June. There go the Giants.”’

The month has a long way to go. Truth tell, so do the baseball pennant races, but after beating the Angels, 6-1, Monday at Oracle Park — not to be confused with the way they whipped a different L.A. team, the Dodgers, three in a row at the same place — June doesn’t seem like it’ll be a swoon.

There’s a saying that you shouldn’t pay attention to the standings until Memorial Day, which of course was Monday, meaning all restrictions are off. But very much on are thoughts that the Giants, with their undersized payroll and oversized dreams, might get to the postseason.

No less important, baseball is fun again by the Bay. Fans able to show proof of vaccinations once more can jam together in the bleachers, as in pre-pandemic days, shouting, or in the case of San Francisco starter Johnny Cueto when he walks off the mound after the top of the seventh, giving a standing ovation.

“I love it when the fans are behind me,” Cueto said through interpreter Erwin Higueros. Cueto knows the drill. He’s an athlete who’s an entertainer. He also helped the Giants to a third straight win and sixth in seven games.

“Johnny is a little bit different from the other starters we have,” said Gabe Kapler, the Giants manager, meaning he shimmies and shakes and keep batters off-balance in his unorthodox manner.

After the departure of Barry Bonds a decade ago, Giants home runs became rare, because of Oracle’s dimensions — there was a reason centerfield was nicknamed “Death Valley,” although the franchise prefers the euphemism “Triples Alley.”

The distances were moved when bullpens were built into right center, and no one needs a degree in physics to know that on a warm afternoon (it was 67 degrees at first pitch) a ball flies farther than it does on a chilly San Francisco night.

The Giants, acting as if they were the boom-boom Dodgers, hit three home runs on Monday, one by Evan Longoria, one by Mauricio Dubon (who took over after Longoria felt a twinge running the bases) and one by Donovan Solano.

This is not to suggest in any way that the Giants should be compared to the powerful teams of the early 1960s when they had Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda, and an L.A. sportswriter named Bob Hunter called them “the big boppers of Bridgetown.” But at least they can get more than singles.

“I don’t see Dubon as a home run hitter,” said Kapler, in response to a question. “He’s more of a grinder, and with his speed he can get the extra base. He works the gaps, and he’s a quality defender.”

Kapler said the two victories over the Diamondbacks in Phoenix set up the wins over the Dodgers in L.A. and the one over the Angels, confidence builders.

San Francisco lacks people like Mookie Betts and Fernando Tatis Jr., two of the game’s better — and better-paid — players, but it isn’t lacking in quality or sense of humor.

Photos have been adorned with painted mustaches, as opposed to actual mustaches some players have attempted to grow with varying degrees of success.

“We get along very well,” said Cueto. “We’re having a lot of fun.”

Winners usually do.

This time, Phil being Phil was historic

The phrase became as famous as the man who went about becoming infamous. “Phil being Phil,” they said to explain or justify Phil Mickelson’s personal and occasionally contentious style, on a golf course or off.

No one ever doubted Phil could play the game — he was on the cover of Golf Digest when still an amateur — and as we learned over the years, he also could talk the game.

You want an opinion, you want a bit of brilliance, or arrogance, Phil was your guy. He was fearless, driving a car — Jaime Diaz wrote about Mickelson’s hair-raising zip through traffic after a Chargers game in San Diego — or driving a dimpled ball through the trees.

But it was hard not to like Phil, even when he blew the final-hole lead in the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, throwing caution and the tournament to the wind and calling himself an idiot. Which is why it was so satisfying when Mickelson set a record for a lifetime, his and ours, becoming at 50 the oldest man to win a major, the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island.

It’s also hard not to connect Mickelson and the man who grew up maybe 45 miles from him in Southern California, Tiger Woods.

Truth tell, Phil was Tiger before Tiger, Mickelson winning a PGA tournament when still at Arizona State. Phil and Ernie Els were supposed to dominate the game. Then, boom, in the 1997 Masters, along came Woods.

Tiger is different, private until the last few years, rarely outspoken in interviews, His popularity strictly was based on the play that made him the best in the world. Phil could debate a journalist or wave at a spectator.

He had a frat boy sense of humor. When in Ireland for the Walker Cup, the amateur event between the United States and United Kingdom, Mickelson hit a ball into the gallery.

Asked after the match about walking with the spectators, he wisecracked, “I thought these Irish girls are supposed to be pretty.”

The Mickelsons are loaded with talent. Phil’s dad was such an expert skier he was considered for the U.S. Olympic Team. Phil was sharp on the slopes until breaking a leg. His sister is a golf pro.

If Phil lacked for humility, that was understandable and most times not a problem. Most times. Then there were times such as the 2018 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, when for some reason or another he held putting practice on the 13th green — during the third round.

He could have been disqualified but — Phil being Phil — was only penalized. Comic relief? An opportunity to take a stand against the U.S. Golf Association? Certainly an attention-grabber.

Mickelson was stricken a decade ago with a psoriatic arthritis, which is incurable. Obviously that hasn’t stopped him from playing and winning. The man is persistent and occasionally ridiculous.

There’s nothing he feels he can’t do, to a point of absurdity.

A few years back, he was 150 yards from the cup on the 18th at Torrey Pines, in the last round of what is now the Farmers Open, and told his caddy to pull the flagstick. No, the shot did not go in.

Phil will attempt almost anything. He chartered a jet daily to fly the roughly 120 miles from north of San Diego to L.A. so he could stay at home and play in the tournament at Riviera.

What he’ll try in the coming days at Torrey, where he’s played forever, is to finally win the U.S. Open, missing from his resume.

At his age and after finishing runner-up six times, the prospect is unlikely. But then again, so was winning the PGA.

But then the Dodgers showed up

SAN FRANCISCO — Days and a night of reckoning. Those were the real Dodgers. The question is whether those were the real Giants.

That was great, living large against the Rockies and Reds, scoring big, thinking big. Hey, first place. It doesn’t get any bigger or better, particularly for a team some suggested should be closer to last place.

But then the Dodgers showed up. And how. Three games at Oracle, where the crowd was large — 13,446, the largest of the spring, and maybe a third cheering for the dreaded Dodgers.

Three games, and three wins for L.A., the last one Sunday, 11-5; the Dodgers, who were beat up and getting beat, turning into the dominant World Series champions they are.

What the young, low-payroll, overachieving Giants will turn into will be learned quickly enough.

Which is the more accurate representation of the Giants, the team that until Friday had pushed the right buttons, made the timely swings and won five in a row? Or the team that was stymied by the L.A. pitching until it was pummeled by the L.A. hitting and has dropped three in a row?

For sure, the Giants understand why the Dodgers won the championship, not that they didn’t previously.

“We got beat every which way in this series,” was the candid assessment of Giants manager Gabe Kapler. “They made more pitches than we did. They got more big hits than we did. They played better defense, converted more plays and outs than we did. 

“When that happens, the only thing to do is get back up quickly off the mat and quickly turn the page and get ready for the next game.”

Yes, a bit of a mixed metaphor, but when you’re behind 11-0 in the third inning against your historic rival at your home park, one is allowed a grammatical slip or two.

At least the Giants made it competitive, if they couldn’t make it close. Had they not scored at all and had a few runners on base, the manager was going to bring in outfielder Darin Ruf to pitch, saving relievers who, with starter Anthony DeSclafani not making it through the third, were overworked.

DeSclafani conceded he was awful, a bad combination when your hitters, facing Julio Urias, also were awful until it didn’t really matter. That a major league team would have an occasionally terrible game isn’t the worst thing — if the game is occasional and not against the team you need to beat.

Particularly since after two games at Arizona, the Giants play four more against the Dodgers in L.A. Three losses down there would pretty much delete the joy out of what until days ago was a joyful beginning.

The Dodgers have those two Cy Young Award pitchers, Trevor Bauer — who won Frlday night — and Clayton Kershaw. On Sunday, it was Urias. But no matter who’s on the mound, it’s the guys in the batter’s box who destroy the Giants, notably Max Muncy and Justin Turner.

The truism in baseball is good pitching stops good hitting. So the Giants were upbeat knowing DeSclafani was going be facing L.A. on Sunday. When the Dodgers’ Gavin Lux lined the first pitch of the game for a hit, that was an omen of what was about to come. Whoosh.

“I actually felt pretty good today,” said DeSclafani, an observation that couldn’t be repeated by Giants partisans. “It’s weird to say that, giving up 10 runs.”

It was weird to say that for a couple of weeks the Giants were ahead of the Dodgers. But as we know, weird things happen in the game, not always the way you would choose.

“At the end of the day,” DeSclafani said of his unexpected performance, “sometimes that’s baseball, just the way the game goes. It’s just important to forget about this game as quick as I can ... I’ve had a good season to this point.”

Before the Dodgers.

Steph on LeBron’s winner: ‘Great players make great plays’

Maybe it was appropriate. Steph Curry, who so often makes the long shots, being able to take the long view.

He didn’t like the result, getting beat 103-100 by the Lakers in the play-in game Wednesday night — the way he so frequently has won — but he relished the competition.

This was what he remembered, the excitement of the postseason, which he and the Warriors had missed since that fateful NBA final of injuries and defeat two years ago.

So tough this game, so emotional — head coach Steve Kerr used the term “disappointing” — and yet still so reassuring.

A game that reminded him, that reminded us, of the thrill and tension when every basket and every turnover become critical.

Curry, the NBA scoring champion and presumptive third-time MVP, joined the Lakers’ LeBron James to help make the evening nothing short of a Hollywood premier, exactly what league execs could have dreamed.

You had the two biggest stars in the game, Curry, who scored 37, and LeBron James, who as brilliant players are apt to do, hitting the winning basket from maybe 30 feet — a Curry-type-shot — with 58 seconds remaining.

That sent the Lakers into the playoffs at Phoenix and sent the Warriors into another play-in game, against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday night at Chase Center.

But neither Curry nor Kerr was that interested in what was coming, They preferred to ruminate about what had taken place — how the Warriors, with the defense they developed over the weeks, built a 13-point lead in the first half and then under pressure from L.A.’s fine defense gave it up on turnovers and fouls.

“This is a bitter pill to swallow,” said Kerr. “This was our game, and we couldn’t get it done.”

They couldn’t even though the Warriors’ Draymond Green slowed Anthony Davis. Even though Andrew Wiggins shoved and battled LeBron.

But as Curry, who knows all about excellence — five trips to the NBA finals — said when asked about LeBron’s game-winner, “Great players make great plays.”

And make the opposing team hurt.

“He proved why he’s the best player in the world,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said of James. 

LeBron was hit in the eye under the rim as he grabbed a rebound and made the decisive basket.

“After the finger in the eye, I was seeing three rims,” said James, sounding like an actor in a an old cowboy film, “and shot at the one in the middle. By grace I was able to knock it down.”

It wasn’t grace, it was talent..

According to ESPN statistics, that was the longest go-ahead shot in the final three minutes of his career.
Said Curry, “It’s a great shot. Broken play . . . thinking he was out of the play. They found him. He got his balance back in time and knocked it down.

“That was a tough one because you really don’t expect it to go in. But everything changed when it goes in.”

Kerr was both distressed and magnanimous. A few months back, when the Warriors had lost Klay Thompson with the torn Achilles and they were trying to build a team, he probably would have been satisfied with taking the Lakers to the final minute.

But with Wiggins playing like the No. 1 overall draft pick he was and with Juan Toscano-Anderson the surprise he has been, a loss, even to the defending NBA champs, was a downer.

“I’m very proud of the way the way we played,” Kerr said.

He ought to be. Proud and disappointed.

Federer, Serena both upset; was it age or opponent?

Time often is the athlete’s friend. The longer a game or a match or a tournament goes on, the better the chances of the favorite. Yet, as the years go by, time, the pal, the benefactor, becomes the enemy.

As surely it was Tuesday for the best tennis players of their time — arguably of all time — Roger Federer and Serena Williams.

In Geneva in his homeland, Switzerland — where he never loses — Federer was beaten 6-4. 4-6. 6-4 by Pablo Andujar of Spain.

You could say that Federer missed much of the 2020 season after two knee surgeries. You could say that Federer had not played since losing in Doha in March. You could say that the match was on clay, Federer’s least favorite surface.

You also could say that Federer is 39, which happens to be the same age as Serena, who in Parma, Italy, was stunned, 7-5 (4), 6-2, by somebody named Katarina Sinakova.

Williams was in the Emilia-Romagna Open as a wild-card invitee, after losing her opening match in the Italian Open in Rome. Along with Federer, she is preparing for the French Open (or if you prefer, Roland Garros), which starts May 30.

There are upsets, if rarely in the early rounds, and there are indications. Federer, with his record 20 Slams, and Serena, with her near-record 23, are not the players they once were and never will be again. It’s one thing to lose to Stan Wawrinka or Andy Murray. It’s another to lose to Pablo Andujar, ranked 78th (Federer is 8th).

Maybe Serena and Roger will accept their declining play without regret — Chris Evert said in her mind there was nothing wrong with being third in the world after Ranking No. 1 — but can we?

Does their popularity linger, or do the fans and the media, out of obligation, seek other choices?

Change is inevitable in sport, in life. Age brings injury — Federer was able to stay healthy for so long, but for him, as with others, pounding shots, catching flights, the body wears down.

You’re the king or the queen, but there’s always some new kid hovering over your shoulder.

Once, when things were tough, when losing seemed probable, Serena would power one of those monster serves or Federer could come up with a beautiful passing shot.

That’s why they were great. That’s why the people on the other side of the net ended up in awe and in defeat.

After beating Federer, Andujar, a 35-year-old from Spain, was as much in disbelief as in elation. “It’s amazing,” said Andujar. ”I still cannot believe it.”

A year or three ago, none of us would have believed it. But this is now, 2021, and Roger Federer is battling himself as much as his opponents.

He understands what he’s up against. The confidence ebbs as the years multiply, not that Roger and Serena would make that admission.

“It’s good to be back on the court,” Federer said candidly, “but then you lost a match like this, and you’re down. It never feels great. I was looking forward to playing here. No doubt about it. But this is a press conference where I have to explain why and how it all happened.”

That’s the price that champions pay. And no question, it’s much harder to explain why you lose than how you won — especially after all those wins, more than 100.

Serena had the same problem, telling us what was wrong, particularly since what was wrong may be as simple and unescapable as getting older.

Until now, she only got better.

After a beer and the TV remote, for Kerr it’s the Lakers

No plans for Steve Kerr, and no worries. Both could come later. His Sunday evening would be simple enough. As he said, “A beer and a TV clicker.”

He would watch basketball on the tube, as would so many others, if with a considerably different approach.

To find out the next opponent for his Warriors.

And now he knows, as we all know — it will be the Lakers, Wednesday in Los Angeles. Maybe yet another surprise in a season of surprises. At least for the Warriors. Most of all for the Warriors.

A couple months ago, the Dubs, getting adjusted, seemed without a chance, But Sunday afternoon they closed the regular season with a sixth straight win, 113-102 over the Memphis Grizzlies at Chase Center, to get the eighth spot in the NBA’s Western Conference.

Yes, Steph Curry was the star, as he almost always needs to be, getting 46 points — the 11th time this year he’s reached 40 or more, and in the process becoming at 33 the second oldest (next to 38-year-old Michael Jordan) to take the season scoring title, which Curry did for a second time.

A lot or praise for Steph, not unexpectedly, from his coach — “He’s never been better,” said Kerr. And from his teammates — “He’s like the Picasso of our time,” said Juan Toscano-Anderson. “You can’t have a knock on him. He’s the best doing it right now.”

If the Warriors aren’t the best, as they were not long ago, they are fascinating and quite competent. Also, enjoyable. Sometimes it’s better to be the underdog and do the unexpected. Sure, everyone thinks about those championship Warriors. But Curry at least thinks about the non-champions, the “We believe” team that in 2007 beat the No. 1 seeded Mavericks in the first round.

When he pulled up his perspiration-soaked jersey at game’s end, as Baron Davis did back in ’07, Curry yelled “Shout out to BD.”

There will be plenty of shouting if somehow the Warriors can beat the Lakers, who after all, despite injuries to LeBron James and Anthony Davis, still are defending NBA champions.

Kerr seemed particularly elated with the Warriors’ progress the past few months. They’ve been blown out a few times, but now, following the loud and decisive on-court orders of Draymond Green, they are playing defense — and as we’ve been instructed by everyone from Kerr to Curry to Draymond his ownself, defense wins.

When the Warriors are rolling, it’s because they’re stopping the other team and picking up easy baskets.

Asked about the Warriors. Kerr pointed out that the entire organization, especially retiring president Rick Welts, deserves credit to hanging in during the pandemic. No Klay Thompson, no fans until only a few days ago because of restrictions, yet here’s the team preparing for the Lakers.

“The whole organization just has to endure this season,” said Kerr. “I’m really proud not only of the team but the whole organization. It’s been tough playing most of the year without fans, obviously taking huge financial losses. It’s been great the last games.”

Curry has been great virtually every game, with an understandable exception for someone who rarely gets a moment to rest — including playing 40 of the possible 48 minutes Sunday. 

“He’s a machine,” Kerr said of Curry. “What he means to the team, the way he conducts himself, that includes the way he takes care of his body, coming in to get treatment, getting on the floor and his skill work. I think he is just in love with the process.”

“When we were in China a few years ago, we met Roger Federer. And that’s what I see in Steph. He loves his life, loves his family, loves his routine. He’s well prepared for every season and every game.”

Will Giants own their tomorrow?

SAN FRANCISCO — The sign out there in centerfield at Oracle Park, above the new bullpen, is just one of many ballpark billboards but also one with a pertinent message for a team playing unexpectedly well.

“Own your tomorrows,” the sign reads. It’s a Charles Schwab slogan, about investing, but these days it could refer to the Giants, whose tomorrows suddenly seem excellent.

The Giants are off on Wednesday, off the field and on a jet, headed for Pittsburgh where they hope to carry the joy and the magic — and the fine pitching and timely hitting — they had at home. Five games in their ballpark, four wins including a 4-2 victory on Tuesday that gave them a sweep of the two-game mini-series against the Texas Rangers.

Patience at the plate, aggressiveness on the mound, 14 wins in the last 18 home games for San Francisco, for first-place San Francisco. And who knows what to think?

The Dodgers are better. The Padres are better. And yet, for the moment, they trail the Giants. As Sinatra sang, is that Granada we see or only Asbury Park?

No Mookie Betts. No Fernando Tatis Jr. Only a well-designed plan worked out by Giants manager Gabe Kapler and his coaches to emphasize the potential provided by head of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi.

They’ve got older players who still have it, Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Evan Longoria, Brandon Crawford, Alex Wood; and younger players who are getting it, Wilmer Flores, Mike Yastrzemski and Tuesday’s starting pitcher, Logan Webb, who went six innings, allowing only two hits and two runs and striking out a career high 10.

“He has a long way to go before he reaches his ceiling,” Kapler promised about Webb. The Giants similarly have a long way to go before they, or we, should get excited about their postseason chances. Then again, after four straight losing seasons, this one at least offers a tantalizing hint of improvement.

And reminders of not-so-long-ago victories, those three World Series championships over a period of five years when the Giants stayed close on pitching and — as Hunter Pence, in town to comment on the recent games for local TV — came up with the big hit.

One thing the Giants are not doing is trying to perform beyond their capabilities. They aren’t the Yankees or Astros.

They’ll be happy with a walk. Rangers starter Jordan Lyles threw 34 pitches in his half of a first inning that lasted 35 minutes.

“Our approach is simple,” Kapler said of the offense. “Go after a pitch we can hit. Take pitches until we find one we like.”

On the other side, don’t throw too many pitches the other guys can hit, which is where Webb comes in. He had one of his better games, after the Giants catchers — Curt Casali, who was in the lineup, and Buster Posey, who wasn’t — told Webb to speed up his tempo. Which he did.

Asked what he thought of Webb’s performance, and whether it was his best game in his three seasons with the Giants, Kapler was properly measured in his answer. He liked the strikeouts. He liked the result, but best? Let’s wait before passing judgment. “Webby has a high ceiling,” Kapler said. “Let’s wait a couple of years.”

Three Texas challenges on calls in the first four innings. The Rangers won each, but Kapler didn’t care, pointing out that the idea of the replays is to end up with the correct decision.

Yes, we should wait until October. But here in the merry month of May, the controversial decision to hire Kapler a couple years ago — remember the outrage — and the decisions by he and his staff have been more than acceptable.

Mays turns 90; he gave us our strawberries in winter time

When he was the 49ers’ coach, Jim Harbaugh would ignore my questions. But as he walked by me, he often posed one of his own, to wit, “Who was better, Ruth or Mays?”

As much out of belief as Bay Area bias, I answered, “Mays,” meaning of course Willie Mays as compared to Babe Ruth.

Harbaugh would pause, then say, “Ruth pitched.” To which I would respond, “Mays could have.”

As Mays himself would remind when I told him the story, “I did pitch.” Indeed, he did.

Maybe not as a professional, but everywhere else along the way. “And I was good,” he would add.

Willie Howard Mays turns 90 years old Friday. The “Say Hey Kid,” as he was called because in his early days in New York he addressed people, “Say, hey,” is no longer a kid. But he remains a beacon and a reminder. To have watched him, at Candlestick Park, on television, was our good fortune.

There was no magic in his approach. There merely was brilliance. As kids we all play baseball, such a simple game. “They throw the ball,” Mays said, “I hit it. They hit the ball. I catch it.”

Two observations defined a career that produced 660 home runs, 3,283 hits and in 1954 arguably the most famous catch in World Series history.

This from Garry Schumacher, the onetime Giants public relations man, in New York and San Francisco, after Mays came up to the Giants in 1951: “We got to take care of this kid. We got to make sure he gets in no trouble because this is the guy — well, I’m not saying he’s going to win pennants by himself, but he’s the guy who’ll have us all eating strawberries in the winter time.”

This is from Bob Stevens, who covered baseball, Seals and Giants, for the San Francisco Chronicle from the 1930s to the 1990s, on a Mays extra-base drive past an outfielder: “The only man who could have caught it, hit it.”

No question Mays hit the spot for an America seeking sporting excitement after emerging from World War II, an America looking for good times and new heroes.

Baseball still was our game. The NFL would get its burst in the 1958 overtime championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants. And fate and fable combined to provide NYC with Mays, Mantle and Snider — Willie, Mickey and the Duke.

There were debates in Queens and Brooklyn. Years later, there was a song by Terry Cashman. Now there is only Mays. Father Time hasn’t quite caught up with the guy who could catch anything on a ball field.

Tallulah Bankhead, an actress, amongst other purists, once said, “There have been only two geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare. But darling, I think you’d better put Shakespeare first.”

Geniuses are not always easy to comprehend, especially as in Mays’ case when they grow up in the segregated south of the 1930s and ‘40s. Mays developed in the Negro Leagues, but when he arrived in New York, sportswriters from the city’s six dailies looked out for him, rather than looking for trouble.

Mays was uncomfortable when the Giants shifted to San Francisco before the 1958 season. He couldn’t immediately find housing. He didn’t know the territory or the journalists. Finally, a banker, Jake Shemano, befriended Mays and helped him with his finances and locating a residence.

Willie was private, maybe suspicious. His story remained untold until 10 years ago, when he agreed to do an autobiography with James Hirsch, a former reporter for the New York Times — that NYC connection again. Then in 2020, Mays and San Francisco Chronicle baseball writer John Shea cooperated on 24: Life Stories from the Say Hey Kid.

My dealings with Mays were peripheral. A golf junkie, he knew of me writing the game. At spring training, I would reintroduce myself to Willie, and invariably he would ask about Tiger Woods.

And not, as Jim Harbaugh might have phrased it, if I thought he was better than Jack Nicklaus.

Mystery solved for Niners: it’s Trey Lance; is he the right man?

All we wanted to know was who the 49ers would select. Todd McShay of ESPN told us it would be Trey Lance, and Mel Kiper of the same network said it would be Mac Jones. Of course we had to stay tuned, as much to find out who was wrong as to learn who would be the Niners QB after Jimmy G — whenever that inevitability takes place.

But darn if that didn’t take in more time than one of those Super Bowl halftime shows.

The NFL knows how to lure us in and hold on, through country singers, the presentation of the colors and, how appropriate, a Draft Kings commercial.

We know now: Trey Lance.

Sorry, Mr. Kiper. The Niners, who traded three first-round picks for the one they used to take Lance, have to hope they’re not sorry.

Lance played only 17 games at North Dakota State, whose football history doesn’t exactly remind anyone of the schools from which the two players, both quarterbacks, picked ahead of Lance, were taken: No. 1 Trevor Lawrence of Clemson, No. 2 Zach Wilson of BYU.

But Phil Simms went to Morehead State in Kentucky and led the New York Giants to Super Bowl wins.

Joe Montana was a third-round pick and Tom Brady a sixth-round pick, although these days, with changes in the game, a need for more mobile quarterbacks who can escape the rush — as Patrick Mahomes does — top prospects don’t slip that far.

The only thing certain is that Garoppolo, who some predicted would either be traded perhaps to the Patriots, from where the Niners got him, or waived, will be starting the 2021 season as San Francisco’s quarterback. Trey Lance might be the quarterback of the future, but with lack of experience, the future isn’t now.

Mac Jones led Alabama to an undefeated season and a national championship. Yet Niners coach Kyle Shanahan, known as a quarterback specialist, and general manager John Lynch obviously believe in Lance’s potential — and that Garoppolo, who led the team to one Super Bowl, will be more than adequate for a year or two.

Toss Justin Fields of Ohio State into the mix of Niner possible draftees, along with Jones and Lance, until a few days ago, at least, and the impression was that Lance was below the other two.

“I’d be surprised if it’s Trey Lance, unless they decide to go with Jimmy G for another year,” was what NFL Network commentator and former 49er head coach Steve Maricucci told the San Jose Mercury News.

“If they are (keeping Garoppolo, as advertised), any of them could fit. If not, and somebody wants him and grabs Jimmy for a second-round pick, Trey Lance has the most work to do to start in the NFL. Not only did he not play last year (other than one game), he played at another level (FCS) and has the most catching up to do. It would benefit him a lot to sit and watch a veteran guy. All of these quarterbacks would benefit from that.”

You need more than a quarterback — the Chiefs lost in the Super Bowl in February because the offensive line was inadequate. Still, most of all you need a quarterback. He wins the games you should have lost. Lynch and Shanahan decided it was time to acquire that quarterback.

Lance is 6-foot-4 and rushed for 1,100 yards in his lone full season as a starter. He’s known for his football intelligence. And didn’t throw an interception in 287 pass attempts.

“He’s played a year of football (and) it is at a smaller school,” Shanahan said. “So it takes work. You’re not going to see it all. It is a hard process, and that there is no guarantee for any of us. So it’s about believing. You see what they asked him to do. And you see it very consistently done at a high level.”

One mystery is solved. We know the Niners’ next QB. Another remains: Is he the right man?

Giants’ Webb is a gem on mound, at bat

SAN FRANCISCO — So the Giants may not catch the Dodgers. Probably nobody else in the National League will either. Forget what cannot be. Consider what can — a winning season for San Francisco, the first in years.

It’s early. Too early maybe to draw conclusions or make predictions. And yet as April heads into May, there may be a reason to believe.

Not that the Giants will win the pennant, but that they will be respectable, perhaps even sneak into the postseason as a wild card.

The Giants, on a Sunday at Oracle Park that went from rain to sunshine, made life tense but eventually satisfying for 7,572 fans, holding on to a 4-3 win over the Miami Marlins.

Logan Webb pitched the way the Giants believed he could (seven shutout innings) and had a triple to drive in two runs. (That was last done by a Giants pitcher we knew as “The Freak,” Tim Lincecum.)

If that were not enough, Jason Vosler, brought up Saturday from the alternate training site (doesn’t the label "alternate training site" make it seem like a mysterious place in Peru?), singled in the eighth, his first major league hit.

He has the ball. What the Giants have is a series victory and the second-best record in the NL.

How? Not with their bats certainly. The team average before the game was .214. Someone only half-seriously even asked Giants manager Gabe Kapler if Webb, as Madison Bumgarner had in the past, might be used as a pinch hitter.

As with previous efficient Giants teams, they’re doing it with pitching.

Webb had a great spring in the desert, but Kapler pointed out, “I just think the version of Logan Webb in spring training wasn’t as good as the version today. And to be rewarded with that ball to right center field (the triple) was awesome.”

That’s an appropriate word for the Oracle Park ground crew, which as a drizzle persisted the first three innings spent as much time on the diamond as the players, between innings dumping bags of a drying agent on the infield.

The bravest spectators watched the ballgame and field repair in the lower uncovered sections from under umbrellas.

The wet conditions caused the ball to slip out of Webb’s hand on a few pitches. There were three batters hit by pitches, although only one was Webb’s.

Mostly Webb, who wears No. 62 (does he double as an offensive lineman?), hit the target. “We worked on a lot of things,” Webb said of his preparation. giving credit to catcher Curt Casali.

“I’m still not where I want to be, honestly. I gained a lot of confidence from this game.”

Why not? He didn’t give up a run in seven innings, allowed three hits, three walks and struck out eight. There can be no debate. This was a quality start. This also was a revelation for Webb.

“Now I know why hitters like hitting so much,” said Webb, referring to what he thought was his first triple since high school.

“When you hit it, it just feels good. That was fun, but I was definitely tired. when I got there.”

Kapler said, “Impressive swing. When I took him out (after seven) the guys on the bench were joking that I took the best bat out of the lineup.”

Hey, Gabe, are you sure they were joking?

A year ago, most everyone in baseball was joking about the Giants. A scout was quoted before the season saying he thought San Francisco was barely a major league team. It certainly is now.

If a bit beat up.

Vosler got his chance when Wilmer Flores came out of the game with an injury. Evan Longoria and Brandon Crawford didn’t play because they were hurt previously.

What the Giants did have was Logan Webb, the pitcher who Sunday was the hitter, a perfect combination.

Steph’s 49 tops a great few days in Bay Area sports

This is as good as it gets. There are fans in the stands. There is joy in the air. There is Steph Curry still on a tear.

We can say goodbye to retiring Alex Smith — remember, this is where he started, with the 49ers — and say thank you to Patrick Marleau, who started and will finish here, meaning in both cases the Bay Area.

Let’s acknowledge this era as one of special regional success.

Let’s acknowledge Marleau for setting the NHL record for games played, which he did as a member the Sharks at Vegas on Monday night.

And let’s again acknowledge Curry, remarkable, unstoppable, for what he continues to do — which Monday night was score 49 points, including 10 3-pointers, leading the Warriors to a 107-96 win over the 76ers in Philadelphia.

It was Steph’s 11th straight game scoring at least 30.

That, arguably, was the highlight of an unforgettable few days in Northern Cal sports.

Also Monday night, also at Philly, Brandon Belt, who could be labeled ageless (he was around for the World Series wins years ago), homered for the game’s only runs and pitcher Kevin Gausman (who could be considered dominant) led the Giants over the Phillies, 2-0.

The Athletics are not to be ignored, although their scheduled game at Oakland was postponed when the opponent, the Minnesota Twins, failed to pass a Covid test. The A’s, who started the season by losing a team record 6 straight, have now won eight in a row.

The Athletics finally are playing as expected. The Giants are playing better than forecast. The Warriors are playing the way a team with a great player sometimes does.

The Sharks? Let’s call them the exception that proves the rule, whatever the rule is. Besides, who wants to knock the team just as Marleau sets the mark for most NHL games played?

We haven’t beaten Covid-19. Maybe we never will. But we’re making progress, gaining momentum, getting back to the way we were, and the way our sports were — or because of Steph, advancing in leaps and bounds.

We’re smiling more, laughing a lot, able to think about colors of team uniforms rather than those of the Covid tiers; people at games other than catchers still need to wear masks, but we’ll adjust as needed.

So it’s not the best of times, not with restrictions on attendance still in effect. It’s been worse. Six months ago, it was worse.

The only access to our games was through TV or over the internet. Now, the U.S. Golf Association has announced that a limited amount of spectators will be allowed to attend the U.S. Women’s Open in June at San Francisco’s Olympic Club.

Now you can go to an A’s game and sit two rows in front of a guy who was the most accomplished bench jockey I’ve heard in years — OK, so he had couple of beers; still he knew all the classics, and his voice carried throughout the Coliseum. No obscenities either.

ESPN wants us to believe Dodgers-Padres suddenly is the biggest rivalry on the West Coast, but it’s 100 years behind Dodgers-Giants. Fans up here are testier and more accomplished. No beach balls either, only the basketballs Curry is utilizing in the most spectacular way.

Asked for yet another post-game comment about Curry, his star — the NBA’s star, if you will — Warriors coach Steve Kerr sighed, “I don’t know what else to say about what I think of Steph and his performance. I was in utter amazement. He is simply amazing.”

As have been the past few days in Bay Area sports.