That’s what Phil Mickelson said and that’s why he LOVES the new system.

Phil Mickelson dropped a bomb Thursday at the Deutsche Bank Championship that probably had a few officers at tour headquarters reaching for aspirin, if not hankies.

Those aren’t raindrops from the latest tropical storm falling in Ponte Vedra Beach, those are teardrops of sheer fright. After a handful of prominent players had expressed the opinion Thursday that the new FedEx points system had overreached, Mickelson offered an entirely unanticipated answer.

“I think that the intent was to have more turnover, and certainly it has done that,” he said. “I don’t feel as though the season, the regular season, has anywhere near the same impact that it had, and so that could be a good thing because now we don’t have to play as many events if we don’t want to.”

“Positioning ourselves for the FedEx Cup is really not important because the last‑place guy, if he wins, vaults into first,” he said. “So that could be kind of cool, too.”

Hahaha. This is awesome. The Tour made the FEC too volatile and gives opportunities for players to skip more events because all they have to do is play well for four weeks in August and get $10 million. Brilliant.

I am really loving the Deutsche Bank Championship more and more. Phil Mickelson seems to use this event as a way to poke fun at the FedEx Cup and Tim Finchem. And TPC Boston is awesome, too!

Last year, Firestone yielded just one player to finish under par at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational. That was Tiger Woods and he won by a dominating eight shots over the field and, in the process, silenced Rory Sabbatini for good. The conditions were ridiculous and player complained.

This year, Tiger Woods was not available to win yet another World Golf Championship. The Tour, therefore, found it a perfect week to “experiment” with a concept that many amateurs love – lower height of the rough. The move was designed to let players miss off of the tee and at least have some reasonable opportunity to advance the ball to the green.

The experiment turned out to be a brilliant success. Twenty-six golfers finished under par for the event this year. Fans were treated to recovery shots from the players – Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh in particular – that were a sight to behold. It created more exciting golf from tee to green.

Unfortunately, though, it is pretty much impossible to cut the grass down any lower on the greens at Firestone. They are nuanced and fairly quick, but really not nearly as difficult as the players are going to see at Oakland Hills in next week’s PGA Championship. Still, despite their fairly benign nature, almost all of the contenders for the Bridgestone Invitational ceded strokes due to lackluster short games.

Phil Mickelson gave away the championship because of his inability to two putt following an inability to shape a bunker shot in line with green receptiveness to bunker play.

Lee Westwood has made a career of being solid from tee to green, but leaving the balance of a tournament only in doubt of whether or not he can make putts of any significant length. On Sunday, he really could not, and gave up an opportunity to force a playoff with Vjiay Singh on a simple putt uphill at the last hole.

The eventual champion, Vijay Singh, was simply dreadful for the entire week on the greens. Between four and eight feet, he made less than half of his putts for the week. That is embarrassing for a PGA Tour pro. On the Sunday back nine, Singh could have had the tournament wrapped up were it not for his lack of confidence in putting. He over-thought every putt and it almost cost him the title. The final putt to win the tournament practically ran around the edge of the cup before finally giving in to gravity.

This event was certainly compelling. But it was compelling for all of the wrong reasons. Only one man was playing great golf down the stretch. Stuart Appleby was that man, but he began his charge too late to rustle away the championship from undeserving contenders.

The outcome of the back nine at Firestone leads one to question what we are really getting in the absence of Tiger Woods from the Tour. Commissioner Tim Finchem was in the booth with CBS’ Jim Nantz to talk about the Tour sans-Tiger. Finchem alluded to the variety of intriguing storylines that now had a chance to receive real attention with Woods out of the way. He discussed Anthony Kim and wins by Kenny Perry as stories worth watching, and even drew in the duel between Singh and Mickelson.

If I were Commissioner Finchem, I would look at the product we saw on Sunday and be worried. Fans would much rather have seen another Tiger thumping than four guys play footsy to see who would win over a million dollars. The ratings will show that I’m not lying.

What is worse is for the PGA of America. The PGA Championship is generally considered the weakest of the four majors despite about a decade of improvements to the championship rotation. It is the last major and most players are simply gunning to get a major in without Woods in the field. Depending on Woods’ rehab, this may be their last shot for a while to do just that. That may cause some inspired and desperate play, but if that play is of the caliber that we saw at Firestone, then fans can expect an over par winning score for the 90^th PGA Championship at Oakland Hills.

Steve Elling talks about it in his game story. But, most interesting to me is this Mickelson quotation from the press room:

“It would be nice to win a WGC, it really would,” Mickelson said. “I haven’t really thought about it too much. I think maybe 20 years from now or 30 years from now they’ll have prestige, much like I think the guys who first won the Masters had no idea what this tournament was going to become.

“I have no idea where the WGCs will be 30 years from now. They started midway through my career, so I haven’t given them the priority like I do a major or care about like a major.

“But they are always the best fields in the game, they’re always on great golf courses, they’re always on tough tests of golf, so I think there’s a lot of merit to whoever wins those, yeah.”

I find this particularly funny considering the Huggan piece about major championships. Identity and field strength were particular concerns of Huggan’s column. Let’s take a look at the criteria to get into the Bridgestone Invitational.

• Playing members of the last named United States and International Presidents Cup teams.
• Playing members of the last named United States and European Ryder Cup teams.
• If not otherwise eligible, players ranked among the top 50, including any players tied for 50th place, on the Official World Golf Ranking as of the Monday prior to and the Monday of tournament week.
• If not otherwise eligible, tournament winners of worldwide events since the prior year’s Bridgestone Invitational with an Official World Golf Ranking strength-of-field rating of 115 points or more.
• If not otherwise eligible, the winner of one selected tournament from the PGA Tour of Australasia, Sunshine Tour, Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour.

The first four criteria seem pretty reasonable – except for those outliers of guys who qualified for the Ryder Cup and President’s Cup teams. I’m looking at Chris DiMarco, or Mark Brown, who got in by winning the Johnnie Walker Classic. (Really?!) Overall, though, the field does not appear to be a problem. Sure, having no cut is a problem, but I digress.

How about the quality of courses? Well, like it or not, Firestone has hosted several major championships before and has hosted this event every year but one. Still, the other WGC events have not had quite the same history for their host courses. It is debatable if Valderrama is a major golf course, and same with the Grove, Capital City Club, and Mount Juliet. And don’t even get me started on the match play host courses. (But that doesn’t really matter much.)

So, does Mickelson have a point? What will the value of the WGCs be in 20 years?

Steve Elling talks about it in his game story. But, most interesting to me is this Mickelson quotation from the press room:

“It would be nice to win a WGC, it really would,” Mickelson said. “I haven’t really thought about it too much. I think maybe 20 years from now or 30 years from now they’ll have prestige, much like I think the guys who first won the Masters had no idea what this tournament was going to become.

“I have no idea where the WGCs will be 30 years from now. They started midway through my career, so I haven’t given them the priority like I do a major or care about like a major.

“But they are always the best fields in the game, they’re always on great golf courses, they’re always on tough tests of golf, so I think there’s a lot of merit to whoever wins those, yeah.”

I find this particularly funny considering the Huggan piece about major championships. Identity and field strength were particular concerns of Huggan’s column. Let’s take a look at the criteria to get into the Bridgestone Invitational.

• Playing members of the last named United States and International Presidents Cup teams.
• Playing members of the last named United States and European Ryder Cup teams.
• If not otherwise eligible, players ranked among the top 50, including any players tied for 50th place, on the Official World Golf Ranking as of the Monday prior to and the Monday of tournament week.
• If not otherwise eligible, tournament winners of worldwide events since the prior year’s Bridgestone Invitational with an Official World Golf Ranking strength-of-field rating of 115 points or more.
• If not otherwise eligible, the winner of one selected tournament from the PGA Tour of Australasia, Sunshine Tour, Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour.

The first four criteria seem pretty reasonable – except for those outliers of guys who qualified for the Ryder Cup and President’s Cup teams. I’m looking at Chris DiMarco, or Mark Brown, who got in by winning the Johnnie Walker Classic. (Really?!) Overall, though, the field does not appear to be a problem. Sure, having no cut is a problem, but I digress.

How about the quality of courses? Well, like it or not, Firestone has hosted several major championships before and has hosted this event every year but one. Still, the other WGC events have not had quite the same history for their host courses. It is debatable if Valderrama is a major golf course, and same with the Grove, Capital City Club, and Mount Juliet. And don’t even get me started on the match play host courses. (But that doesn’t really matter much.)

So, does Mickelson have a point? What will the value of the WGCs be in 20 years?

Steve Elling talks about it in his game story. But, most interesting to me is this Mickelson quotation from the press room:

“It would be nice to win a WGC, it really would,” Mickelson said. “I haven’t really thought about it too much. I think maybe 20 years from now or 30 years from now they’ll have prestige, much like I think the guys who first won the Masters had no idea what this tournament was going to become.

“I have no idea where the WGCs will be 30 years from now. They started midway through my career, so I haven’t given them the priority like I do a major or care about like a major.

“But they are always the best fields in the game, they’re always on great golf courses, they’re always on tough tests of golf, so I think there’s a lot of merit to whoever wins those, yeah.”

I find this particularly funny considering the Huggan piece about major championships. Identity and field strength were particular concerns of Huggan’s column. Let’s take a look at the criteria to get into the Bridgestone Invitational.

• Playing members of the last named United States and International Presidents Cup teams.
• Playing members of the last named United States and European Ryder Cup teams.
• If not otherwise eligible, players ranked among the top 50, including any players tied for 50th place, on the Official World Golf Ranking as of the Monday prior to and the Monday of tournament week.
• If not otherwise eligible, tournament winners of worldwide events since the prior year’s Bridgestone Invitational with an Official World Golf Ranking strength-of-field rating of 115 points or more.
• If not otherwise eligible, the winner of one selected tournament from the PGA Tour of Australasia, Sunshine Tour, Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour.

The first four criteria seem pretty reasonable – except for those outliers of guys who qualified for the Ryder Cup and President’s Cup teams. I’m looking at Chris DiMarco, or Mark Brown, who got in by winning the Johnnie Walker Classic. (Really?!) Overall, though, the field does not appear to be a problem. Sure, having no cut is a problem, but I digress.

How about the quality of courses? Well, like it or not, Firestone has hosted several major championships before and has hosted this event every year but one. Still, the other WGC events have not had quite the same history for their host courses. It is debatable if Valderrama is a major golf course, and same with the Grove, Capital City Club, and Mount Juliet. And don’t even get me started on the match play host courses. (But that doesn’t really matter much.)

So, does Mickelson have a point? What will the value of the WGCs be in 20 years?

There’s some chatter over at Loch Lomond about whether or not the Open really counts next week with Tiger out of the field. (Personally, I think so.)

Ernie Els thinks that the winner will have to answer some questions:

“The best player of this generation is not there and whoever is going to win next week is going to have to answer questions of ‘Do you think you would have beaten Tiger if he was here?’” said Els. “Yet, although we will miss him The Open will be played whether Tiger is there or not. That’s what we’ve got to realise.”

Mickelson has a slightly different sentiment (and the correct one, I think):

“If you look back at Jack Nicklaus’s 18 majors or Tom Watson’s eight, I don’t look back at the field they played, I just look back at the tournaments they’ve won,” said the world No 2. “I do think it opens an opportunity for a number of players to come through and maybe win tournaments that they might not have won. But I haven’t won a major in a couple of years and it would certainly mean just as much to me to win an Open Championship.”

We don’t discredit majors won with players missing from other eras. Case in point would be Lee Trevino skipping the Masters in his prime.

You know which one I am talking about, right? Anyway, I noticed this on TV and I’m glad that Lorne Rubenstein could verify it for me on the ground.

It was so special that the United States Golf Association put Woods’s and Mickelson’s names on the top of the leaderboards on the course throughout their round, although they were nowhere near posting the lowest scores. Woods did get back to one under par after nine holes, overcoming a double bogey on the first hole, but he “three-whipped” the last green, as he put it, to get in at his one-over-par score. Three-whipped for par, to be sure.

Courtesy USGA. All rights reserved.

Also, I found this to be very interesting:

Scott was on a [press] podium answering a question. But Woods then moved in and a USGA official abruptly said the Scott interview was over. It hadn’t lasted more than a couple of minutes.

What else was new? This day was more about Woods than anybody or anything. It remains to be seen whether the entire championship will be about him.

Can you exactly blame the USGA for trying to capitalize on the second time in which their championship served as the return for Tiger back to competitive golf? Then when you consider that it would have been in incredibly bad taste to do so last time – Winged Foot in 2006 after Earl Woods’ passing – it was bound to happen.

This is GNN’s first attempt at a video…ever. It’s me previewing the US Open. I hope you enjoy it, even for a first try.

Also, in the future, check out our video channel over at YouTube where all of these videos will be housed.

The US Open begins on Thursday at Torrey Pines and there is no shortage of storylines leading into the championship. The most obvious is the return of Tiger Woods from knee surgery after a failed bid at a fifth Masters title. Admittedly, he may not be at 100% after rehabilitation, but he has said that may very well not matter. Given his record at Torrey Pines and that he is going for his fifth consecutive win at that facility, he may very well be right. A win would put him within another Tiger Slam of tying Jack Nicklaus’ impossible mark of 18 professional majors.

Lest we forget, though, it is important to mention of the other player of significance in the field – world #2 Phil Mickelson. Mickelson is a San Diego native and claims to have played Torrey Pines over 1000 times in his life. Needless to say, he will be the hometown hero in addition to being the usual rooting interest of the crowd. The People’s Champion has had several close calls in the US Open before and it may be time to make his first run at the national championship since his idiotic moment at Winged Foot two years ago.

Up until Thursday, the third best player in golf right now will be a part of the story of who is not in the field. Kenny Perry, a winner of the Memorial and near winner in Atlanta, chose to avoid US Open qualifying and stay home this weekend. Claiming that he never liked Torrey Pines, he took his long ball and straight driving and hot hand back to Kentucky. He will appear again next at the Travelers Championship.

His story will fade into the background, though, by Thursday. The course will become the story very quickly. It is the longest course in US Open history by almost 400 yards and plays to a length of 7643. Playing to a par of 71, USGA Senior Director of Rules and Competition Mike Davis has said that he expects a winning score under par.

Fit into those 18 holes are two par 4s over 500 yards, a driveable par 4, and a closing par 5 that is set up for pure drama. The whole course features narrow fairways with a continuation of the tiered rough approach. The length ranges from 1.75 inches to 3.5 inches. That is low by USGA standards, but will feature Kikuyu in the rough blend and could lead to some very inconsistent lies. It fits the championship standard of the rough creating some degree of uncertainty as to the next option, but will also allow for recovery shots from the rough.

The entire course will be extremely firm, probably helping the course to play a few hundred yards shorter than 7643. The greens will be no exception, playing in the 13 range on the Stimpmeter. Basically, the setup matches the usual US Open mantra – long, tight, and firm.

The most curious aspect of the setup is that it is relatively fair and tame by comparison to setups that players have seen on the PGA Tour in each of the last two weeks. Two weeks ago, Muirfield Village was setup more like Winged Foot than Torrey Pines will be. The greens were running faster, and rough was almost three inches deeper than the initial cut will be at Torrey Pines. TPC Southwind was equally brutal in terms of scoring conditions. The pin placements throughout the week were nasty. The score to get into the playoff was four under par. That very well could be the winning score this week at the Open.

The point is that the players on the PGA Tour are not unfamiliar with setups that push the course beyond its value for the sake of their egos. Still, it prepares players very well for the litany of problems that the Open presents for players – small fairways, massive length, lightning fast greens, and unreachable pin placements.

The combination of players and course are really what makes the US Open such a compelling week. It is understood as and intended to be the ultimate test in the mental aspects of golf. After nearly three years of wondering just how this thing will turn out, Torrey Pines looks to be Mike Davis’ masterpiece. And, because of the USGA’s pandering, they have also introduced one last storyline to the championship.

Will anyone shoot a round worse than Tony Romo?

Farrell Evans begins his reaction to the threesomes with this thought:

Having Tiger and Phil play in the same group at the U.S. Open is good for TV and the fans, but it re-enforces the idea that they are the only two truly marketable players in the game.

Does it really? Your take welcome, please.