Mickelson fails Tiger test again

US GOLF TOUR/ Bay Hill Invitational: If the record books are there to be rewritten, then Tiger Woods is the one with the copyright. Not only did his win in the Bay Hill Invitational on Sunday make him the first player in US Tour history to win three different tournaments in three consecutive years and the youngest - at 26 years of age - to claim 30 titles, but the sense of deja vu was increased by the role of Phil Mickelson as the fall guy in the drama.

For good measure, Woods further strengthened his position as world number one. In fact, Woods has occupied the number one spot for 136 consecutive weeks - a record - and he heads into this week's defence of the Players' Championship at Sawgrass as, again, the player that all others must beat.

"It's very similar to when you are playing down the stretch in a major championship," remarked Woods of the manner in which he combatted course and rivals at Bay Hill to eventually claim a four-stroke winning margin.

He added: "Anything can happen . . . if you can just hang around and keep yourself on that board, anything can happen." And it is that ability to stay focused and never throw in the towel that gives Woods an edge over all other players, but especially Mickelson.

There is no love lost in their rivalry and Sunday's happenings - coming a year after Woods benefited from his final tee-shot hitting a spectator which prevented the ball from going out-of-bounds before he then went on to birdie the hole for a one-stroke win over Mickelson - only reaffirmed the hold that the world's number one has over the world's number two.

On a day when there were four different leaders, and when Mickelson held a one-shot lead over Woods with seven holes to play, it was a combination of Woods' ability to deliver under pressure and Mickelson's propensity to self-destruct which enabled Woods to add another page to the history books. Mickelson bogeyed four of the last five holes, including a dubious decision to go for the green on the par-5 16th hole from under the trees.

"It wasn't easy, but it wasn't impossible," Mickelson said of the deciding play. The player felt he had no shot to the fairway because the ball would have run into rough on the other side, so he opted to go for the green which required a 180 yards carry over water.

It was a risky shot, and he paid the price - catching it too thinly and putting the ball into the water. Mickelson finished bogey-bogey-bogey (to finish tied third behind Woods and runner-up Michael Campbell); Woods finished birdie-par-par.

"In this day and age, it's an amazing thing," Arnold Palmer, the tournament promoter, said of Woods' feat in winning a third different tournament three years in a row. "But he continues to do amazing things."

When Woods won Bay Hill last year, it sparked a run of invincibility that also took in the Players' Championship and the US Masters - a win that put him into the record books as the first golfer to hold all four professional majors simultaneously - but he headed up to Sawgrass yesterday convinced that some kinks in his game still need to be corrected.

In a tournament that is considered to be the unofficial "fifth major" - and possessing a stronger field than either the Masters or the US PGA - Woods will again be the target. Included in the field are three Irish players, although Paul McGinley, Padraig Harrington and Darren Clarke have all adopted quite different approaches to this tournament which carries $6 million in prize money.

McGinley will be competing in his third US Tour event in as many weeks. Having missed the cut at the Honda Classic - his first missed cut since the European Open last July - the Dubliner was among those to suffer from firm greens and tough pin placements in the final round at Bay Hill where he eventually finished tied-25th and collected $32,666. After the Players' Championship, he plans to return home for a short break in Donegal before returning to the US for his debut appearance in the Masters.

Harrington, who has had a slow start to the season, spent a number of days with his coach Bob Torrance in Scotland last week before heading to Sawgrass. "I feel sharp, but you'd need to be for this course," he remarked. After the Players, Harrington intends to take a week off (using the facilities in Jacksonville to work on his game) before playing in the BellSouth in Atlanta the week before Augusta.

Clarke - who decided to bypass Bay Hill because of his dislike for the course - arrived in Florida yesterday after a two-week stint in Dubai and Qatar that yielded solid rather than spectacular results.