MICKELSON'S '96 CAN'T BE 86'D SO EASILY.

Byline: Tim Brown

The PGA Tour and the people who line its ropes have always had a thing for Phil Mickelson. It's his perfect hair and golf swing, his country-club stride, his delicate face and wrists that endeared him so.

That he approached the ball from the wrong direction was just rebellious enough for the staid Tour, which seemed to gather its participants from Mercedes showrooms and afternoon teas in the Hamptons.

And so it was with great circumstance that Mickelson joined up in 1992, a year after he won the Northern Telecom Open as an amateur. He won twice in 1993, once in 1994 and again in 1995. Not exactly the left-handed Nicklaus, but nice. Just fine. He was learning, propping his game with a putting stroke that stirred comparisons to Crenshaw and a fearless, full-swing short game, reckless in anyone else's hands.

Just as the public tired of the fields that suddenly lacked old friends Palmer, Nicklaus, Trevino and the like, when the who's-he leaderboards should have included free biographical sketches, Mickelson showed. He came out of golf-rich San Diego and went to college at golf-oasis Arizona State, where he won three NCAA championships. He came to help put a face with the game, and his game was nice. Just fine.

For all of that, the shock-value was tiny when Mickelson, in his fifth professional season, became the Tour's best golfer. After all, it had been the plan. The results were due to catch up with his skills, and the Tour had been only too pleased to wait.

Mickelson won two of the first four events of the season, both in his beloved Arizona, then finished second at Torrey Pines. He won again at the GTE Byron Nelson Classic and then at the NEC World Series of Golf, and so it seemed he had conquered his aversion to tournaments east of Tucson and north of February.

As September dawned he was the Tour's cinch Player of the Year, the recipient of which they will announce Friday night following the second round of this Mercedes Championships, at La Costa. Mickelson, the leading money winner from the season's first week through the second-to-last tournament, won't win it.

Turned out, when Mickelson broke through, the rest came in with him. The summer of '96 wasn't Mickelson's after all. It was Tom Lehman's. It was Tiger Woods'. Even Mark Brooks'.

Lehman, the rumpled, balding British Open champion and, undoubtedly, the Tour's Player of the Year, passed him on the money list. Brooks won the PGA Championship when Mickelson's putting, of all things, disintegrated. Woods, well, Woods only became the game's biggest draw, biggest story, biggest name.

That left Mickelson . . . pleased.

In November he married Amy McBride. They moved into a new home in Paradise Valley, outside Scottsdale. Suddenly, the Tour is a very interesting place to earn a living, and nearly $1.7 million qualifies as a living.

Mickelson's year to remember largely was forgotten by the time Woods came along to win a couple of late tournaments, causing the closest thing to Tour hysteria since the sponsor tent ran out of crepes. Given his muny swing and nomadic past, Lehman was the sympathetic figure, which left Mickelson to celebrate alone.

No matter. At 26, you're bullet-proof.

``I don't anticipate winning Player of the Year,'' Mickelson said without remorse. ``I think Tom has won it.

``Sure it would be disappointing. I don't know the last time somebody won four tournaments and didn't win Player of the Year. But, on the other hand, I didn't win a major like Tom did, I didn't win as much money, and his scoring average was lower.''

``Phil's being humble,'' Lehman answered. ``He had an awfully great year.''

It was great. And he putted awfully, at times, by his standards.

He ranked 123rd on the Tour on the greens, a freefall of 69 places from the year before, and therefore spent some of his offseason standing over the four- and five-footers he missed late in the year, the ones he made in his victories.

``When your career is through, everybody looks back to see how many majors and tournaments you won,'' he said. ``Maybe I should be a little more patient in the majors.''

They'll come. It might be easier to work in a crowd.

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Photo

Photo: (color) Phil Mickelson won four tournaments last year, but none were major events.

John McCoy / Daily News