TIGER CLEARS AIR WITH PHIL.

Byline: DAVE SHELBURNE Golf

LA JOLLA - Rain continued to pound Torrey Pines Golf Course on Wednesday, but conditions couldn't have been brighter for organizers of the Buick Invitational, which opens today and will have Tiger Woods in the field for a sixth consecutive year.

Woods, the 27-year-old, 34-time PGA Tour winner who accepted his fourth consecutive tour Player of the Year award Wednesday night, is scheduled to tee off at 10 a.m. today on Torrey Pines North, making his first competitive start since having minor knee surgery in December.

``The knee is fine,'' Woods proclaimed at a noon news conference that packed the tournament's media interview room to standing-room-only capacity.

``That's the most cameras I've ever seen for an interview here,'' said longtime tournament media director Rick Schloss, but he wasn't all that surprised.

``You can double everything when he shows up,'' Schloss said. ``Twice as many credentials, twice as much interest. He's like Elvis Presley. He has that star power.''

How much of his game returns with Woods this week is a question Woods is as eager to discover as anyone in the field. In that regard, he viewed the Buick Invitational as a test, saying how well the knee responds will determine his schedule, including participation in next week's Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club.

``It all depends on this week because I haven't played,'' he said. ``I don't know how the knee is going to react.''

The No. 1 player in the world knows for sure, however, that he's eager to return, even if it was initially a comeback to controversy. That came courtesy of second-ranked Phil Mickelson, who said in a recent magazine article that Woods' ability enabled him to overcome what Mickelson called ``inferior equipment.''

``Tiger is the only player who is good enough to overcome the equipment he's stuck with,'' Mickelson said in a Golf Magazine article that created a mini media firestorm.

Mickelson, who uses Titleist clubs, has since contended that much of what he said was in jest. Nike, which makes the clubs Woods uses, was not amused. Nor did Mickelson end up feeling that way.

``I was not trying to make a derogatory statement towards anybody,'' he said here Wednesday, ``but I still should not have gone in that area.''

It was a theme he repeated many times at a news conference before the arrival of Woods, who quickly put the tempest back in the teapot.

``We talked and cleared the air,'' said Woods, who said he did not regard Mickelson's words as any kind of personal shot.

``I thought Phil was trying to be funny, and it didn't come off right at all,'' Woods said. ``From there, it blew up and escalated to what it's at now.''

What it should be now, Woods suggested, is history.

``We're here to compete,'' he said, ``and not worry about things like that.''

--Annika reaction: Annika Sorenstam's acceptance of a sponsor's exemption to play in the PGA Tour's May 22-25 Colonial tournament drew the endorsement of Woods and Mickelson.

``She's the greatest player on the LPGA Tour,'' Mickelson said of the reigning LPGA Player of the Year, who has won 19 LPGA events in the past two seasons and had a round of 59 in 2001. ``It's not like she's some slouch. She's one of the best ball-strikers in the game today and best putters. I don't see it as being derogatory to finish behind her at all. I think she will definitely make the cut. I think she'll finish around 20th would be my guess.''

Said Woods: ``I think it's great she's playing, but - this is the but part - it will only be great for women's golf if she plays well. I think if she goes out there and puts up two high scores, then ... I think it's going to be more detrimental than it's going to do any good.''

--Lemons or lemonade? Mickelson, attempting to refine a swing gone awry in the wake of intensive offseason conditioning and admittedly distracted by the media attention his ``inferior equipment'' comments produced, struggled at 8-over-par 296 last week in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

He punctuated a 64th-place finish with an 80 Sunday that represented his highest round on tour since he shot 83 in the 2000 Players Championship.

His reaction?

``I had fun for the day,'' the big left-hander said Wednesday of a round that started with consecutive bogeys and included a right-handed shot with a turned-over sand wedge when he found himself blocked by the edge of a bunker.

He followed that shot, which bounced off the green, with a backward pitch shot when he found himself with a severe downhill lie.

Mickelson, who had never attempted the backward pitch in a tour event but had practiced it often, aimed away from his target, turning his downhill lie into an uphill lie, then hit a high-lofted shot that curved back over his head and landed three feet from the cup. Such was the state of his disjointed round and week, however, that the ball rolled off the front of the green about 45 feet away.

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