First, congratulations to Phil Mickelson for his 40th Tour Victory. My #6 prediction for this year was that Lefty wouldn’t win a tournament this year. I’m happy to be wrong. My reasoning was that the young talent would edge him (and Tiger) out. Not yet, apparently.

It was nice to see Phil and Tiger in a final round pairing. That’s happened far less than most golf fans would like—just nine times. Phil holds the lead in the series, and has won the last five consecutive times the two have had a final round pairing.

Phil looked really sharp, particularly in his putting. When Tiger holed out the sand shot on the par 3 twelfth, Phil’s answer with the 30 foot putt was a definitive statement.

And speaking of putting: Tiger looked positively lost on the greens. After the round, he said “I could not see my lines. I couldn’t get comfortable.” It showed. He was missing putts I never thought he’d miss: two footers; five footers. it was almost as though the pressure had gotten to him.

The Mainstream Golf Media tries to put a nice spin on it, but I think Tiger is a long way from winning. He’s a very good PGA Tour player these days, but he’s not where the main stream media wants him. Faldo agrees. During the CBS broadcast, he said “Tiger’s got a good enough game to get into contention, but not good enough to finish it off.”

Part of it is that I think Tiger no longer intimidates his opponents into making mistakes. Today, it was Tiger making the mistakes. In fact, he hasn’t had that intimidation factor working in his favor since YE Yang backed him down at the PGA Championship.

Phil returns next week. No word on when Tiger plays next.

Known for the vast majority of its life as The Los Angeles Open, the Northern Trust Open also has flown under the banner of the Nissan Open and—in the days of the celebrity hosted event—the Glen Campbell-Los Angeles Open. Since 1973, it has been played at the fabled Riviera Country Club, with the exception of 1983, when the club hosted the PGA Championship and 1998, when it hosted the US Senior Open.

The tournament and the Club have gained a place in golf history. In the 1938 tournament, Babe Zaharias became the first woman to play in a men’s professional tournament. Ben Hogan won there in 1942, 1947 and 1948—which, along with his 1948 US Open victory at Riviera, gave the place the sobriquet “Hogan’s Alley.” Three victories in two years at Riviera is an amazing accomplishment. Finally, the 1992 Nissan Los Angeles Open gave amateur Tiger Woods his first spot in a professional tournament—a favor he has repaid by never again returning to the event.

The inaugural Los Angeles Open was played in 1926 at the Los Angeles Country Club. The next year, it moved to El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana. It moved again in 1928 to the Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Open made its first appearance at the Riviera Country Club in 1929 and 1930. In the 1930s the event was held at the Wilshire Country Club, the Hillcrest Country Club, The Los Angeles Country Club an Griffith Park.

Following a break for World War II, the Los Angeles Open was played at the Wilshire Country Club in 1944, and then for the next nine years at Riviera. In the 1950s, it was played at Fox Hills Country Club, Inglewood Country Club and Inglewood. Rancho Park hosted the event from 1956 to 1972.

Riviera Country Club, the current host of the Northern Trust - Los Angeles Open is one of the country’s fabled courses. The course opened in 1926 as the Los Angeles Athletic Golf Course with George Thomas listed as its principal designer. Credit, however, also is given to Alister Mackenzie and Billie Bell. After several redesigns, Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore made an attempt in 1992 to return Riviera’s bunkers to the original Thomas-MacKenzie design.

Thomas’ work at Riviera is oft cited for its risk-reward design. The first, for example, is a short par 5 that has a tee elevated some 75 feet above the fairway. It’s possible to make an Eagle on this hole, but thanks to out of bounds left and a ditch crossing the fairway, a wayward drive can drive to score to a double bogey. The par 4 eighth has two fairways separated by a ditch. Ten, a par 4 , is drivable, but greenside bunkers make it a risky proposition. The eleventh and twelfth are defended by ditches, bunkers and trees. I also think it has one of the great finishing holes—a par 4 with a mostly blind tee shot and a green situated in a natural amphitheater.

The course also has a bit of humor. The par 3 sixth has a bunker in the middle of the green. I wonder what Hogan thought of that. For my part, Riviera is on my list of courses I’d most like to play.

While Hogan had four victories at Riviera, he had only three Los Angeles Open Titles. The records for most victories at the Los Angles Open are held by Macdonald Smith (1928, 1929, 1932, 1934) and Lloyd Mangrum (1949, 1951, 1953, 1956). A complete list of winners follows:

I was pleasantly surprised at how restrained the television coverage was with regard to the celebrities on the course. In my memory, past years have been much more egregrious in allowing the celebs camera mugging time. It actually seemed that many of the celebs were serious about their golf

Part of that may be that golf had its own super-celebrity in the mix, Tiger Woods. Even better: he was racing up the leaderboard, getting himself into a solo 3 at -11, four shots off leader Charlie Wi.

Ken Duke, who’s from Bill Clinton’s hometown of Hope, Arkansas, is in second. Duke, 43, is on Tour by virtue of having won the 2011 Nationwide Tour Championship, but he’s no stranger to the Tour. He first qualified in 2004, but didn’t keep his cut and returned to the Nationwide. He finished at the top of the Nationwide money list in 2006 and returned to the Tour in 2007. He played on Tour in 2008 and 2009, but in that final year finished 158th and returned to the Nationwide for 2010 and 2011.

CBS did a good job, I think, with the slow-motion cameras on the amateurs, comparing their swings to the pros. What was most evident was how many of the amateurs (all of the amateurs?) had over-the-top moves. I am going to work on that.

Most of the media buzz seems to be about Tiger Woods’ second consecutive 68, but the real story is that Charlie Wi went 61-69 to get to 12 under. He leads the tournament all alone.

Dustin Johnson is alone in second at -9, while Brian Gay, Vijay Singh, Danny Lee, Padraig Harrington and Brendon Todd all are T3 at -8. Mickelson ran up the leaderboard 34 spots with a 65 into a T8. Tiger, in the meanwhile, is T17, six strokes behind. That’s one stroke and one position worse than the previous day. Still if he keeps it up, he’s headed to a very respectable finish. At this rate, he should end up at twelve or thirteen under. That would have earned him a T4 in 2010 and a T2 in 2011.

He’ll have to go really low the next two days to win. Over the last ten years, the winner has averaged -17.2 strokes to par. The tournament record is -20, set by Phil Mickelson in 2007 and Mark O’Meara in 1997.

Wi, on the other hand, is well on his way to reaching a winning number. That should garner the relative unknown some interest.  He’ll also draw attention for his unusual “stack and tilt” swing. Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer, who codified that swing, apparently think of Wias their model players.

Wi has seven pro wins, all on the Asian Tour, with one of those being co-sanctioned by the European Tour. The closest he’s come to a PGA Tour victory was the 2011 Crowne Plaza Invitational, where he played into first only to lose to David Toms by a stroke.

On Saturday, Tiger and Phil both will be at Pebble Beach—a course where they both have on in convincing fashion in the past. That’ll be their chance to get to the top. Wi, on the other hand, will be at Spyglass, which is rumored to be a tougher track.

Should be interesting.

My first thought on the Pebble Beach Pro Am is that I’m glad there weren’t any cameras following me around last year when I played as a guest in the pro am at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at the Colonial. It was enough pressure to play in front of Stewart Appleby and the small gallery. Camera would have caused a complete, rather than a minor, meltdown.

It’s hard to tell how the various players are doing because the tournament at this point is on three separate courses: Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill and Monterey Peninsula. On the other hand, the scores were relatively evenly distributed. There are twenty six at -4 or better. Nine of those played Pebble Beach, eight at Monterey, and eight at Spyglass. That doesn’t look like much of a difference. However, of the top nine players, five were at Pebble, two at Monterey and two at Spyglass. That seems a little more significant, and perhaps justifies the comments of The Golf Channel’s talking heads that Spyglass is the more difficult course.

On the other hand, those comments could just have been a sop to Tiger, who is in a T-15 on the strength of a 68 (-4) at Spyglass. He’ll play Monterey on Friday and then Pebble on Saturday. No coincidence there. CBS wants Tiger on Pebble when television coverage begins. Mickelson also will play Saturday at Pebble. No coincidence there, either. Lefty was -2 at Spyglass and is in a T51

At this point, former US Amateur Champion Danny Lee is one of three at the top of the board after a nine under 63 at Pebble Beach. Dustin Johnson duplicated that feat, while Charlie Wi put in a (-9) 61 at Monterey.

My guess is that quite a few of those at the top of the board will fall tomorrow.

Of the players out there, I’d like to see Dustin Johnson win, and perhaps exorcise some of the Demons of his Pebble Beach US Open collapse. He’s in a good position to do that.

Today we get another chance to see where Tiger is on the comeback trail. He’s playing a familiar course—one he destroyed at the 2000 US Open—and is coming off a good week in the desert. Still, as Kyle Stanley and Spencer Levin can tell you from the past couple of weeks: its very difficult to close the deal on Sunday on the PGA Tour. Whatever Tiger does the next couple of days will need to be validated on Sunday before anyone can say “He’s Back!”

Too bad this wasn’t on the weekend:

Daniel Chopra had two holes in one in Monday’s practice round. His first came at the yard par 3 seventh, which he hit with a 50 degree wedge. Later, he aced the seventeenth from 176 with a seven iron.