The calendar flips back a generation or so and in your mind's eye you see the two of them striding purposefully down a long, sweeping fairway, a duel in the sun, men intent on a mission, jaws set and eyes locked on a target only they can see, one golden-maned and recently shed of 30 pounds, and the other hitching at his pants and flipping away one of those damnable cigarettes he's trying to quit.
Jack and Arnie.
Arnie and Jack.
They were golf. And vice versa.
Arnie's Army. Jack's Pack.
John William Nicklaus. Arnold Daniel Palmer. Between them, they would combine for 135 PGA Tour victories.
And on those occasions when they were paired, well, Pilgrim, the course would be overrun, the ratings boxcar numbers, and the game was never better.
Now flip ahead a generation, to the second Sunday in February, at wind-lashed, sea-sprayed Pebble Beach, and two men are coming up the 18th, the one with his face wreathed in a triumphant smile, his stride that familiar galump-galump-ain't-life- grand pace, the other the picture of absolute, crushing dejection, a man sliding down a razor blade.
Phil and Tiger.
Tiger and Phil.
Lefty and Eldrick.
Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. They are golf, and vice versa, and they are the pairing all of us pine for, and they have combined for 111 PGA Tour wins, with, surely, more to come.
Last Sunday's merciless rout was PGA Tour win No. 40 for Phil. He is 41. Tiger is 36 and has 71 full-field wins but is struggling mightily, having been without victory for going on 900 days.
He used to be the ultimate finisher. Sunday belonged to him. He played from a bully pulpit, with the rest of the field all but genuflecting while he crafted another runaway.
Phil remembers. He was on the receiving end of many of those beat-downs.
"I got spanked pretty good," he said.
Ah, but that was then and this is now, and as they walked up the 18th it felt as if they were heading in opposite directions. And, in fact, they were - a pristine, bogey-free 64 by Phil, a messy, clean-up-in-aisle-3, hard-to-believe 75 by Tiger.
Hard to find much in the way of solace when you're losing by 11, and yet Tiger said he could find some encouraging divots in his game. He said he was achingly close to being back, but what was back? All the way back to when he was the most compelling athlete in the world? Or all the way back to playing well for three rounds only to melt on Sundays?
The Tiger of Old, of say 10 years ago, is gone and won't be back.
