Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are both playing the Jack Nicklaus-hosted Memorial tournament in Ohio for the first time since 2002, and although fans will be desperate for the pair to do battle at the top of the leaderboard, Woods has downplayed the duel.

Fans and media have long craved a legitimate rivalry between Woods and someone else, and for a while it looked like they had found one, as Mickelson won the 2005 PGA Championship and 2006 Masters.

But after ‘Lefty’ melted on the final hole of the 2006 United States, making double bogey to hand Geoff Ogilvy victory, the rivalry had to be put on hold as Mickelson went into a mini slump.

At the recent Players Championship, however, Mickelson was back to his brilliant best, blowing away the field barely a month after starting a swing renovation with new coach Butch Harmon.

Whether he has the staying power to become a long-term rival to Woods remains to be seen, and Woods for one appears to have doubts.

“Ever since I’ve been on tour they’ve been looking for a rivalry for me. I’ve had guys make different runs,” said Woods, reeling off names such as David Duval, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen.

Woods noted that Nicklaus had rivalries during his career with the likes of Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Tom Weiskopf and Johnny Miller, but noted that true rivalries are sustained by long-term excellence.

“You’ve got to do it a number of times to get that reputation,” he said. “Watson and Trevino (beat) Jack, but they didn’t do it one time, they did it a number of times. Repeatability is the key. You can’t just do it once.”

Mickelson, for his part, was not interested in talking rivalry with Woods, no doubt aware that it does not pay to give the man any extra motivation.

“It’s flattering, to me anyway (but) probably not to him,” Mickelson quipped. “I mean we’re talking about probably the best player of all time.”

That said, Mickelson thinks there is plenty of room for improvement as he continues to refine his swing with Harmon.

“We’re probably halfway through,” he said. “We have one or two more things I want to implement, but it’s just taking a little bit of time to feel comfortable, especially in competition.”

Woods and Mickelson will play the Memorial with one eye on the United States Open, to be played in two weeks at Oakmont.

They are both resuming from a fortnight off, but whereas Mickelson practised hard, Woods hardly touched a club, due to a myriad of sponsor commitments. Instead, he focused on his fitness regiment, confident there is plenty of time to get his swing back in the groove before the year’s second major.

“You’ve got to pick one or the other, and I picked getting my body in shape for the run to the U.S. Open,” said Woods, who will take next week off to focus on his game.”

Source - www.sportinglife.com