All eyes will be on Tiger Woods next week at the 2019 PGA Championship as he continues his comeback from the depths of personal and career misery. But it's a safe bet to say the most popular golfer with the New York crowd at Bethpage Black will be another native southern Californian: Phil Mickelson.
As was shown at the 2002 and 2009 U.S. Opens at Bethpage, the loud and proud Long Island crowd loves them some Lefty. They wildly cheer the swashbuckling Mickelson's every move. But they can be rude and crude with golfers they dislike.
When Sergio Garcia waggled too long over his shots at the 2002 Open, one fan gave him the Bethpage version of the Bronx cheer: "Hit the f—ing ball!"
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The Mickelson worship at Bethpage makes for interesting TV, according to the CBS Sports announce team preparing to call the PGA.
Lead play-by-play announcer Jim Nantz says the fan favorite "embodies the spirit of New Yorkers" more than any golfer out there. The New York crowd would have related to Arnold Palmer in his heyday the way they relate to Mickelson.
"He's got that go-for-broke nature. A high-risk, high-reward player. He's interactive. He's hands-on with his fans. It's just very relatable to them," Nantz said. "They believe he's one of them. I do too. He's a Californian by birth. But he's got a New York esprit de corps."
CBS on-course reporter Amanda Balionis studied broadcast journalism at nearby Hofstra University. So she knows the passionate New York crowds very well.
They're proud of the public Bethpage's rep as "The People's Country Club." The New York crowd senses, too, how much Mickelson loves them, Balionis said.
"I remember interviewing him a couple of years ago in the tri-state area and he said to me, 'Coming to New York was the first time my kids thought I was cool but how fans reacted to me,'" she recalled. "He loves that. When you can have your teenage kid say, 'Dad, man, you're really cool here in New York,' I think he really takes all of it in. He loves that.
"As a north easterner, I think the fans are awesome. You can't fake anything with those fans out there. They know more about sports than most people in the world. They're here for entertainment, they're here for the competition. They're just die-hard sports fans. So I think when you can put golf into a city and a place like that, I think the energy is just going to be unreal."
Lead analyst Nick Faldo expects the atmosphere to be "manic." Fans will be going nuts as Woods tries for his second straight major after his Masters victory and 15th overall, only three behind Jack Nicklaus. But the New York crowd can be tough on golfers they don't like.
Can the brash crowds at Bethpage get unruly at times? In a New York minute.
Faldo remembers galleries loudly counting (in Spanish) every time a jittery Garcia gripped and regripped his club. "I've never heard that one before."
But Mickelson appeals to all golf fans, not just New Yorkers, according to Faldo. As Golf Digest put it: "Big Apple fans love Phil Mickelson. You got a problem with that?"
"Phil is flat-out entertainment: You don't know what you're going to get," Faldo said. "He's either going to bomb it 320 (yards) through the air. Or it will go sideways. That's part of the entertainment. Phil will keep trying until he gets the ball in the hole. So anything can happen."
CBS also broadcast Woods' stirring win at Augusta National Golf Club for his fifth green jacket. With the PGA Championship moving into its new slot in May, CBS will become the first network ever to broadcast the first two majors of the year.
The Tiffany network will offer third and final round coverage on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19 (2-7 p.m. both days). For the first time on any golf broadcast, CBS will offer live aerial tracing from a blimp, according to CBS boss Sean McManus.
"That's going to add an entirely new perspective to our coverage of the golf tournament," he said.