Let's review some of the highlights of the 2006 Phil Mickelson calendar.

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Mickelson toured the canals of Venice and soaked in the ruins of ancient Rome with close friends.

He surprised his wife, Amy, with a 10th anniversary trip to Bora Bora to renew their wedding vows in a Polynesian ceremony.

He launched a new golf course design enterprise with projects under way in the mountains of North Carolina and the tropical foliage of Mexico.

He shot a course-record 60 playing with George H.W. Bush on the former president's favorite course in Kennebunkport, Maine.

And then there was April, when Mickelson slipped his arms into a second green jacket after a legacy-affirming third major championship in consecutive years.

Some might consider his past 12 months a pretty good lifetime. Mickelson considers it "a disappointing year."

Even when you understand that he's referring only to the golf part of 2006, a stranger phrase has probably never been uttered by a reigning Masters Tournament champion.

Mickelson's elation at Augusta National Golf Club was tempered by his frustration with just about everything that came after it.

Two events in particular formed the lasting impression of his 2006 season - an unbelievable 72nd-hole breakdown in the U.S. Open at Winged Foot and an all-too-familiar letdown at the Ryder Cup in Ireland.

In these what-have-you-done-lately times, those failures somehow diffused his Augusta success.

(Associated Press)

"My performance at the Ryder Cup was every bit as disappointing as my finish at the U.S. Open," Mickelson said. "Those two events were what made 2006 a disappointing year. Even though I won the Masters, I looked back at those two events; those were the ones that needed to be addressed."

In a way, 2006 captured the essence of Phil Mickelson. He showed his championship mettle, perched teasingly on the brink of legendary achievement, and failed with epic grandeur. It was all done on a scale few other than Mickelson can muster.

"We never kind of plod along," said Amy Mickelson. "Our highs are so high, and the lows can be pretty low. But it's nothing we haven't gotten through before. It's just part of it."

Mickelson has made a career of bouncing spectacularly between the highs and lows. He may be golf's most accomplished rebounder.

He has endured a handful of major championship heartbreaks. His professional disappointments, however, don't compare to the personal hardships he endured when he nearly lost his wife and son during childbirth in 2003. Mickelson bounced back from that season - easily the worst of his career - to redefine himself professionally as a major champion with three in three years.

"It's a determination and a focus and a complete lack of a fear of failure," Dave Pelz, Mickelson's short-game guru, said of his client's ability to bounce back time after time. "He is not afraid to fall down because he already knows he's going to get back up again."

In an essay for ESPN The Magazine, Mickelson wrote "failure fuels me." So why should Winged Foot be any different?

"Will he ever forget it? No. Will he overcome it? Absolutely," said Amy. "That's a very silly question, because he's done it so many times before.

"The thing people forget about Phil is how big picture he is - personally and professionally. He's always looking at the big picture, and he's a very optimistic person.

"And he's always looking for solutions. He kind of loves the journey and finding ways to get better and trying to figure it out. That's always been a big part of who he is as a player. So absolutely, he will overcome this."

Phil Mickelson is greeted by fans before the start of the final round of the U.S. Open in June at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y. "I am such an idiot," he would say later after losing. (Associated Press)

Even Mickelson scoffs at the idea that Winged Foot left a lasting scar.

"A scar happened in '94 when I broke my leg and they cut it open and stuck in a rod," he said. "That's a scar. Losing the Open obviously hurt. But losing the PGA in 2001 hurt; losing the Masters a number of years hurt; and losing the U.S. Open in 2004 making double on 17 hurt. That's part of the game. And so I think it's a challenge to try to get past that but also an opportunity to identify a weakness and improve it and hopefully improve my performances from here on out."

And so, Mickelson returns to Augusta National in the rarest of positions. The two-time winner and defending champion is trying to prove that he can turn disappointment into a crowning moment.

Winged Foot

Winged Foot was the defining point. As he was two shots up with three holes to play, the energy for the pro-Mickelson New York galleries was building. On the 18th tee he needed par for a third consecutive major win that would have put him in the same historical context as Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods and provided a chance to complete a "Mickel-Slam" the next month in the British Open at Hoylake.

Par was certainly no given. He had struggled to hit the narrow fairways all week. He'd found only two on Sunday, and his last drive on the 17th hole had landed in a trash can.

On the devilish dogleg 18th, though, Mickelson was convinced he could put one last tee shot in play with his "bread-and-butter" cut shot. Under similar circumstances the previous August, he hit a perfect drive into a head wind at Baltusrol to lead to his PGA victory.

"I think the drive at Baltusrol kind of misled him," Pelz said. "He should have been a little more conservative and hit something he could have controlled a little better and was not going to hit a tent." Mickelson hit driver, and then the corporate tent. His aggressive recovery shot hit a tree and left his hopes in ruins. He cleaned up a double bogey with a 10-foot putt and adjourned to the scoring room to bury his head in his hands. A very different Mickelson emerged to face the media after Geoff Ogilvy had taken hold of the U.S. Open trophy.

"I still am in shock that I did that," Mickelson said of his fourth-runner-up finish in the U.S. Open. "I just can't believe that I did that. I am such an idiot. ... I just can't believe I couldn't par the last hole. It really stings.

"This one hurts more than any tournament because I had it won. I had it in my grasp and just let it go."

Mickelson looks for his ball after his tee shot on 17 landed in a garbage bag during the final round of the U.S. Open. (Associated Press)

This Mickelson didn't resemble the one who consistently dealt with major disappointments with a smile and a better-luck-next-time demeanor that had critics debating whether he cared enough to ever win a major. For the first time in his career, he looked shattered.

"That was an awful, awful day," Amy Mickelson said. "Phil was miserable after not winning it. My goodness, he worked so hard. It probably is the saddest I've seen him, that night and the next day. He was really, I think, completely in shock. I think he thought that must have been a nightmare. Like he thought, 'That wasn't me.' It was out of body."

Back at their rented house, Mickelson began getting himself together. Pizza was delivered, and Amanda - his oldest daughter, three days shy of her 7th birthday - delivered the perspective.

"Daddy, I don't know why you're sad," she said. "Second place is really good."

"As you know, they always have a way," Amy said of the children. "I feel very fortunate that they can be there. For the good times you want to share it with the people you love the most. For the bad times there's always a lot of perspective in them being there. It's really healthy because they don't care or even know what it means."

His critics, however, immediately began wondering what Mickelson's collapse meant and whether his championship days were over - and they began citing history to support their case.

Arnold Palmer was 36 years old - the same age Mickelson is now - when he blew a seven-shot lead to Billy Casper with nine holes left in the 1966 U.S. Open at the Olympic Club. Palmer lost a playoff the next day and never won another major.

Greg Norman was 41 when he choked a six-shot lead to Nick Faldo in the final round of the 1996 Masters. Norman also never registered another major win.

Could Mickelson - often compared to Palmer and Norman - avoid the same competitive fate from his gut-wrenching collapse?

"I have been asked that probably a hundred times: Did it damage him mentally? Can he possibly recover?" Pelz said. "My response has always been that for golf writers you've got short memories. That's not the first tournament Phil Mickelson has ever blown."

Mickelson practices his approach during the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines in San Diego. He finished tied for 51st. (Chris Thelen/Staff)

When Mickelson limped through the final three months of 2006 and - after a 111-day off-season - failed to contend in his three-event backyard swing to start 2007, momentum was building to lump Lefty in the same category.

While Woods was being lauded for an eight-month stretch of finishing no worse than third in any stroke-play event after missing the cut at Winged Foot, Mickelson was being buried for covering the same period with no finishes higher than 16th.

The criticism has never been something that rings in Mickelson's ears or affects his focus between them.

"The longer Phil is on tour and the more high the highs and low the lows, it's easier to let it roll off," Amy said. "You're older and more comfortable in your skin. I think as Phil has gotten older he's more aware of who he is and what matters to him. You have to remember it's people's opinions."

Those opinions veered wildly during a two-week period in February that seemed to be a microcosm of his career.

A five-shot victory at Pebble Beach seemed to rejuvenate Mickelson.

"I can't wait for next week and the upcoming majors," he said of his 30th career victory.

That next week at Riviera, the criticism was revived when Mickelson again failed to get the par he needed on the final hole and lost in a playoff to Augusta native Charles Howell.

"On a good note, it's better to get those out of the way early in the season and see if I can eliminate things for the upcoming majors," he said.

Mickelson said "the thing at Winged Foot" was behind him after winning at Pebble Beach, but others haven't let it go. "This is a tournament win and not a major win," CBS commentator Nick Faldo, a six-time major winner, said on the air. "This is a great confidence boost ... but when he gets to Augusta and gets to the heat on Sunday, I guarantee the pressure will be pointed back at Winged Foot. And he's going to have to deal with it again, to prove himself once again."

Mickelson practices his approach during the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines in San Diego. He finished tied for 51st. (Chris Thelen/Staff)

No problem, Mickelson insists.

"I've already proven to myself that I can win majors," he said. "Even though I stumbled (at Winged Foot), it wasn't nearly as devastating as it would have been had I never won one."

Dealing with it

It wasn't too long ago that Mickelson had famously never won a major. The constant scrutiny on him to prove himself was something most outsiders could never imagine. Others can empathize.

Mack Brown, the football coach at the University of Texas, met Mickelson five years ago when they were paired in the pro-am before the Byron Nelson Classic. Mickelson endeared himself immediately with Brown's Longhorns group by having his caddie, Jim "Bones" Mackay, find him some appropriate attire.

"He came up to us with a Hook'em Horns sign and a burnt-orange shirt and said, 'This is going to be fun, guys,'" Brown said.

Professionally, Mickelson and Brown had a lot in common, and that bond formed a lasting friendship.

"He was the second-best golfer in the world and had won 22 tournaments, and all people could talk about was that he had not won a major at that time," Brown said. "We (Texas) over the last 10 years had won the most games in college football and hadn't won a championship. So he and I started comparing questions.

"At the same time we said it was fair and true, and we actually talked about how we had handled it and the direction we felt like we could take to move through."

Mickelson devised a plan for both of them after his rough 2003 season. At dinner in San Diego with Brown after the Longhorns had just lost to Washington State in the Holiday Bowl, Mickelson proposed a challenge.

Mickelson practices his approach during the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines in San Diego. He finished tied for 51st. (Chris Thelen/Staff)

"I'm going to win at Augusta, and you're going to win the national championship, and then we'll go to Cabo (Mexico) and take 25 of our best friends and celebrate," Mickelson said.

They laughed, but three months later Mickelson indeed broke through at the 2004 Masters.

"He called that night and left a message: 'I've done my part, big boy, so pick it up,'" Brown said.

Twenty-one months later, with Mickelson in attendance, Brown silenced his own critics with a Rose Bowl victory over the University of Southern California to win the 2005 national championship. They scheduled the celebratory trip to Cabo San Lucas for late April.

"It just so happened to be two weeks after I won the Masters again," Mickelson said of the trip that followed his third career major. "We had a great time."

Said Brown: "We talked about life and kids and how fortunate we'd been and how good sports had been to us. We really just talked about how great our lives were."

What the two share, they say, is an understanding of how to handle pressure and criticism and make it work in your favor.

"We both went through it with the media. We both went through it with our own personal goals and challenges," Mickelson said. "And were able to persevere and overcome it."

Brown said he learned a lot from Mickelson and uses those lessons for himself and in coaching football.

"I've been amazed that over the five years that we've been friends I've learned a lot with the ways he's handled the media and handles himself," Brown said. "He's had some hard questions and had some hard days, and if you're in his position you're going to. And he always handles it in a first-class manner."

What lesson does Brown use most and pass on to his players?

"Mostly that a smile and confidence is a powerful, powerful thing," he said.

Extreme makeover

Mickelson didn't smile after Winged Foot, and it seemed as though his confidence was shaken. It was only a momentary pause.

"This is not a dress rehearsal; this is life, and you've got to learn as you go," Pelz said. "And it's a learning experience for Phil just like the rest of us. Take advantage of the breaks you have, and don't feel too bad about the bad breaks."

Mickelson understands.

"Dealing with failure is part of the game," he said. "I deal with it 90 percent of the time."

It took a little time for Mickelson to start dealing with this particular failure. The first step to recovery is admitting there's a problem.

"He drove it so bad he should have missed the cut like Tiger did," Pelz said of the Winged Foot performance. "But his short game was miraculous and the best I've ever seen or measured."

That short game almost masked his issues. As clear as his driving troubles were all week at Winged Foot, it took Mickelson until the end of the 2006 season to address that part of the process. He doesn't believe he would have addressed it at all if he had salvaged par on the last hole or beaten Ogilvy the next day in a playoff.

"I believe that there's a good chance that in the future I will win tournaments that I wouldn't have won had I not had that problem," Mickelson said. "I didn't drive it well the entire week, and it just so happened I was able to keep myself in it and then blow it on the last hole. The entire round I hit it left. I was able to identify a weakness because it was the U.S. Open and because I lost it on the last hole.

"If I had won the tournament or if it had been any other tournament besides the U.S. Open, I probably wouldn't have addressed it. But because I lost and because it upset me and made me angry, then I've addressed it."

That he didn't address it immediately is a different matter. After playing so well in winning back-to-back weeks in Georgia, he held out hope that his Winged Foot problems were an aberration.

"When you're really close to something, it's not as obvious to you as when you're standing far away from it," Pelz said. "I think he hit the ball so well at Atlanta and Augusta that he almost couldn't believe he was hitting it that bad when he got to Winged Foot. Then he hit it pretty good at Hoylake. I don't think he realized how bad the problem was until it kind of deserted him again at the PGA."

Mickelson doesn't have to dig hard to break out examples to support his claim that Winged Foot will make him stronger. The 2001 PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club stands out. Tied for the lead with David Toms with three holes remaining, Mickelson three-putted the 16th hole to deliver the advantage to Toms. His 60-foot uphill putt that zipped eight feet past the cup was a back-breaker.

Instead of sulking over another missed opportunity to win his first major, Mickelson put the mistakes that cost him to constructive use.

"Had I not looked back and addressed it, I would not have won the Masters twice because I worked on my lag putting," Mickelson said. He expects the same results this time.

"Maybe that loss will give him seven more wins," said Rick Smith, Mickelson's long-game instructor. "It depends on how you approach it. His approach is very positive."

Mickelson addressed his driving deficiencies in two ways - with a new swing and new technology.

With Smith, Mickelson worked on squaring his club-face quicker to avoid blocking his drives left. He even got some field advice from noted instructor Butch Harmon in February after the leftward drive crept back into his game at Riviera.

With Callaway's technicians, he developed a new makeup for his driver that would subdue the left shot.

"We have addressed that with equipment, we have addressed it through instruction, and I'm really excited about 2007 because I really think that shot is going to be eliminated the majority of the time," he said.

Mickelson has exhibited the fruits of those labors this season, improving from 66th in 2006 to eighth in the total driving category that combines distance with accuracy. Despite working through some rust in his first three events after a four-month competitive layoff, Mickelson drove it precisely in his win at Pebble Beach in February. In the final round he missed only one fairway - and that by only a few feet.

In general, Mickelson believes he's on the right path.

"After focusing on my driving in the offseason, I'm able to drive the golf ball better than I ever have, which will hopefully help me in my Masters performance because the driving, when I won in '04 and '06, was a critical element," he said. "Because I'm driving the ball so much better now, or feel that I am, I have a lot more confidence than in years past."

Getting his driver under control - or two drivers as he did at Augusta last year - can set Mickelson up as a close favorite behind four-time Masters winner Woods, who has won the past two majors.

"I think Phil has the best short game in the game, so if you put him in every fairway he's going to be right there and tough to beat," Pelz said. "If you put Tiger in every fairway he's going to be tough to beat. Let's see who wins. I'd take my chances (with Phil)."

Mickelson doesn't want to take chances with another element that has let him down - his body.

Stamina over the course of a season has long been a battle. Both his physical and mental fitness gets taxed as the major season winds down.

"There's a lot that goes on through the year besides playing golf," Mickelson said. "Let's say I play 20 events, but I also have 20 to 30 outings that I do, commercial shoots, media interviews and so forth. It all gets to be kind of tiring at the end."

While the PGA Tour reduced its substantive season by two months to end in mid-September shortly before the Ryder and Presidents cups, the schedule is heavily back-loaded with a four-week playoff series coming on the heels of the PGA Championship.

With that in mind, Mickelson addressed his fitness with his trainer, Sean Cochran. He implemented cardiovascular workouts. He started lifting weights. He added a form of kung fu to the tae kwon do he's been doing for the past five years.

Mickelson looked trimmer at the start of the season, saying he had lost 20 to 25 pounds of fat and added 10 to 15 of muscle.

"His arms are giant now," Smith said. "He's got some pipes on him."

Said Mickelson of his fitness: "I hope by addressing it in the off-season I'll have a good finish to the year, whether it's the FedEx Cup but more specifically the Ryder Cup/Presidents Cup, because that's what I was really disappointed in."

Enjoying the ride

The Mickelsons have learned to embrace his up-and-down career. "When things are going great and you're having one of those six-month streaks of all the putts going in, we've learned to really be in the moment and enjoy the ride," Amy said. "It's taken us a long time to get to that place because Phil's goals are obviously high. But that's not the reality of how it is for him.

"So when things are going well we really embrace the moment and have fun and celebrate. Then when things are bad it's not as fun, but it sure makes the highs that much better."

Mickelson is seeking more highs. It's the majors where he has put so much focus since his breakthrough season in 2004, and he says he won't be satisfied with just three or even only a couple more. He's developed an arduous preparation formula that has proved successful. He no longer simply relies on his talent to pull him through golf's sternest tests.

"A lot of times you come out on tour and play 30 weeks and know four or five of those weeks I'm bound to get hot," he said of his old logic. "Just the math says that. The other skill is to get your game to peak at specific times. Jack Nicklaus was the best at it until Tiger - having his game peak Thursday until Sunday. That's a real challenge to learn your own game and understand how to get your best game out. It's different for everyone.

"I think that it takes time to learn how to play a major championship setup. It took me a long time."

Winged Foot was just the latest in a series of setbacks, and it doesn't alter his potential to fulfill his goals of joining the most elite fraternity in golf.

"To prove and set his career in the ultimate status, he needs to win the career slam," Pelz said of a feat accomplished by only five other pros - Woods, Nicklaus, Hogan, Gary Player and Gene Sarazen. "He needs to drive it straight enough to win a U.S. Open, and he needs to drive it low enough to win a British. That's the next step to get those two to prove he can play in all conditions and on all types of courses. No question in my mind that he can perhaps hit a greater variety of shots than almost all of the great players. You can't count it until he actually does it."

In the meantime, Mickelson returns to Augusta looking to remedy any lingering disappointment in the place that marks the highlights of his career. That, however, is not his primary motivation.

"My motivating factor - and it doesn't need to be any more than this - is that it's the Masters," he said. "When that tournament rolls around and we've been thinking about it since the last major at the PGA, you feel like it's the start of the year and you get so excited as a player. I just love that tournament, and I love the fact that I'm a part of its history."

He would certainly love to use the Masters as a platform to show that his U.S. Open meltdown also is history.

"He's had time to rest and is getting back in the swing of things now and looking forward to the majors," his wife said. "Augusta, I think, can be a great place for him to bury that. He'll be comfortable, and it's his favorite tournament. It would be wonderful because it would silence everybody, and I think if you play well things take care of themselves."