Curt Schilling’s bloody sock phoned Phil Mickelson’s wrist brace Friday to express its condolences.
It doesn’t look as if Mickelson’s injured wrist is going to gain the lofty status of Schilling’s ankle or Michael Jordan’s stomach or Willis Reed’s thigh muscle on the list of heroic body parts.
But there really should be an exception made because those are wussy sports. This is golf. And this is U.S. Open golf at Oakmont Country Club, which Mickelson says translates into diabolical rough capable of swallowing its victims whole.
The rough is even evil during practice.
“It’s absolutely dangerous,” Mickelson said after shooting a 7-over 77 Friday and missing the cut by one stroke. “The first practice round Monday, (massage therapist) Jim Weathers had six other appointments with people who had hurt their ribs, their back, their wrists. It’s dangerous. It really is.”
I wasn’t sure whether the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was aware of this. So I called Brad Mitchell, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees OSHA.
“I don’t play golf,” Mitchell said.
But you can see the inherent danger, can’t you, Brad? The powerful force of the swing? The dastardly resistance of the rough?
“I don’t believe pro sports are covered by OSHA standards,” he said. “I don’t know that we have any injury statistics on golf.”
Maybe he didn’t hear what Mickelson had said. His massage therapist saw six golfers Monday. It’s a bloodbath out here.
Mitchell said some of the most dangerous jobs are found in the construction industry. Workers on fishing boats also have a high fatality rate, he said.
Those people wouldn’t last a round at Oakmont.
If it were just Mickelson, I might be willing to let this slide. But when 15-year-old amateur Richard Lee hurt his wrist in the rough Friday and withdrew after 13 holes, I couldn’t sit idly by.
“I had a chip shot, probably 20 feet,” Lee said, painting the scene. “The ball was sitting down, so I hit the chip shot. It caught my wrist a little bit. It hurt a lot.
“It was a little chip shot, but I took a full swing at it because it was all the way down there. After that shot, I was like, ‘Whoa, what happened to my wrist?’ So I was just trying to concentrate, but I couldn’t.”
As you can see, we’re getting into child-labor abuses.
I asked Mitchell whether OSHA planned to look into the entire situation.
“It’s against OSHA policy to announce inspections in advance,” he said cryptically.
I would like to think we’re on the way to improving the deplorable conditions at Oakmont. But who’s to say the U.S. Golf Association won’t cut the grass before investigators arrive? And who’s to say the USGA won’t go back to the same abuses at next year’s Open at Torrey Pines Golf Club in San Diego?
But more to the point, how is anyone supposed to monitor the killer rough during practice?
Mickelson was injured while practicing at Oakmont three weeks ago. At that point, the rough was much longer than it is for the tournament, and he hurt himself while hitting chip shots. It apparently wasn’t one swing that caused the injury but an accumulation of swings in the thick stuff.
It was this kind of courage and determination that got the Golden Gate Bridge built.
Somehow, Paul Casey managed to avoid the rough — one thinks of a swimmer navigating through crocodile-infested waters — on his way to a 4-under 66 Friday. Nobody else came close to that number.
But he was one of the lucky ones.
“It’s disappointing to dream as a kid about winning the U.S. Open and spend all this time getting ready for it and have the course setup injure you, you know?” Mickelson said. “To think that you enter this tournament and you’re trying to win and you’re trying to hit great shots, but you’re also trying to not end your career on one shot or at least suspend it for a while.
“That’s a little disappointing.”
And dangerous. Did he mention dangerous?
Mickelson was 11 strokes off the lead. Through six holes Friday, he was 2 over for the tournament but then fell apart with two double bogeys and two bogeys in the next four holes.
He knew how he was going to spend the rest of Friday as he waited to find out if he had made the cut.
“Go watch the carnage on TV,” he said.
A writer asked if he would be rooting for the carnage.
“I don’t have to root for it,” he said. “It’s going to happen.”
It really is a jungle out there. Upton Sinclair’s kind of jungle.
Next thing you know, the players’ loaner Lexuses won’t have cup holders.
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rmorrissey@tribune.com
