PHIL MICKELSON is dressed in a yellow polo shirt and dark grey slacks, and there are barely perceptible beads of perspiration on his forehead. It's 18 June 2006, Winged Foot, New York, the final hole of the final round of the US Open. Mickelson has a driver in his hand as he gazes out through the heat haze at his destiny. He is just a par four away from winning his first national championship, 10 minutes away from winning three majors in succession.

He has won the USPGA title at the back end of the previous season, he has also won the Masters a couple of months earlier, and now he is within touching distance of the US Open trophy.

One piercing drive, one solid approach to the heart of the green, and two routine putts. He is exactly where he wanted to be, where he dreamt he would be, on this sweltering Sunday in June.

However, there is even more than victory to savour today. He knows about the bigger picture. Of him holding off Tiger Woods at the USPGA, and of him holding off Tiger Woods again at Augusta. This week, Woods is mourning the death of his father and has missed the cut at a major for the first time as a professional. Suddenly, the road is clear.

Mickelson might not satisfy the pedants at the world golf rankings, he might not emerge from the computer's whirl as the number one, but after three major triumphs in a row, he knows and everyone knows. He is the best player in the world.

In the space of a couple of years, he has done what they said would be impossible. He has transformed himself from a supremely gifted loser into a major champion. In an era which should have belonged to Tiger Woods and Tiger Woods alone, he has become the game's uber player, its alpha male.

Only one thing. On this manicured 18th tee box, at the head of a fairway which kinks from right to left, he is actually 10 minutes away from telling the world: "I'm such an idiot."

Because Mickelson is worried. All day his driver has betrayed him, the face a fraction too open at impact, the ball rocketing high out into the blue and then spinning anticlockwise away to his left.

What he wouldn't give for a three wood now, but all he has in the bag is a four wood, not enough club to leave him with a comfortable mid-iron to the sanctuary of the green.

The triumph of the here and now, and the triumph over his nemesis Tiger Woods, is just a swing away. The sort of perfect swing he can execute in his sleep, the one he has practised for countless hours. But not today when he needs it more than ever. The hooting from the gallery behind the tee quickly evaporates as the white dot veers alarmingly off line.

He should bunt the ball back out onto the fairway, should guarantee himself a play-off at worst, but just when it seems that he has learned to suppress the gambler's instinct, Mickelson reverts to type. Was it hubris that led him to attempt a punched three-iron under the tree that was blocking his route to history, or was it stupidity?

Now it is unravelling. The tree, the bunker, the chip, the double-bogey. His shoulders slumped, his goofy smile replaced by the glazed look of someone emerging from a mangled car. Meanwhile, Tiger Woods switches off the TV at his home in Florida. Still number one.

After the US Open, Woods wins all six PGA Tour events he plays in. The streak includes the British Open and the USPGA bringing his total of majors to 12, and the gap at the top of the world rankings becomes a chasm. The only time Mickelson will beat Woods is when they go head-to-head during the Ryder Cup - at table-tennis.

Mickelson appears in five more stroke play tournaments after Winged Foot and his best finish is a tie for 16th at the USPGA. He flops at the K Club, and then disappears for four months.

He is the reigning Masters champion, but 2006 has been a year of what ifs, of maybes, of regrets.

Over the winter, he renews his vows after 10 years of marriage, he goes brick-sniffing in Rome and Venice, he gets involved in a couple of coursedesign projects, and the scales in his ensuite reads 17 and a half stone. Golf isn't everything, even though it seemed like it that day in June when they handed him his fourth US Open runners-up medal.

"Dealing with failure is part of the game. I deal with it 90 per cent of the time, " he says. "Losing the US Open obviously hurt, but losing the PGA in 2001 hurt, losing the Masters a number of years hurt, and making double bogey on the 17th at Shinnecock Hills in 2004, that hurt. It's a challenge to try and get past that, but it's also an opportunity to identify a weakness and to try and improve it."

But no scars, he insists. The only scar is the one the surgeon left after he broke his leg skiing in 1994. Still, he has been thinking about that fateful drive, as well as the other wayward drives in the final round which built a wall of doubt in his mind. He wonders if the long-gone presidents of the USGA looked down on Winged Foot and made it their business to prevent someone who only hit two out of 14 fairways from winning their championship.

He talks to his coach Rick Smith, and he talks to Callaway about making him a driver which eliminates the shot going left. He hits balls, the boffins refine the club, and now he's thinking about using the new FT1 square-headed model at Augusta. Where Tiger Woods will be waiting.

"It looks like one shot is what really made me go back, but you look at the whole US Open, and I noticed there were a lot of shots lost left. I need to create two different things. A slightly different golf swing, and a slightly different make-up in the head of the club."

He is fat, so he forces himself to go to the gym every day where he runs and where he lifts weights. Just like Tiger Woods does. He reckons that fatigue cost him at the Ryder Cup, and with the new FedEx Cup schedule in August and September probably requiring him to play six events in seven weeks, he needs to be fit. Just like Tiger Woods.

"My performance at the Ryder Cup was every bit as disappointing as the US Open. Even though I won the Masters, those two events made 2006 a disappointing year. The Ryder Cup was more of a physical problem. It's the last tournament of the year for me and I don't feel I stood up physically over the nine months. And especially when we were playing 36 holes a day."

He returns for the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. He is enthusiastic about the new season, and it will soon be revealed whether he is a better player than the one who had a chance to win all four majors in 2004, and who was just five strokes away from a Grand Slam. Or better than the player who won last year's BellSouth by 13 strokes the week before he took the edge out of Masters' Sunday with a faultless victory.

Or is he damaged by his US Open meltdown, by his failed challenge to Woods's supremacy? The shadow of the world number one is as long as it has ever been, and Mickelson knows it. "I certainly want to get back to the level where I'm able to compete in each tournament, compete against Tiger week-in, week-out, " he says. "But again, it's not easy. He's a remarkable player."

Who is there now to arm-wrestle Woods as he relentlessly closes in on Jack Nicklaus's record of 18 majors?

Not Ernie Els, not Vijay Singh, not Jim Furyk, not Adam Scott and certainly not Sergio Garcia. There is only Phil Mickelson.

The hope for professional golf at the elite level is that Mickelson will recover from the trauma of last year and race Woods to the line in the four majors. It's a hope, not a certainty.

PHIL MICKELSON Age 36 Turned pro 1992 Residence Rancho Santa Fe, California World ranking 4 Career wins 30 Major wins 3 (Masters 2004, 06; USPGA 2005) On-course earnings $39.5m Teams Ryder Cup (6) 1995-2006; President's Cup (6) 1994-2005; Walker Cup (2) 1989, 91