REPORTING FROM ... WACHOVIA CHAMPIONSHIP, ROUND THREE

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Rumor has it that Michelangelo did the same thing to his brushes right before the Sistine Chapel.

On Saturday and Sunday, the chatter in the Wachovia Championship media center consisted primarily of two questions.

1. Who the hell is Anthony Kim?
2. Has Phil Mickelson really grown an inch since last year?

On Thursday, Mickelson caught the entire golf media corps off guard when a simple question about his improved putting led to a bizarre explanation. He attributed his new, steadier green stroke to two weeks of work with short game guru Dave Pelz, who added an inch to Phil's putter to keep him from hunching over it Golden Bear-style. The reason—he's taller than he was a year ago.

"It's true," Mickelson said following his first round 68 on Thursday. "Through all the stretching and stuff with my trainers, I've probably grown a half inch to an inch. I've known I'd become taller, but it didn't think it would affect my putting. Obviously it did."

So, if a man can still add an inch at the age of 37, there's still room to grow for the rest of us, right? When I asked other PGA'ers what they would do with an extra half inch to an inch, Sergio Garcia said he'd be a better basketball player and Bill Haas said that an extra inch might have caused Tiger to overshoot his legendary putt on #16 at the '05 Masters "and that would have made Chris DiMarco a lot happier … and a lot more famous."

Other than that, the response was all snickers and inappropriate cracks that should never leave the clubhouse. So let's see what the bonus length would have done for some non-golfers.

With an extra "half inch to an inch":

·Doug Flutie is a 6th rounder instead of an 11th rounder.
·Mark Martin, 2007 Daytona 500 champion
·Patrick Ewing, 1995 Eastern Conference Finals MVP
·Steve Bartman is some dude you've never heard of living in Northbrook, Illinois
·Jeremy Giambi is … safe!
·Dave Roberts is … out!
·"The Catch" becomes "The Ball Dwight Clark Should Have Caught Because It Was Right In His Paws".
·Michael Phelps wins 8 golds in Athens instead of six
·Real Quiet wins the '98 Triple Crown, Big Brown sleeps much easier this spring.
·All those measurements in your high school football team's game program would actually be accurate … including yours, "six-foot" guy.

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