A little star in a big picture. Phil Mickelson's first round at Pebble Beach is a subtle and sublime drama. You have to know the backstory, know how much he wants this, you must appreciate how incomplete he feels without a major title.

Also you have to know his feelings about Pebble Beach and about this tournament, you should sift through the unique sentiments born out of his second place in Pinehurst last year. Then you have to watch him on Thursday as his opening round brings him to three over by the 12th. He confronts himself and grimly he wrestles his game to submission with three birdies on the last six holes.

On Thursday Mickelson drafts a nice little gathering of connoisseurs into his audience as he proceeds. They like him better than folks used to but they are constantly distracted. From behind comes the ominous beating of war drums, the whooping of warriors, the sounds of tribal ritual. Tiger Woods is eating Pebble Beach. The whole world is apparently watching him.

So who wants to be a millionaire bit player? You do? Is that your final answer? You sure? Why don't you take a minute to think about it? When you get used to the money will you be happy living week by week in the shadow of the greatest practitioner your profession has known?

What will it be like knowing that your best can be beaten by him when he's having a bad day at the office? What about your other needs, ego, self-actualisation, all those things?

Foremost among the ranks of the oppressed is that lost generation of players who emerged in the golfing decade before Woods, the guys who came blinking into the sunlight assured that they would inherit the earth. If they were to start a therapy group, Phil Mickelson might be their convenor.

Remember the young Mickelson? The Little Lord Fauntleroy of golf who visited Portmarnock for the Walker Cup in 1991 dazzling us with his all-American arrogance and his stunning play. He was the kid apparently born with a silver wedge in his mouth. He could have been the man we loved to hate, he could even have stolen Tiger Woods' story before Tiger got a chance to retail it. Mickelson was swinging a club as soon as he could walk, playing first when he was 18 months old and famously developing his trademark lefty swing as a consequence of imitating his father in mirror image. His father built a practice ground at the back of the family house in San Diego. He was bred to this.

So who would have thought it? This week, eight years into a pro career that promised to be a blue chip proposition, Mickelson is among the contenders for best player never to have won a major. He turned 30 yesterday. He has gained perspective but when he is honest, which is pretty much most of the time, he concedes that it hurts.

His journey as a pro began right here eight years ago in the US Open at Pebble Beach when MIckelson introduced himself as the future of American golf. But his fanfared debut proved a reliable augury of things to come. After a dazzling amateur career Mickelson blew into Monterey talking the talk about what the US Open meant to him and on day one he walked the walk, hitting a 68 in his first round. He thrilled his audience with a two iron to within 18 inches of the pin on the par-three 17th. He was Superman. He hath cometh. That night Mickelson broke his commercial virginity by signing a $1 million deal with Yonex. The next day he went out and shot a creaky, leaky 81 and got bumped straight out of the tournament. Thanks for your time and see you around sonny.

Even so, a string of good results meant he retained pole position on the grid when people discussed who would be golf's next great star. His party piece is a flop shot where he attacks the ball with any iron and drops it gently into the hands of a volunteer in front of him. He can spin the ball, swerve it, waltz it like virtually nobody else on tour and that ability for a long time disguised a waywardness in his approach shots.

As he told Sports Illustrated last year the proof of the pudding lay in his appalling record over par three holes, where for the 1998-99 season he was the 169th best par-three player on the tour.

In late 1998 Mickelson realised that he had to change something if he was ever to be more than an exotic and well-paid sideshow on the Tour. He took eight weeks off and mentally dismantled his game and inspected the parts, working on his game from 150 yards in and on exploiting birdie opportunities. It would no longer be enough to make "ridiculous ups and downs". His first round on Thursday at Pebble Beach had a little of everything, and he did some extraordinary shot making on the home stretch to finish even. He had suggested that it might not take level par for the 72 holes to win it. But with Woods on song level par didn't look so good anymore.

Losing, if that should be his lot, will go hard on Mickelson this time. Last year's second placing in one of the most memorable of US Opens did much to enhance his image and standing with the American golf public. That loss to Stewart, having been perfectly-placed only to be downed by a wonderful putt, linked their names forever.

In his moment of victory Stewart hugged Mickelson and below the cheering din uttered a benediction of sorts into the younger man's ear. It was Fathers' Day and Mickelson's wife Amy would have the couple's first child the following day. Mickelson, in a display of perspective often lacking in sport, had told a press conference earlier in the week that no matter how well positioned he was, if the call came to be with his wife he would be skipping out of the tournament.

So Stewart hugged Mickelson and spoke to him about fatherhood and the things which matter in life. Even before the tragedy of Stewart's death it became one of the indelible moments in recent golfing history. "When he grabbed my face and spoke to me about fatherhood, it changed my feelings about the disappointment I had just felt, to what I'm looking forward to, to what's more important in my life: the birth of this child, influencing this person in this world."

Perhaps in Mickelson, Stewart was able to see some signs of the metamorphosis which he himself had gone through, from brash, unlikeable rookie to a maturity which brought respect, affection and friendship.

Mickelson has grown too. The kid who came to Portmarnock in 1991 and complained among other things about how unattractive he found Irish women has been humbled a little by the game he loves.

It's not that his record is entirely barren. He has 16 Tour wins in an eight-year professional career, a statistic which makes him a reliable earner but still a great unfulfilled talent. When Mickelson speaks these days about himself and his career the gaping lack of a major on his resume appears to have pinched his perception of himself as a golfer but broadened his range as a person.

"To have won zero majors to this point is disappointing, yes; I would not have guessed that eight years ago . . .," he muses. "If you asked me this 10 years ago I would probably not have been able to conceive of this happening or me feeling this way about my wife, my child, my family in general; and what's been interesting for me is looking back on how I thought about the game of golf, my career, my family and how its evolved over time."

He announced last year that the only tournaments that matter to him now are the majors. He duly failed to win a tournament all season - the first time this had happened since 1993 - but he stepped up the pace in majors. In coming second to Stewart at Pinehurst - Stewart had been runner-up the year before - Mickelson announced that he would at last be a real threat.

This weekend he would make a popular winner. His progress is attended by no hysteria, but he has grace and respect. He stops and signs autographs and talks honestly with the press, never glossing over the holes in his record.

On Wednesday he was one of the 21 golfers who drove a ball into the Pacific in memory of Stewart. He then left the course and practised elsewhere intensely and alone. He learned a lot on the 18th green last year. Regardless of what happens today and tomorrow it will be enough, in a big picture sort of way.