Mickelson Family Vows "Domination" of Woods Family ... in Ping-Pong

by Mulligan Stu on Jun 27, 2007 9:48 PM EDT in News

Watch it, Phil: Sam Alexis is only a couple weeks old, but she can really zip a serve!

Phil Mickelson to Sam Alexis Woods: Come get your paddling!
Sam Alexis to Phil: I'm hungry. Are those boobs?

Oh, Phil, you got served! And first one to 21 wins.

You might not guess it from the media's fascination with the alleged dislike between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, but the two have a long-running, highly competitive, ongoing ping-pong rivalry. Marathon matches that even involve their wives.

And Phil is throwing down the gauntlet: the Mickelson family wants to dominate the Woods family on the mean streets of Table Tennis Town.

Oh, sure, Phil might try to sugarcoat his tough talk by first throwing out congratulations and gifts. In his June 27th Letter posted on his Web site, Phil says:

Amy and I want to congratulate Tiger and Elin Woods again on the birth of Sam Alexis; we've seen their pictures on the Internet. We sent them a mini ping-pong table.

But then he gets to the point:

Our kids have had a little head start on Sam Alexis and expect them to continue the Mickelson domination over the Woods in pong but we thought we should give Sam Alexis a chance to jump-start her own game.

Hmm, "continue the Mickelson domination." Interesting.

But that's not the way I hear it. Tiger and Phil first matched up in ping-pong at the 2002 Ryder Cup. Tiger won. Davis Love III even told pgatour.com it was his favorite memory of Woods.

Tiger and Elin played Phil and Amy in doubles that year, too. No word on the winner of that match. But could Tiger beat Amy? Amy was pregnant at the time, but she was "slamming returns at Tiger Woods in a winner-take-all Ping-Pong match," according to pgatour.com.

Woods and Mickelson take up table tennis every year at the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup. And their matches have become something of a spectacle. From a 2006 Chicago Tribune article:

Last year when the U.S. team entered its private quarters at the Presidents Cup, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson noticed there was a Ping-Pong table in the middle of the room.

They quickly launched into a match, and it didn't take long for the intensity to heat up.

"They were both sweating, and it was three hard-fought games," said Jeff Sluman, who served as an assistant captain on the team. "The whole team was just kind of watching and egging them on, both of them."

For the record, Woods won the best two-out-of-three, so it seems Woods has the upper hand in that game too.

Woods wins again.

But as Phil pointed out, his kids are a bit older than Tiger's. Maybe if he can get his oldest a match with Sam before she develops any control of her motor skills ...

Hey Tiger, better check Sam's new mini ping-pong table - Phil's plan might be to start her off with "inferior equipment."

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