THE ANNUAL rush for tickets to T in the Park at Balado this weekend testifies to the popularity of Scotland’s biggest music festival, but the whole mud and guts experience proved a little too much for Phil Mickelson, currently the best golfer in the world actually playing, writes Steve Scott.

With Tiger Woods resting his knee, the 38-year-old world number two takes seniority for the moment—and he’s concentrating wholly on the golf this weekend.

Mickelson is a long-time REM fan and the last time the band from Georgia headlined at Balado in 2003 he managed to wangle a couple of VIP tickets for himself and his caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay, so the pair zipped off at the close of Sunday play.

However, even though Michael Stipe and co are headliners again on the main stage on Sunday, Lefty and Bones will not be donning the de rigeur brightly-coloured wellies, largely as it appears the T in the Park revellers, after three days of camping, music and beer, were a bit much for the American pair’s sensibilities.

“It was very...er...interesting,” he said of 2003. “Bones and I saw REM, we have some friends there, and I believe they are playing Sunday night again, if I’m not mistaken.

“I had some interesting, not encounters as such, but I saw some quite interesting things that night,” he added with a wry smile indicating a degree of understatement. “And I think I’m going to choose to not go again this year.”

Instead Mickelson is seeking to go one better than last year, when he drove into the reeds at the 18th in a play-off with France’s Gregory Havret for another installment in his collection of big tournament blow-ups.

Nonetheless, he has enough wins—and now enough majors —not to care about the occasional aberration.

“I’ve won twice and lost in a playoff,” he said in response to the suggestion that he hadn’t played particularly well this season and had been quiet of late.

“I’m really thinking about the next nine to 10-week stretch, and I took the last three weeks off knowing I’m playing almost every week for the next three months.

“I spent the last three days at Royal Birkdale getting my course work done for next week and now I’m ready to play here. I think the best way to prepare is peforming well here, hitting shots crisply and sharply and getting the short game and touch down.”

Ernie Els also rolls into one of his favourite venues after three weeks off, spent seeing Ascot horse-racing, Henley rowing and Wimbledon tennis.

“There was a lot of great sport going on near my home in England, and it’s been nice spending some time there with the family,” he said, referring to the impending move to the US brought on by the need for treatment for his autistic son Ben.

“Family life is No 1 for me, but there was a long time when golf was No 1,” he admitted.

“Your priorities change but I don’t know if I’ve changed a lot because of Ben, and I wouldn’t want to think that.

“I would say that Ben’s condition hasn’t taken anything away. You never want to show any weakness in your approach to any tournament, and I don’t think it’s taken my focus away in trying to reach my goals.”

Els believes that the swing changes implemented by Butch Harmon are going to come into play in the next two weeks, and he too has done his prep early at Royal Birkdale for the Open.

“It’s very lush, very soft, and there is a lot of rough,” he said.

“But it’s very fair, the fairways are the way the club members play them, and I think that’s how it should be. It’s a course where if you play properly, you’ll score well.”