For the first time since you-know-when, Phil Mickelson played a competitive round of golf in Westchester today.

Now he just deflects questions that contain the words “Winged Foot� into positive-spin answers, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There should be a statute of limitations on those torturous queries, shouldn’t there? The guy has played five majors since then. He’s won Tour events since then. He’s been hurt. He’s battled back.

Like Bill Buckner, though, it’s never going completely away. If and when Mickelson ever wins another major, every story line will be how he shrugged off the debacle at Winged Foot, exorcised that demon. You know, all those easy cliche lines.

Until then …

I asked him, with innocence intended, if anybody in the large galleries had offered any comments about Winged Foot. After all, surely many followers were there last year, too.

“No, I haven’t heard that,â€? he said. “Winged Foot, Bethpage, are very memorable — some better than others. But one of these days I’m going to break through and win a tournament up here. I actually guess Baltusrol (in Springfield, N.J., where he won the ‘05 PGA) is close enough, but you can’t really count it if it’s not in the state.â€?

He meant New York State, not his state of mind. Memorable would be an understatement. For one thing, he has played plentiful U.S. Opens in New York — Shinnecock twice, where he had a chance to win both times; Bethpage, where he lost to Tiger Woods and where he really developed an indescribable relationship as the favorite of New York golf fans, and sports fans; Winged Foot, obviously.

The Opens are special, too, because his birthday falls in that week, and so he is serenaded with song, and because Open Sundays fall on Father’s Day for this first-and-foremost family man. But it’s about the area, too (the Open will return to Bethpage in 2009).

I asked him about returning to the scene, here. Again, he spun it positively. Good for him.

“I love coming here,� Mickelson said. “I have really always enjoyed playing in the New York area. I love talking football with a lot of people here because everybody’s so knowledgeable about sports. It’s been really fun. I love that we have a lot of majors here.

“I have started to add this tournament (to his schedule) more than in the past and I’m excited that this is part of the FedEx Cup series because now we get such strong fields. And the people in this area deserve to have strong fields in these tournaments.�

This is the first time he’s ever played at Westchester Country Club in consecutive years, although he seemed more than a tad distracted the last time he was here. You might remember that. He had won two consecutive majors, and everybody was talking about the Mickel-Slam, and Phil was talking about nothing but Winged Foot, while dashing off to the Foot for practice rounds.

You know what happened the following week.