For me, it was only a television experience. But I could not have felt more at home during the first round of the British Open at Royal Birkdale had I been out there stinking it up and swatting it sideways with the best of 'em. Where else, other than an ungodly day at the British Open, can a homeless mutt imagine being the lead dog at Westminster?

It's the only place on earth where all golfers are created equal. As in equally inept.

And did you get a load of that perplexed look on Phil Mickelson's face when he was trying to avoid triple bogeys? Want an explanation for it?

OK, I've been keeping it to myself, but here's what happened.

Last week, I found an empty Mountain Dew bottle in the backyard and rubbed it a couple of times and out jumped a genie who told me I had one, but only one, wish.

I said, "Heck, that's easy. I want to play golf just like Phil Mickelson."

No problem, the genie replied, but then mumbled something crazy about Mickelson possibly not liking it. Bear with me.

So Mickelson and I show up Thursday at the Birk, both of us thinking it could be our tournament to win since Tiger Woods was home under a warm blanket and counting his blessings.

Last hole, I sink a 5-foot whirlibirdie for an 8, posting a light-running 151 (just a few strokes over par by my count) and even had a lot to talk about with the rest of the players in the 19th hole. It was a blast, male-bonding of the first degree, I tell you. Listen in.

First hole, I tell the gang, I hit driver, beer warmer (formerly known as beer cooler), 7-wood, patron (take that, Augusta), 7-iron, wedge, lob wedge, trap, fringe, green, putt, putt and putt.

And after all that, you know what Mickelson said? "Way to work, big fella. I heard you didn't even lose your ball."

Not a chance, I told him.

On courses like the big, bad Barkhouser (that's poker talk for the nine of clubs) and in the kind of weather straight out of an "Alien" movie, the worst mistake a bloke can make is outhitting his coverage. Keep your friends close but your enemy tee shots closer, I advised Phil.

In other words, never, ever lose a $3 golf ball.

That's like buying a cup of Starbucks and using it to water the rough. Lefty wrote that quote down on the back of his ski cap.

Second hole, I went with 3-wood, ball retriever, 9-wood, drop, appeal, drop, 65-degree wedge, appeal, 68.5-degree wedge (hey, Mickelson and I have the same teacher, which is why we're so darn tight), fringe, opposite fringe, original fringe, green, putt, putt and putt. At this point, I'm thinking I Am The Man, and Am I Ever glad I got the tough holes out of the way early.

Well, shoot, you know what happened from there. You probably saw me on the leaderboard through a couple of holes. That was when I was only 10-over and hanging on the front hood. It was me, this left-handed guy from Zambia and a chap who looked for all the world like an old Greg Norman. Not only that, he gave me a fancy cap with a hungry-looking fish on it, plus an invitation to Chris Evert's tennis camp. I told him that I wasn't a very good tennis player. He laughed, and said, "So when has something like that ever stopped you?"

That was when Ernie Els, sipping a tall glass of bug spray with a twist of cyanide on the rocks, walked up and started singing the praises of his tee shot on No. 5. "Landed it squarely in the middle of the fairway," he said.

"How in the world could you pull off something like that?" Vijay Singh, kicking around a putter about the height of the Empire State Building, asked.

"Aw, nothing to it, really," Els said. "I just smoothed a 3-wood off the ball-washer, then hit a carrier 5-wood off a television tower and bounced it in dead-solid center. It's not all that hard to do if you know which way the wind's blowing."

I couldn't help it. I had to give Els a big ol' easy high-five.

"What in the name of Tom Morris is it going to take to win this thing?" I asked.

"Probably a genie in a magic bottle," he said.