Keeping busy

After Phil Mickelson won last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, he got a congratulatory phone call from LPGA Hall of Famer Amy Alcott, an old friend.

"I just told him great players win at great golf courses," Alcott said. "And if I could be of any help (this week), that I live just down the street."

Alcott, who has been a member at Riviera since she was a teenager and lives in a home adjacent to the green on the sixth hole, gave Mickelson some pointers during Wednesday's practice round.

Course-management coach isn't the only title Alcott keeps these days.

She's designing a golf course in North Carolina (she previously co-designed Indian Canyons in Palm Springs), is preparing to play at the Kraft Nabisco Championship (where she's a three-time winner), and is working on a book, due out in March 2008, entitled "Spiked Shoes: Golf Lessons, Life Lessons."

Alcott said the book will consist of a series of interviews she has done with some of the famous people she has met, including golfer Laura Baugh, Presidents Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford, broadcasters Jim Nantz and Jack Whitaker, and CEOs from some of the biggest corporations in the country.

"By virtue of growing up in L.A. and being a people person," said Alcott, "I've met some of the most interesting people in the world."