One hundred and fifty six men are trying to win the US Open on the Black course at Bethpage State Park in the US Open. It is a stronger field than the Masters held in April, a weaker one than The Players Championship held in May. Of the 156, 100 or perhaps 120 have no chance. They are amateurs, club pros and lowly ranked touring professionals.

We all know that journalists are supposed to be unbiased but here are two favourites of The Spike Bar, one from each side of the Atlantic. This column would be delighted if either man won.

Phil Mickelson: How can you not warm to a man who receives the head of a Mongolian dinosaur as a 39th birthday present from his wife and a 300lb meteorite that landed in Argentina in the 1930s for his 38th, a man who has said he wants to go into space, a man who is right-handed in almost everything he does except play golf, at which he is left-handed. Mickelson was the last amateur to win a pro event on the PGA Tour in the US, one of the first to carry two drivers in one tournament and none at another event and a man who is a hometown hero in New York, a town 3,000 miles from his home, in San Diego.

Whether he can cope with the emotion attendant on him this week is debatable. He will be buoyed by the extraordinary support he will receive as New York's favourite son but will this be enough to enable him, while he is on the golf course, to shut out the feelings for Amy, his wife, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer?

Mickelson has two important dates in his mind once the US Open is concluded. The first is a family holiday with Amy and their three children; the second, 1st July, is the starting date for Amy's treatment. How can he concentrate for five hours each day around a difficult golf course in demanding, wet conditions with things like that in his head?.

Padraig Harrington found that the golf course was a refuge when his father was dying in the summer of 2005. Mickelson does not know whether he will find any peace of mind on the Black course here. "I am not sure how I am going to play" he said. "I am going to do the best I can. I feel that emotionally I am better than I was."

There are so many possibilities for Mickelson. He could miss the halfway cut and have the bonus of being able to return to California earlier than expected. He could have a startling round or two, maybe even four, buoyed by the support of some of the 50,000 daily spectators. He could be close without being a contender, his mind still fixed on his family back home in California and the never ending pressure on Amy.

Who knows, who knows? Certainly Mickelson doesn't. All he knows is that firstly, he'd rather be having the treatment than his wife and secondly that for her there is no reprieve. "When she goes to the mall she gets people she knows or hasn't seen in a while come up and cry. There is no place for her to go to forget for a while."

Mickelson was 40 last Tuesday. He celebrated by having breakfast brought to him in bed by his three children before the entire family went to a local greasy spoon for a fry up. The last time the Open was held at this venue he finished second, beaten by Tiger Woods. However, he won the hearts of the New York crowd. Could he go one better this time and win the trophy?

Our other favourite is Paul Casey, who comes from a rock solid family that was not well enough off for him to join a private golf club in the Surrey area when he was growing up. Casey was good enough to win a scholarship from Foxhills golf club. Bernard Hunt, the old Ryder Cup player and at that time director of golf at Foxhills, saw Casey swing and was impressed enough to authorise a scholarship that covered membership and tuition fees. When Casey won last month's BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, a few miles from Foxhills, he was watched with some pride by those from the club who had set him on his way.

Casey says he has three fathers. His own father, Terry, the father of Jocelyn, his wife, and Pete Kostis, his coach and a TV analyst for CBS in the US. He and Kostis, who lives in Arizona, met when Casey went to university in the state.

"Kostis has often said I am like his third son - the annoying one who doesn't return phone calls," Casey said. "I get treated as part of his family and that is the key to our relationship. Because of that I think he often says things to me that I don't want to hear, things that are the truth. Sometimes they are not nice but because of that they have made me into a better person."