Phil Mickelson
Philip Alfred Mickelson is an American professional golfer who currently plays in the LIV Golf League. He has won 45 events on the PGA Tour, including six major championships: three Masters titles, two PGA Championships, and one Open Championship. With his win at the 2021 PGA Championship, Mickelson became the oldest major championship winner in history at the age of 50 years, 11 months, and 7 days. He is nicknamed "Lefty", as he plays left-handed.
Mickelson is one of 17 players in the history of golf to win at least three of the four majors. He has won every major except the U.S. Open, in which he has finished runner-up a record six times. In 2022, Mickelson became the only golfer who has won 3 of the 4 majors to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, leaving his PGA Tour membership of 30 years.
Mickelson has spent more than 25 consecutive years in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking. He has spent over 700 weeks in the top 10, has reached a career-high world ranking of No. 2 several times and is a life member of the PGA Tour. Although naturally right-handed, he is known for his left-handed swing, having learned it by mirroring his right-handed father's swing. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2012.
Early life
Philip Alfred Mickelson was born on June 16, 1970, in San Diego, California, to parents Philip Mickelson Sr., an airline pilot and former naval aviator, and Mary Santos. He was raised there and in Scottsdale, Arizona. Mickelson has Portuguese, Swedish, and Sicilian ancestry. His maternal grandfather, Alfred Santos was a caddie at Pebble Beach Golf Links and took Phil to play golf as a child.Although otherwise right-handed, he played golf left-handed since he learned by watching his right-handed father swing, mirroring his style. Mickelson began golf under his father's instruction before starting school. Phil Sr.'s work schedule as a commercial pilot allowed them to play together several times a week and young Phil honed his creative short game on an extensive practice area in their San Diego backyard. Mickelson graduated from the University of San Diego High School in 1988.
Amateur career
Mickelson attended Arizona State University in Tempe on a golf scholarship and became the face of amateur golf in the United States; he captured three NCAA individual championships and three Haskins Awards as the outstanding collegiate golfer. With three individual NCAA championships, he shares the record for most individual NCAA championships alongside Ben Crenshaw. Mickelson also led the Sun Devils to the NCAA team title in 1990. Over the course of his collegiate career, he won 16 tournaments.Mickelson was the second collegiate golfer to earn first-team All-American honors all four years. In 1990, he also became the first with a left-handed swing to win the U.S. Amateur title, defeating high school teammate Manny Zerman 5 and 4 in the 36-hole final at Cherry Hills, south of Denver. Mickelson secured perhaps his greatest achievement as an amateur in January 1991, winning his first PGA Tour event, the Northern Telecom Open, in Tucson, making him one of the few golfers to win a PGA Tour event as an amateur in the history of the PGA Tour. At age 20, he was only the sixth amateur to win a tour event and the first in over five years after Scott Verplank at the Western Open in August 1985. Other players to accomplish this feat include Doug Sanders and Gene Littler. With five holes remaining, Mickelson led by a stroke, but made a triple-bogey and was then three strokes behind. The leaders ahead of him then stumbled, and he birdied 16 and 18 to win by a stroke. It was the most recent win by an amateur at a PGA Tour event until 2024, at The American Express, with Nick Dunlap taking the title.
That April, Mickelson was the low amateur at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. With his two-year PGA Tour exemption from the Tucson win, he played in several tour events in 1992 while an amateur but failed to make a cut.
Professional career
1992–2003: Trying for first major win
Mickelson graduated from ASU in June 1992 and quickly turned professional. He bypassed the tour's qualifying process because of his 1991 win in Tucson, which earned him a two-year exemption. In 1992, Mickelson hired Jim "Bones" Mackay as his caddy. He won many PGA Tour tournaments during this period, including the Byron Nelson Golf Classic and the World Series of Golf in 1996, the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 1998, the Colonial National Invitation in 2000, and the Greater Hartford Open in 2001 and again in 2002.He appeared as himself in a non-speaking role in the 1996 film Tin Cup, starring Kevin Costner. His 2000 Buick Invitational win ended Tiger Woods's streak of six consecutive victories on the PGA Tour. After the win, Mickelson said, "I didn't want to be the bad guy. I wasn't trying to end the streak per se. I was just trying to win the golf tournament." Although he had performed very well in the majors up to the end of the 2003 season, Mickelson's inability to win any of them led to him frequently being described as the "best player never to win a major".
2004–2006: First three major wins
Mickelson's first major championship win came in his thirteenth year on the PGA Tour in 2004, when he secured victory in the Masters with an birdie putt on the final hole. Ernie Els was the runner-up at a stroke back; the two played in different pairs in the final round and had traded birdies and eagles on the back nine. In addition to getting the "majors monkey" off his back, Mickelson was now only the third golfer with a left-handed swing to win a major; the others being New Zealander Sir Bob Charles, who won The Open Championship in 1963, and Canadian Mike Weir, who won The Masters in 2003. All three are naturally right-handed but play left-handed, A fourth left-handed winner is natural southpaw Bubba Watson, the Masters champion in 2012 and 2014.Prior to the Ryder Cup in 2004, Mickelson was dropped from his long-standing contract with Titleist/Acushnet Golf after an incident when he left a voicemail message for a Callaway Golf executive. In it, he praised their driver and golf ball and thanked them for their help in getting some equipment for his brother. This message was played to all of their salesmen, and eventually found its way back to Titleist. He was then let out of his multi-year deal with Titleist 16 months early and signed on with Callaway Golf. He endured a great deal of ridicule and scrutiny from the press and fellow Ryder Cup members for his equipment change so close to the Ryder Cup matches. He faltered at the 2004 Ryder Cup with a record but refused to blame the sudden change in equipment or his practice methods for his performance.
In November 2004, Mickelson tallied his career-low for an 18-hole round: a 59 at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf at Poipu Bay Golf Course in Hawaii. The following year, Mickelson captured his second major at the PGA Championship at Baltusrol in a Monday final-round conclusion due to inclement weather the previous day. On the 18th hole, Mickelson hit one of his trademark soft pitches from deep greenside rough to within of the cup and made his birdie to finish at a 4-under-par total of 276, one shot ahead of Steve Elkington and Thomas Bjørn. Mickelson captured his third major title the following spring at the Masters. He won his second green jacket after shooting a 3-under-par final round, winning by two strokes over runner-up Tim Clark. This win propelled him to 2nd place in the Official World Golf Ranking, behind Woods, and ahead of Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen.
2006: Collapse on final hole at the U.S. Open
After winning two majors in a row heading into the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Mickelson was bidding to join Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods as the only players to win three consecutive majors. Mickelson was the joint leader going into the final round, but he was part of a wild finish to the tournament, in which he made major mistakes on the final hole and ended up in a tie for second place at +6, one shot behind Geoff Ogilvy.Mickelson bogeyed the 16th hole. On the 17th hole, with the lead at +4, he missed the fairway to the left, and his drive finished inside a garbage can, from which he was granted a free drop; he parred the hole. He had a one-shot lead and was in the last group going into the final hole.
Needing a par on the 18th hole for a one-shot victory, Mickelson continued with his aggressive style of play and chose to hit a driver off the tee; he hit his shot well left of the fairway. The ball bounced off a corporate hospitality tent and settled in an area of trampled-down grass that was enclosed with trees. He decided to go for the green with his second shot, rather than play it safe and pitch out into the fairway. His ball then hit a tree and did not advance more than. His next shot plugged into the left greenside bunker. He was unable to get up and down from there, resulting in a double bogey and costing him a chance of winning the championship outright or getting into an 18-hole playoff with Ogilvy.
After his disappointing finish, Mickelson said: "I'm still in shock. I still can't believe I did that. This one hurts more than any tournament because I had it won. Congratulations to Geoff Ogilvy on some great play. I want to thank all the people that supported me. The only thing I can say is I'm sorry." He was even more candid when he said: "I just can't believe I did that. I'm such an idiot."
2006–2008
During the third round of the 2006 Ford Championship at Doral, Mickelson gave a spectator $200 after his wayward tee shot at the par-5 10th broke the man's watch. Mickelson also has shown other signs of appreciation. In 2007 after hearing the story of retired NFL player, Conrad Dobler, and his family on ESPN explaining their struggles to pay medical bills, Mickelson volunteered to pay tuition for Holli Dobler, Conrad Dobler's daughter, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.Frustrated with his driving accuracy, Mickelson made the decision in April 2007 to leave longtime swing coach, Rick Smith. He then began working with Butch Harmon, a former coach of Tiger Woods and Greg Norman. On May 13, Mickelson came from a stroke back on the final round to shoot a three-under 69 to win The Players Championship with an 11-under-par 277.
In the U.S. Open at Oakmont in June, Mickelson missed the cut for the first time in 31 majors after shooting 11 over par for 36 holes. He had been hampered by a wrist injury that was incurred while practicing in the thick rough at Oakmont a few weeks before the tournament.
On September 3, 2007, Mickelson won the Deutsche Bank Championship, which is the second FedEx Cup playoff event. On the final day, he was paired with Tiger Woods, who ended up finishing two strokes behind Mickelson in a tie for second. It was the first time that Mickelson was able to beat Woods while the two stars were paired together on the final day of a tournament. The next day Mickelson announced that he would not be competing in the third FedEx Cup playoff event. The day before his withdrawal, Mickelson said during a television interview that PGA Tour Commissioner, Tim Finchem, had not responded to advice he had given him on undisclosed issues.
In 2008, Mickelson won the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial with a −14, one shot ahead of Tim Clark and Rod Pampling. Mickelson shot a first-round 65 to start off the tournament at −5. He ended the day tied with Brett Wetterich, two shots behind leader, Johnson Wagner. Mickelson shot a second-round 68, and the third round 65, overall, being −12 for the first three rounds. On the final hole, after an absolutely horrendous tee shot, he was in thick rough with trees in his way. Many players would have punched out and taken their chances at making par from the fairway with a good wedge shot. Instead, Mickelson pulled out a high-lofted wedge and hit his approach shot over a tree, landing on the green where he one-putted for the win.
In a Men's Vogue article, Mickelson recounted his effort to lose with the help of trainer Sean Cochran. "Once the younger players started to come on tour, he realized that he had to start working out to maintain longevity in his career," Cochran said. Mickelson's regimen consisted of increasing flexibility and power, eating five smaller meals a day, aerobic training, and carrying his own golf bag.
Mickelson was inducted into the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.