Luckless Lefty’s such a bewitching bridesmaid
The unluckiest player of a generation? The temptation is to go for one of the men of stature with victories all around the world who fall agonisingly short in the four majors. In other words, from recent times take your pick from Colin Montgomerie, Lee Westwood or Sergio Garcia.
But, as ridiculous as it sounds, I’m beginning to think there’s one man who tops them all, and never mind that he has five majors to his credit and annual earnings of £50million.
Step forward bewitching bridesmaid Phil Mickelson, who’s probably still wondering — like the rest of us — how a man can shoot a 72-hole total of 267 around a track as formidable as Royal Troon and still not win the Open.
It’s almost par for the course when it comes to Mickelson and the majors.
This week the US PGA Championship returns to Baltusrol, a place where Phil the Thrill did win in 2005, following his Masters triumph the previous year. Runner-up Thomas Bjorn eloquently summed up the prevailing mood: ‘It’s no disgrace finishing second to Phil. he’s got two majors now but he could end up a 10-time major champion.’
Yet the popular lefty returns to New Jersey at the age of 46 with half that number to his credit and three times as many hard-luck stories.
We think Westwood — nine topthrees and no majors — is hard done by yet Mickelson has twice as many second and third-place finishes. With 23 top-threes in all, he’s one behind Tiger Woods — who has 14 majors.
Yes, Mickelson has blown quite a few in a manner Tiger never did. But, following the stunning events at Troon, he also has the third and jointfourth lowest all-time 72-hole scores in majors — and, quite incredibly, neither was good enough to win, as he lost out to the men who sit first and second (henrik Stenson at this year’s Open and David Toms at the 2001 US PGA). You’d have thought somewhere along the way, when you put yourself in contention that often, that a fellow competitor would have stumbled and lent a helping hand, — as happened a few times to Sir Nick Faldo, occasionally to Woods, and to Danny Willett at this year’s Masters.
But no, all five of Mickelson’s majors were won playing the type of glorious, adventurous golf for which he deserves to be remembered. No one handed him anything.
Most heartbreaking of all are six runner-up finishes at the US Open, so keeping him out of the elite club of five career grand slam winners.
Then there was that putt on the opening day at Troon when he had the chance to become the first man to shoot 62 in a major. But the putt that looked in all the way somehow made its way behind the hole.
Over the last 20 years we’ve been fortunate enough to watch not only one of the top two players of all time in Tiger but another who ought to be ranked not far behind in Phil.
Sadly, that will not be the latter’s fate in the history books — and for that we can blame plain bad luck.