THIRD TIME LUCKY?
He was an unlikely US PGA Champion at Kiawah Island, so Phil Mickelson can’t be dismissed as a possible Open Champion for a second time when the game’s oldest major (and oldest major winner) returns to Royal St. George’s this month.
Phil Mickelson was never meant to be an Open Champion. He learned the game on soft American golf courses with juicy rough and very few windy days to contend with. His talent was obvious from an early age and he was always destined to turn professional become a PGA Tour player.
He would do better than that, becoming one of the greats of the modern era winning 55 titles and six major championships, including the recent PGA Championship at aged 50.
But he was never meant to be an Open Champion.
His ball flight was too high, he could be a little wild from the tee and some even suggested his outrageously good short game was too one-dimensional for links golf.
The world’s best-ever left-handed golfer will play his 27th Open Championship, and his third at Royal St. George’s, this month with an Open record that has only gotten better with age. He, of course, broke through to win the Claret Jug in 2013 and has two runner-up finishes, including the last time the championship was hosted on England’s south-east coast.
Could he sip from the Claret Jug again? If he did, he would take his major championship haul to seven and rank him alongside some of the greats – Harry Vardon, Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Gene Sarazen and Bobby Jones.
And he can thank another of the game’s most legendary players for planting the seed of inspiration that would drive him to develop his game to suit links golf and, ultimately, win The Open Championship.
Mickelson started to appreciate what The
Open meant to the game of golf when, as a 14-year-old watching on TV, he saw Seve Ballesteros’ air-punching celebration after holing his victorious birdie putt in the 1984 Open at St Andrews.
“After watching Seve get really excited I started having dreams of winning The Open Championship,” Mickelson recounted during a recent interview.
“Seve was always exciting to watch. He always had that ‘go-for-broke’ attitude and I loved that recovery shots … nobody had more of them and nobody pulled them o more than Seve. He was able to do things with the golf ball from all areas that were just exceptional.
“He took risks … winning will come the harder you work and you can’t win without taking risks. You have to hit the shots to win … you can’t rely on other players to miss them.”
When Mickelson arrives at Royal St. George’s this month, it will mark 30 years
SEVE WAS ABLE TO TAKE THE SPIN OFF THE GOLF BALL, GET IT ON THE GROUND AND GET IT RUNNING AND IT TOOK ME A WHILE TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO DO THAT.
– PHIL MICKELSON.
since he made his Open Championship debut at Royal Birkdale. To put that in perspective, that was the year Ian Baker-Finch hoisted the Claret Jug.
Back then, Mickelson was a fresh-faced 21-year-old amateur who earlier in the year had beaten all the pros to win his first PGA Tour event.
“I had a great first Open Championship experience in ‘91,” he recalls. “I played not a great first round but came back with a 67 to make the cut (he was one of only two amateurs to make the cut and he finished four strokes behind silver-medallist England’s Jim Payne).
“I remember hitting balls on the range and the wind was straight in on the range and I was trying to keep the ball down and hitting these low shots but the ball was spinning too much and floating in the air, even though they were only 12 feet o the ground.
“And then watching Seve do it. Seve was able to take the spin o the golf ball, get it on the ground and get it running and it took me a while to understand how to do that. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would to learn how to do that.”
Mickelson admits his record in the Open for the next two decades was “nothing to be proud of ” but it only served to make him work harder to find success in the oldest of the majors.
“Every time the Open would come around I would see it as a great opportunity to work on, improve and hopefully refine my links golf skills,” he said.
“In 2004 at Royal Troon my preparation really became more detailed and it was the first time I felt I could actually win the Championship. I had learned how to hit the golf ball without spin by just shortening the swing, not changing ball position. I could just make the same golf swing and hit the ball lower without spin.”
It was, of course, in 2004 when Mickelson won his first major championship at the Masters before finishing runner-up at the US Open. At Troon, he made great strides in his links golf education and finished third, a shot out of the play-o with Ernie Els and eventual winner Todd Hamilton.
With the Open returning to Royal St. George’s, Mickelson has another chance to add to his six major championships on a course which he says provided a “turning point” in his career.
The lessons learned over 20 years of trying at The Open started to come to the fore in the final round of 2011, as he impressed with low, bullet-like approaches and a greater appreciation of the e ect wind has on putting in links golf.
“That front nine on Sunday was almost magical,” he said. “I hit every shot about as
perfect as I could in horrific weather and made the putts. I propelled myself up the leaderboard to the point where I thought I was going to win.
“I was having a blast because I was hitting great shots and the weather was so brutal and everyone in contention was having to deal with it. All the players that had a shot to win were playing in these difficult conditions and I was playing some of my best golf. It was about as much fun as I’ve had.”
The then 41-year-old was five under through the first seven holes and moved to within a shot of the lead with another birdie at the 10th.
“I loved having that momentum … but every time you get it going you just don’t know if it’s going to leave you,” he said.
A missed par putt from three feet at the par-3 11th brought Mickelson back to earth. All the momentum was gone and it threw his concentration for the rest of the round. The bogey at 11 was the first of four back nine bogies that saw him sign for a two under 68 and a share of second place alongside Dustin Johnson, three shots adrift of winner Darren Clarke at five under.
Second … again. But it did little to dampen Mickelson’s confidence that he had the game that could win the game’s oldest major championship.
“I might have felt a little more discouraged if I felt that was my last great opportunity to win the Open and I didn’t feel that way,” he said. “In fact, I think that the Open Championship … because it’s much more of a precision game, and it’s impossible to overpower a links course because the penalty is too great, I feel that as you get older into your career, you have more and more chances.”
There were plenty of doubters though. Many believed Mickelson’s game was still not well-suited to links golf, his career record at The Open was not great and he was competing against a new generation of superstars. His window of opportunity at The Open, they surmised, had closed.
“I could see the opportunity in ’04, the close call in 2011 ... I could see my play in The Open was getting better and better and knew that as I got older this championship was going to continue to provide opportunities to win,” he said.
Redemption came in 2013.
Coming off a win the week before at the Scottish Open, the then 43-year-old Mickelson was brimming with confidence. The baked fairways and greens at Muirfield played into Mickelson’s hands, who controlled his ball beautifully over the closing two rounds. He resorted to hitting 4- and 5-irons off the tee, avoided all the sand and long rough.
He began the final round in a tie for ninth, five strokes behind 54-leader Lee Westwood. With six holes to play, he was within two of the lead held by reigning Masters Champion Adam Scott. There would be no repeat of 2011 as Mickelson birdied four of the last six holes to burst from the pack and win the Open by three.
“It’s the best feeling … walking up with the grandstands lined on both sides, knowing you
have The Open Championship won, was such a great feeling,” Mickelson said. “Certainly, the grandstands and the people make that a special walk, if not the best walk in golf.” Patience had paid o.
“The greatest challenge I have faced in my career was developing the skills to win at links golf and to win The Open,” Mickelson admitted.
“I had to learn and be patient in developing those skills and it took a couple of decades but I finally did it.”
He showed o all those skills again just three years later when he went head-to-head with Henrik Stenson at Royal Troon, shooting 65 in the final round that was, unfortunately for him, no match for the Swede’s 63.
Mickelson says he regrets not having won The Open more, but feels he’s still a chance to claim at least one more Claret Jug.
“I feel like this championship is going to continue to provide opportunities to win,” he says, just five years removed from his duel with Stenson.
This year’s championship will be Mickelson’s third Open at Royal St. George’s. There was the runner-up finish a decade ago and a T59 behind Ben Curtis in 2003. Mickelson, who turned 51 on June 16, will know the course, with all its subtleties and nuances, better than the rest of the field.
“To win any tournament, especially a major championship, you need to play well, obviously, and you also need to have a bit of luck on your side,” Mickelson says. “Just a little thing here or there might make the dierence, whatever that may be.
“At Royal St. George’s in 2003 the rough was so thick that you didn’t have a shot if you missed the fairway. You had to wedge back into the fairway, so everybody was hitting a shot from the fairway essentially, even though only a third of the field managed to hit that fairway. Because of that, the subtleties and the nuances and what really makes this course strategic and great, they didn’t come through the way they did in 2011.
“And the angles at which you have to approach greens, landing them 40, 50 yards short of the green, the way the bunkers are staggered, working around left of one bunker, right of the other, that started to come through on almost every hole, and really made me to start to appreciate the golf course more.”
As we witnessed at Kiawah Island, the wisdom of age is on Mickelson’s side. But can he continue to believe he can win on golf ’s
TO WIN ANY TOURNAMENT, ESPECIALLY A MAJOR CHAMPIONSHIP, YOU NEED TO PLAY WELL, OBVIOUSLY, AND YOU ALSO NEED TO HAVE A BIT OF LUCK ON YOUR SIDE.
– PHIL MICKELSON.
biggest stages?
“One of two things are going to happen: Either that’s (the PGA) going to be my last win and I’m going to have one of the most cherished victories of my career to look back on and cherish for a long time, or I also may have kind of found a little something that helps me stay a little bit more present and helps me focus throughout round a little bit longer and maybe I can execute and play golf at the highest level for a nice extended period of time now,” Mickelson said.
“I don’t know which one it’s going to be, but either way, they are both positive.”
149TH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP COVERAGE
The 149th Open Championship will be played at Royal St. George’s from July 15 to 18. Golf Australia magazine will be covering the event with previews, features and images from the championship. All you need to know will be posted on our website, www.golfaustralia.com.au