Mickelson caps 5th win at Pebble Beach
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — With plenty of sunlight and no drama, Phil Mickelson finished off a 7-under 65 to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Monday and match the tournament record with his fifth victory.
Mickelson had a threeshot lead over Paul Casey with two holes to play when it was too dark to finish Sunday night — no matter how hard Mickelson lobbied to keep going — because of delays from rain and a hail storm.
Casey’s only hope was for Mickelson to make a mistake on the closing holes, and there was little chance of that.
Mickelson was at his best on a course he loves. He drilled a 7-iron into 8 feet on the par-3 17th and made par, and then played conservatively up the par-5 18th and finished with a 6-foot birdie for a three-shot victory.
He matched the low score of the final round while playing in the last group, turning a threeshot deficit into a three-shot victory. Mickelson never came close to making bogey and won for the 44th time on the PGA Tour. He finished at 19-under 268 and joined Tiger Woods as the only players to surpass $90 million in earnings.
Mickelson tied Mark O’Meara’s record with his fifth victory in the AT&T Pebble Beach, the first one also a Monday finish in 1998 because of bad weather, with one big difference — that Monday finish was more than six months later in August.
Scott Stallings finished Sunday night with a 66 to finish alone in third.
Mickelson won on American soil for the first time since the Phoenix Open in 2013. He won that summer’s British Open at Muirfield and last year’s Mexico Championship.
He will return to Pebble Beach in June for the U.S. Open, where he made his pro debut in 1992. The U.S. Open remains the final piece missing for him to complete the career Grand Slam, though Lefty was quick to caution that this week had no bearing on this summer.