Mickelson better than nifty at 50
Betting on Phil Mickelson to win this golf tournament was like betting on slide rules to come back, or maybe box cameras.
Those who wanted could get Mickelson at 200-to-1 at the PGA Championship. He was ranked 115th in the world, right behind Kalle Samooja, Tom Hoge and Richy Werenski.
In the past 28 months, he has missed 21 cuts in 48 events and hasn’t won since Pebble Beach in 2018.
His peer group was PGA Tour Champions, the nifty-at-50 set which pays attention to those Joe Namath reverse-mortgage TV ads. Mickelson won his first two senior events this year.
But his slippage rendered him ineligible for the U.S. Open, his own white whale, the only major he needs for a full collection. Next month it comes to
Torrey Pines, his boyhood course.
Obligingly, the Open gave him a special exemption. Someone else can use it now. On Sunday Mickelson struck a blow, or 73 of them, for genes, resilience and boundless belief. He won the PGA on The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C., a brutal, virtually treeless wind
farm that put cartoon stars over the heads of everyone else.
He won by two strokes in the company of Brooks Koepka, the 4-time major winner who personifies the brooding power of the modern pro. Koepka crumbled in Mickelson’s presence and, on the 16th, watched a man born in President Nixon’s first term bash a deadcenter drive 366 yards.
Mickelson became the oldest to win a major, surpassing 48-year-old Julius Boros, the winner of the 1968 PGA at San Antonio’s Pecan Valley, a course that no longer exists. He won his first major at 33, Now he has six, which ties him with Lee Trevino and Nick Faldo. Only 11 have won more.
This will be compared to Tiger Woods’ 2019 Masters win, except Woods was playing well at the time and was only 43. It will also be compared to Jack Nicklaus coming out of a newsreel to win the 1986 Masters, but Nicklaus was 46.
It is a possible bookend to Mickelson’s victory in the 1991 Northern Telcom Open in Tucson when
he was an amateur. That wasn’t supposed to happen either. Where the conventional roads end, Phil’s lanes begin.
“I’ve believed, without success, that I could still play at this level,” Mickelson said. “It’s very possible that this is the last tournament I’ll ever win. It’s also possible that I may have had a little breakthrough, I don’t know. There is no reason why I can’t do this. It just takes a little bit more work.”
Most mid-40s golfers begin gliding toward the milk and honey of senior golf. Mickelson, who loved the Waffle House so much that he considered buying the whole chain, chose his late 40s to quit having
fries with that. He said it’s a tough thing, but “now I wake up and I feel good. I don’t have any inflammation in my body. It’s a sacrifice worth having.”
He hired instructor Andrew Getson to help him find clubhead speed. His brother Tim became his caddie. After Phil staggered through the early holes and was only saved by Koepka’s similar meanderings, Tim took his brother aside,
“You can’t win this thing without committed swings,” Tim said. Mickelson cranked out a big drive and birdied No. 7.
He also holed out from the sand for a birdie on No. 5. On the back nine he left some bread crumbs but got no takers. Ahead of him,
Louis Oosthuizen foiled his own bid with a water ball on the 13th. Beside him Koepka shot 74 and was 3-over-par on the par 5s.
On the longest course in major championship history and in the most winddominated event since the America’s Cup, everyone struggled to find greens. That, of course, was catnip for Mickelson, and his upand-down mastery. His 22 birdies led the field.
The golf was relatively problem-free, compared to the outrageously difficult walk to the 18th green. Disorderly spectators were allowed to swarm Mickelson and Koepka. The security officers were either defunded or just disinterested.
“I got dinged a couple of times on my bad knee,” Koepka said. “It felt like somebody was trying to do it. Ricky (caddie Ricky Elliott) got hit in the face and had to stop, and I ran into the bag. I’ll be putting my knee on ice, but no one gave a (deleted).”
“It was a little unnerving,” Mickelson conceded, “but it was an incredible experience. I hope it inspires people. There’s no reason golf can’t be a game for a lifetime.”
His game has filled most of ours.