Philip Alfred Mickelson (born June 16 , 1970 ) is an American professional golfer. He has won three major championships and a total of 37 events on the PGA Tour. He has reached a career high world ranking of 2nd in multiple years. He is nicknamed "Lefty" for his left-handed swing, even though he is otherwise right-handed.
Career summary
Early years through college
Mickelson was born in San Diego, California and raised there and in Arizona. Although right-handed otherwise, he swings with his left hand, as he learned by watching his right-handed father swing and mirroring it. He graduated from the University of San Diego High School in 1988, then attended Arizona State on a golf scholarship, where he graduated in 1992. During his time at Arizona State, he became the face of amateur golf in the United States, capturing three NCAA individual championships and three Haskins Awards (1990, 1991, 1992) as the outstanding collegiate golfer. He was the second collegiate golfer to earn first-team All-American honors all four years. In addition, in 1990, he became the first left-hander to win the U.S. Amateur title. Perhaps his greatest achievement, though, came in 1991 when he won his first PGA Tour tournament, the Northern Telecom Open. He did so as an amateur, becoming only the fourth in PGA history to accomplish this feat and the first since Scott Verplank, who won the 1985 Western Open in Chicago.
PGA Tour pro
Mickelson continued to win many PGA Tour tournaments, 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 also won the Buick Invitational in 2000, defeating Tiger Woods and ending his streak of consecutive tournament victories at six. After his 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." Mickelson also shot a round of 59 at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf at Poipu Bay Golf Course on November 24, 2004. Mickelson was known for his powerful full swing but even more so for his sweet short game, most of all his daring "Phil flop" shot in which a big swing with a high-lofted wedge against a tight lie flies a ball high into the air for a short distance.
Despite these accomplishments, for many years Mickelson was often described as the "best golfer never to win a major" .. Mickelson often played well in majors: in the five-year span between 1999 and 2003 he had six second-place or third-place finishes. Mickelson holds the record for the most second-place finishes in U.S. Open history with 5.
According to a Sports Illustrated feature entitled "The Fortunate 50", Mickelson is the second-highest paid athlete in the world, behind Tiger Woods. In 2007, Mickelson earned $62 million, $53 million of it from endorsements. The same article estimated that he earned $51 million in 2006. In January 1994 Mickelson made a short cameo appearance in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in the episode named "Witness".
Since joining the PGA Tour, Mickelson's caddy has been Jim "Bones" Mackay. Mickelson has a life exemption on the PGA Tour for being a tour member for over 15 years and having 20 plus tour victories.
Three majors
His first major championship win came at the 2004 Masters, where he won with a 18-foot final hole birdie putt, defeating Ernie Els in a Sunday back-nine duel in which the stars traded birdies and eagles back and forth. In addition to getting the "majors monkey" off his back, this made him only the third golfer with a left-handed swing to win a major, the others being New Zealander Sir Bob Charles who won the British Open in 1963 and Canadian Mike Weir who won The Masters in 2003. (Like Mickelson, Weir is a right-hander who plays left-handed.)
Just prior to the 2004 Ryder Cup, Mickelson was dropped from his long standing contract with Titleist/Acushnet Golf when he took heat for a voicemail message he left 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 memo 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, his equipment sponsor to this day. 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 crucial Ryder Cup matches. He faltered horribly at the 2004 Ryder Cup going 1-3-0, but refused to blame the sudden change in equipment or his practice methods for his performance.
The following year, in a Monday final round, Mickelson captured his second career major championship with his victory at the 2005 PGA Championship at Baltusrol. On the 18th hole, Mickelson hit one of his trademark soft pitches from deep greenside rough to within a foot and a half of the cup, and then 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 championship the following spring by winning the 2006 Masters. Mickelson won his second Green Jacket after shooting a 3 under par final round, winning by 2 strokes over his nearest rival Tim Clark. This win propelled him to 2nd place in the Official World Golf Rankings (his career best), behind Tiger Woods and ahead of Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen.
Disaster at Winged Foot
At the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Mickelson finished second to Geoff Ogilvy after one of the most memorable final hole collapses in the history of major championship golf. Scottish golfer Colin Montgomerie also had a similar collapse on the 18th, handing victory to Ogilvy, who had a two-stroke lead in the middle of the round, only to fade away and needed to chip in at 17 and hole a 6-footer at 18 to finish at 5 over par. Mickelson, then leading by a stroke with one hole to play, chose to hit driver on the final (72nd) hole of the tournament, and hit it well left of the fairway. This decision was widely criticized since he had only hit two of thirteen fairways previously in the round. 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 aggressively 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, with the following shot plugging into the greenside bunker. He was unable to get up and down from there, resulting in double bogey and costing him any chance of winning the championship outright or getting into a playoff (a bogey would have gotten him a playoff with Ogilvy), and also ending his bid to join Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods as the only players to win three consecutive professional majors (he had two heading into Winged Foot).
Reflecting on his performance afterwards Mickelson admitted: "I still am in shock that I did that. I just can't believe I did that. I'm such an idiot."
2006 to present
During the third round of the 2006 Ford Championship at Doral, Mickelson gave $200 to a spectator after his wayward tee shot at the par-5 10th broke the man's watch.
Mickelson has also 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 Ohio.
Frustrated with his driving accuracy, Mickelson made the decision in April 2007 to leave longtime swing coach Rick Smith. He currently works with Butch Harmon, a former coach of Tiger Woods. On May 13, 2007, 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. This Mother's Day win was his first without his wife and children present.
In the 2007 U.S. Open at Oakmont, after shooting 11 over par after 2 rounds, Mickelson missed the cut (by a stroke) for the first time in 31 majors, since the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie. 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 2 strokes behind Mickelson in a tie for second. It was the first time Mickelson was able to best Woods while 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.
Mickelson has spent over 550 weeks in the top-10 of the Official World Golf Rankings, the most by anyone not ranked number one.
In a recent Men's Vogue article, Mickelson recounted his effort to
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