What’s eating Phil Mickelson?
Once a beloved and brilliant golfer everywhere he went, Phil ‘Lefty’ Mickelson now appears a forlorn figure full of regret. After the incredible scenes in 2021 at Kiawah Island Golf Resort’s Ocean Course when Lefty hit a -6 under par to become the oldest player to win a major with the PGA Championship, no one could have predicted his star would fall so far.
The American with three Masters titles, two PGA Championships and one Open Championship has won all the majors except the U.S. Open after finishing runner-up an astounding record six times. Many felt this was the year for him to complete the career grand slam and join the legends Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, and Gene Sarazen. It hasn’t played out that way and many are scratching their heads wondering where it all went wrong.
— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) June 6, 2022
Old dogs
At the time of writing, The 150th Open Championship is about to kick off at the home of golf, the historic Old Course at St. Andrews, and Phil Mickelson is in contention. Yet, Open Championship betting has him at a staggering +30000 to emerge victorious and most of the focus is on a certain Tiger Woods turning back the clock for one last hurrah. Woods is also an outsider at +5000 and the smart money appears to be on a resurgent Rory McIlroy, U.S. Open winner Matthew Fitzpatrick or Scottish Open winner Xander Schauffele.
Woods and Mickelson are on the wrong sides of 40 and it’s a myth that golfers age slower than all other athletes, although many still believe this is true and point to Phil’s 2021 PGA Championship win as proof of this. Yet, the records show that golfers are not still at their peak in their late 40s and that the 2021 win was remarkable and noteworthy because he was 50 years old. People love golf because it is a game you can generally play all your life, but that does lead to some strange thinking about older golfers competing at the highest level and we can partly answer the question of what is wrong with Mickelson by simply saying he got older.
Age is a very relevant factor in the decline, even though Phil is a rare golfer who was able to do something extraordinary in an odd year for golf, he used his experience and knowledge to triumph in 2021, but maybe the well is empty now.
“Phil Mickelson” (CC BY 2.0) by Jim Epler
Decisions
While age is certainly a factor, Phil’s bizarre on the PGA Tour back in February indicates some inner turmoil could be a more inhibiting factor that has resulted in the downcast golfer wandering around St. Andrews this weekend. Mickelson is ranked second on the PGA Tour’s all-time money list, making it a somewhat unexpected attack and generally making people unsympathetic to his point of view.
That he should want to join the breakaway and Saudi-backed LIV Golf series and make more money perhaps shouldn’t be surprising, but it has set the cat among the pigeons. After making some choice comments about Saudi Arabia and the PGA, Mickelson disappeared for a while before returning to play some terrible golf in Greg Norman’s LIV Golf series. The fall-out from the supposed defection to LIV Golf will rumble on, but it’s just sad to see Mickelson in this state when he should be on the course having a whale of a time. He was always one of golf’s great characters and to see a few inappropriate comments and a seemingly bad choice in joining LIV Golf bring him down is dispiriting.
We can’t say for certain if this is the end of Lefty, but it’s likely he’ll miss the cut this week and the road back looks complicated and very difficult to navigate.
