Phil Mickelson

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**Phil Mickelson**
Personal Information

Birth:	June 16, 1970, San Diego, California
Height:	6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Nationality:	United States
Residence:	Rancho Santa Fe, California
Career
College:	Arizona State University
Turned Professional:	1992
Current Tour:	PGA Tour (joined 1992)
Professional wins:	36 (PGA Tour 30; others 6)
Majors:	Masters (2004, 2006) PGA Championship (2005)
Awards:	None

Philip Alfred Mickelson (born June 16, 1970) (nicknamed "Lefty" for his left-handed swing, even though he is right-handed), is an American professional golfer. He is one of the leading players of his generation, having won three major championships and a total of 30 events on the PGA Tour. He has reached a career high world ranking of 2nd in multiple years.

1 Career summary
2 Amateur wins (6)
3 PGA Tour wins (30)
4 Other wins (6)
5 Major Championships
- 5.1 Wins (3)
- 5.2 Results timeline
6 PGA Tour career summary
7 Team appearances
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Career summary

Mickelson was born in San Diego, California and raised in Arizona and San Diego. Mickelson swings a golf club left-handed, but writes right-handed. He graduated from the University of San Diego High School in 1988, then attended Arizona State on a golf scholarship, from which he graduated in 1992. During his time at Arizona State, Phil became the face of amateur golf in the United States, capturing three NCAA individual championships and three Haskins Awards (1990, 1991, 1992) as the most outstanding collegiate golfer. 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 the first to achieve such a feat since Scott Verplank at the 1985 Western Open in Chicago.

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 in 2000 and the Greater Hartford Open in 2001 and again in 2002. 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 superlative 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. But victory always eluded him, for reasons that were ascribed to taking too many risky shots, missing too many short putts, or a general lack of what it takes to close out a big tournament. Undaunted, Mickelson continued to refine his game and his course strategy and psychology.

His first major championship win came at the 2004 Masters, where he won with a 20-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 on his performance.[1]

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. He 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.

At the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, Phil finished second to Geoff Ogilvy after one of the most memorable final hole collapses in major championship golf. Leading by a stroke with one hole to play, Phil 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 Mickelson 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. Phil decided to aggresively 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. Phil 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've 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 Phil admitted: "I still am in shock that I did that. I just can't believe I did that. I'm such an idiot". [2]

Demonstrating grace after even the toughest defeats, showing appreciation to legions of his fans and always honoring the traditions and history of the game has made Phil one of the most popular players ever to play on the Tour. During the third round of the 2006 Ford Championship at Doral, Mickelson gave $200 to a spectator after his tee shot went wayward at the par-5 10th, and broke the man's watch. [3]

His popularity among his fellow golfers is lower, however, to the point that he ranked number eight on a 2006 GQ Magazine list of the Ten Most Hated Athletes.[4] In his book A Good Walk Spoiled, noted author John Feinstein compared Mickelson's personality to Eddie Haskell on the classic TV series Leave It to Beaver, in that he may have a kind exterior but in reality he is egotistical and rather mean. However, in his defense Sports Illustrated writer Rick Reilly has pointed out that "the entire family is like that...when I met his sister, (noted golf columnist) Tina Mickelson, she spoke to me like a kindergarten teacher: very polite and measured."

[edit] Amateur wins (6)

1981 Junior World Golf Championships (Boys 9-10)
1989 NCAA Division I Championship
1990 NCAA Division I Championship, U.S. Amateur
1991 Western Amateur
1992 NCAA Division I Championship

[edit] PGA Tour wins (30)

1991 (1) Northern Telecom Open (as an amateur)
1993 (2) Buick Invitational of California, The International
1994 (1) Mercedes Championships
1995 (1) Northern Telecom Open
1996 (4) Nortel Open, Phoenix Open, GTE Byron Nelson Golf Classic, NEC World Series of Golf
1997 (2) Bay Hill Invitational, Sprint International
1998 (2) Mercedes Championships, AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am
2000 (4) Buick Invitational, BellSouth Classic, MasterCard Colonial, The Tour Championship
2001 (2) Buick Invitational, Canon Greater Hartford Open
2002 (2) Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, Canon Greater Hartford Open
2004 (2) Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, The Masters
2005 (4) FBR Open, AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, BellSouth Classic, PGA Championship
2006 (2) BellSouth Classic, The Masters
2007 (1) AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am

Major championships are shown in bold.

[edit] Other wins (6)

1993 Tournoi Perrier Paris (Europe, Challenge Tour not European Tour event)
1997 Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge (with Fred Couples and Tom Lehman)
2000 Wendy's 3-Tour Challenge (with Notah Begay III and Rocco Mediate)
2001 Tylenol Par-3 Shootout at Treetops Resort
2004 TELUS Skins Game, PGA Grand Slam of Golf

[edit] Major Championships

[edit] Wins (3)

Year	Championship	54 Holes	Winning Score	Margin of Victory	Runners Up
2004	The Masters	Tied for lead	-9 (72-69-69-69=279)	1 stroke	Ernie Els
2005	PGA Championship	Tied for lead	-4 (67-65-72-72=276)	1 stroke	Thomas Bjørn, Steve Elkington
2006	The Masters (2)	1 shot lead	-7 (70-72-70-69=281)	2 strokes	Tim Clark

[edit] Results timeline

Tournament	1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
The Masters	DNP	T46 LA	DNP	T34	DNP	T7	3	CUT	T12	T6
U.S. Open	T29 LA	T55 LA	CUT	DNP	T47	T4	T94	T43	T10	2
British Open	DNP	T73	DNP	DNP	CUT	T40	T41	T24	79	CUT
PGA Championship	DNP	DNP	DNP	T6	3	CUT	T8	T29	T34	T57

Tournament	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
The Masters	T7	3	3	3	1	10	1
U.S. Open	T16	T7	2	T55	2	T33	T2
British Open	T11	T30	T66	T59	3	T60	T22
PGA Championship	T9	2	T34	T23	T6	1	T16

LA = Low Amateur
DNP = did not play
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10.

[edit] PGA Tour career summary

Year	Wins (Majors)	Earnings ($)	Rank
1991	1	see note	N/A
1992	0	171,714	90
1993	2	628,735	22
1994	1	748,316	15
1995	1	655,777	28
1996	4	1,697,799	2
1997	2	1,225,390	11
1998	2	1,837,246	6
1999	0	1,722,681	14
2000	4	4,746,457	2
2001	2	4,403,833	2
2002	2	4,311,971	2
2003	0	1,623,137	38
2004	2 (1)	5,784,823	3
2005	4 (1)	5,699,605	3
2006	2 (1)	4,217,005	3
Career*	29 (3)	39,474,558	3

* Complete through end of 2006 season.

Note: Mickelson won as an amateur in 1991 and therefore did not receive any prize money.

Being a very popular golfer as well as a successful one, Mickelson is able to earn far more from endorsements than he does in prize money. In 2004, Forbes estimated his annual income at $20 million.