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PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA | Leave it to Phil Mickelson to put his unique spin on the old adage about not knowing what you have until it’s gone.
Mickelson isn’t planning on going anywhere, certainly not to the PGA Tour Champions after he turns 50 in mid-June nor the U.S. Open at Winged Foot if he has to rely on a special exemption, but until the past two weeks Mickelson had played like a man whose glory days had expired.
There was a creeping emptiness, brought on by the growing suspicion that Mickelson had lost his fastball along with the weight he dropped. He had gone almost a year without a top-10 finish and he was involuntarily easing toward competitive irrelevance.
That would not be just Mickelson’s loss. It would be a loss for all of us who have spent the better part of 30 years caught in his spell.
All anyone needed to see from the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on Sunday was the up-and-down par save Mickelson made from behind the 13th green, a spot that deadbolts bogeys to scorecards. That’s where Mickelson, back where no one goes, found a window between the limbs of a cypress and a television tower and walked away with a par that was as brilliant as it was unlikely.
That’s Phil, one day after a wedge display that even impressed him, and he’s tough to impress. Imagine not having that to watch anymore. It would be like a hot dog without mustard.
The light has returned. Even before the Pebble Beach event began, Mickelson was his usual feisty, playful self, offering opinions and perspectives that don’t always fit convention.
Mickelson’s style, his personality and his panache are as big as his résumé. Mickelson is almost a mindset, a golfer who plays the game on his terms, damn the torpedoes.
Along with his eye contact and a couple of million thumbs-up gestures, Mickelson draws fans to him like summer weekends draw office workers to the beach.
That’s why the past two weeks – a tie for third place in the Saudi International and a third at sun-splashed, windswept Pebble Beach – did more than reinvigorate Mickelson. They reminded us there is no one like him in the game, and maybe there’s never been anyone like him.
Mickelson didn’t win Sunday at Pebble Beach, where he was unable to chase down Nick Taylor, who won in an upset the magnitude of Ted Potter Jr.’s unlikely victory ahead of world No. 1 Dustin Johnson here two years ago. Until Sunday, Taylor – ranked 229th in the world going in – had never played with Mickelson, who made his professional debut here in 1992 when Taylor was 4 years old.
That’s the way golf is sometimes. A year ago here, Mickelson withstood the cold, a hailstorm and Monday finish to win his 44th career PGA Tour trophy and it felt at the time as if all things were still possible.
It felt that way again Sunday morning when the crowd politely recognized Taylor when he was introduced on the first tee and then bellowed for Mickelson a moment after.
Carrying his steel tumbler filled with the coffee concoction he swears by, Mickelson was tied for the lead going to the third hole but that was as good as it would get.
Taylor, who plays methodically, changed the plotline when he went birdie-birdie-eagle starting at the fourth, holing a greenside bunker shot at the cliff-hugging par-5 sixth, leaving Mickelson nothing to do but smile at the twist.
A double bogey in the near-gale at the eighth staggered Mickelson, and a bogey at the ninth did more damage. But he kept slashing as the wind increased and Taylor looked ready to unravel. It was Mickelson, though, who let the tournament slip away with three back-nine bogeys that had him scrambling like a short-order cook on a busy night.
“It's disappointing certainly to have not won, but I got outplayed. I mean, Nick played better than I did,” said Mickelson, who joined Sam Snead (34) and Raymond Floyd (32) as the only players to post top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour in at least 30 consecutive years. “He holed a couple of great shots. That eagle on (No.) 6, the putts he made on (Nos.) 4, 5 and 7, and he just really played some great golf.
“I had a couple of times where I hit really good shots in bad spots, and I had a couple times where I just then didn't quite trust it and made some bad swings. I fought hard. But I loved having a chance to be in it again.”
This was more like the old Mickelson, not the guy who left Torrey Pines a little more than two weeks ago wondering where his next tee shot would land. Having missed his first two cuts in 2020, Mickelson spent 45 minutes on the Torrey Pines range on Friday night with his swing coach, Andrew Getson, searching for a swing that would get his tee shots in play.
When Mickelson finished that impromptu session, he didn’t look like a man excited to be flying halfway around the world. He looked discouraged.
He dismissed suggestions – despite statistical data to the contrary – that advances in technology are the reason players hit the ball so much farther than when he arrived on tour in 1992, saying it’s more about athleticism.
For what it’s worth, Mickelson averaged 269.2 yards off the tee in his first full season on tour (1993) and he averaged 306.3 yards last year. Some of that 37.1-yard increase came from the exercise room but not the bulk of it.
He seemed almost insulted at the idea that he would accept a special exemption into the U.S. Open at Winged Foot in June should he not qualify. Mickelson needs to rank among the top 60 in the world later this spring to avoid a 36-hole Monday qualifier for a spot in the one major he hasn’t won.
“If I get in, I deserve to be there. If I don't, I don't. I don't want a sympathy spot,” Mickelson said.
That’s Phil being Phil and good for him.
The day will come when Mickelson walks into the sunset but not yet.
Sundown can wait.
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