Phil Mickelson’s place among the greats of all time? Is complicated

Editor’s note: In the new book, Golf 100Golf veteran Michael Arkush took over the scary task of ranking the best players of all time from 100 to 1. In the passage below, which has been easily edited by the original version for context and clarity, Arkush explains how and why Phil Mickelson landed at 13th.

The part was issued with permission from Golf 100: an inspired ranking of the greatest players of all time by Michael Arkush, to be published by Doubleday on April 1. Copyright © 2025 by Michael Arkush. You can predict the book here:

Golf 100

$ 30

A quick ranking of the greatest players of all time, the past and the present, becoming an intimate story and perspective only a tall Golf writer like Michael Arkush can gather.

Buy now

***

Six main championships, most of anyone in the 21st century, except Tiger Woods.

Forty -five wins in general, bound for the eight to Walter Hagen.

The only player, male or female, to win a great professional after filling 50.

I can continue and continue in the Achievements of Philip Alfred Mickelson. And yet… Mickelson is another excellent of all time he underestimated. Too tough? I can understand that feeling. Please know that I tried to praise the top 100 players, not to criticize them, but the facts, as John Adams said, are stubborn things.

like Greg NormanHis associate in Livi’s rebellion, Mickelson, did not know when he played him safe. “The difference between (Mickelson and Tiger Woods) is that Phil wants to hit an amazing blow, but all Tiger wants to do is hit really,” said Golf Channel Analyst Brandel Chamblee.

You want examples? I have two words for you:

The first one is Winged. The second is walker.

I have had no problems with the intent of tee in the 72nd hole in US Open 2006 Wingspan This ended up to the rough left. Mickelson, leading to one, went with a driver.

I had a big problem, and I’m away alone, with its second goal.

Instead of playing for a 5, at worst, and a play off with 18 holes with Geoff ogilvyTaking on the good path to setting a wedge, Mickelson’s greatest force, for his third, he tried to cut a 3-Herkuri around a tree. I will not reconstruct every detail of his explosion at 18, but ultimately: Gamble was not paid and another US Open Miss. (Mickelson has come to second place a record six times in the open, two more than Sam Snead.)

“I just can’t believe I did it,” Mickelson said afterwards. “I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I couldn’t put the last hole.”

I know what some of you might think: Lefty, like Ernie Els, had the misfortune to play in the forest era. Yes, only 13 players – I’m counting victories from John Ball and Harold Hilton in British and American amateurs – have won more degrees than Phil Mickelson.

Normally, you would have a point.

Not in this case.

Not when Mickelson, who won everything he had to win as an amateur, had to be the next big thing.

He was not a natural left, but when he waved the club so well, his father, Phil Sr., without any reason to make a difference.

In those first years, the youngest Phil worked in Navajo Canyon (now trails mission), a course in San Diego. His task was to get trash and, later, the balls in the range.

“Rainy days were my favorite time because no one else would be there,” the boy said later.

“So I would wear my rain dresses, grab a bucket of balls and go out under a palm tree. I would have the whole country as private range of running.

He won the Junior World Golf Golf championship in San Diego when he was 10 years old, and in the first 15 by a dozen American tour of the Junior Golf Association. Then three individual NCAA championships as they participated in the state of Arizona, along with the 1990 American amateur at Cherry Hills.

At the beginning of 1991, he captured the North Telecom opened in Tucson, becoming the first amateur to win a PGA Tour event in six years. (No amateur would realize that feat again to Nick dunlap in 2024.)

Mickelson prevailed in Tucson in a way we would get used to, a rolling journey to the end.

In no. 14 he made a trio involving two unbearable to move from a one -shot advantage to a two -stroke deficit. However, he withdrew together to the birds two of the last three holes, preserving an 8-foot in 18 for victory.

“I never thought I would see someone turn from something like that,” said Corey Paque, who was paired with him.

Mickelson, who joined the tournament in 1992, gathered his first victory as a professional at Torrey Pines a year later and until the summer of 1996 had eight in total. In August ’96, he captured the World Golf Series in Firestone.

I covered the event for Golf. I couldn’t be more excited, working in history up to 2 or 3 in the morning.

Only Mickelson wasn’t on the cover that week. Tiger Woods was.

Woods, Turning Pro, agreed on a $ 60 million agreement with Nike and Tixist and had just won a third direct record of USA amateur.

It would not be the last time Woods staged Mickelson.

However, to blame Woods, for Mickelson Under -aachieving would not be right.

In 10 degrees, starting with the 1997 US Open in Congress, while Woods retells his swing and went without a win, Mickelson posted only three 10 best.

His best chance came to Open 1999 at Pinhurst No. 2. Although Payne Stewart won the victory with his herd playing in the stretch, the tour was there to get – if only Mickelson would not lose macabre puts in 16 (8 feet) and 17 (6 meters).

Not until the masters of 2004, when he was 33, Mickelson split, gathering, you can remember, from a three -stroke deficit on nine back to steal the green jacket from the Els.

A young left?

Not really.

Two months later, in Open in Shinnecock, Mickelson, tied to the lead, with three hits the PAR-3 71 hole for a double-by-4 meters noise! He endured a bad break when a small rock behind his ball in the bunker kept him not to spin, but as Fred Fun later said, his game partner, “I should never have been in the bunker in the first place.”

On the other hand, when the disadvantages were paid – and even (especially) when they did not – there was no more exciting man to see than Mickelson and no one has been so exciting since then.

He was a trapeze artist. Without a mesh.

Take the goal from the pine straw to no. 13 in the last round of the 2010 masters. His ball approximately 200 yards from The Green, Mickelson, leading by one, could have been punched on the street to place a wedge for his third.

But he does not. Of course he did not.

It came out 6-Iz, the Rae’s Creek branch to be cursed. She was paid, leading to his third green jacket.

Maybe we can’t have both ways.

Perhaps the gambling from man would have removed the soul.

A good thing he chose two diplomas late in his career that would forever change how he should be judged.

The first was British Open 2013 in Muirfield.

Following the leader, Lee Westwood, from five to 54 holes, Mickelson Zogu 13, 14, 17 and 18 for a five-nine 66 to dominate three.

The second was the PGA 2021 championship in the ocean course on the island of Kiawah.

No one saw him coming.

“This is just a tremendous feeling because I just believed it was possible, but everyone said it wasn’t,” said Mickelson, 50, who had not recorded a top 10 in a major from British Open in 2016.

While the two victories do not make up what they left, there is a big difference between winning four diplomas and sixth victory.

If only Phil had not beenPhil.

“He would have won much more,” Jack Nicklaus said in 2021. “Immediately after he won this year I threw a note.

“Golly, he devotes himself so many tournaments over the years with double and triple and fourfold.”

I cannot close this chapter without addressing the fall of Mickelson by Grace, which began when he joined Liv in 2022. It was not just that he abandoned the tour that made him rich and famous. Many boys did it. It was how strongly he defended the action, even after referring to the Saudis as “the scary mother f – ers”.

Is it a temporary decline, or has he damaged his inheritance forever? Too early to show. Forever is a long time.

Mickelson, a big gambling even on the course, built a lot of good will with the public – no one in his era signed more autographs – and that can still save him in the end.

Victory in Kiawah would be a hell of a way to go out.

On the contrary, his career pivot has been difficult for many observers to pass.

“I don’t know if there has ever been a more disappointing figure in the Golf game than Phil Mickelson,” said the 21 -time PGA Tour Lanny Wadkins winner.

I prefer to think of Mickelson before Liv, my favorite moment that happens in the last hole in Torrey Pines in January 2011. His 72 -yard ball from PIN, he had to withdraw to tie Bubba Watson. He climbed to the green, opened the correct yard and had his long cadet, Jim “Bones” Mackay, tend to the flag.

He didn’t do it – the ball ended a few meters away – but that didn’t matter.

He thought he could do it, and so on.