Fast and Furiously, It's Phil

Associated Press
Now that he has won the Claret Jug, Phil Mickelson has won three of golf’s four major championships—the exception being the U.S. Open, where he has finished in second place six times.

Everybody knows Phil Mickelson as golf’s shruggy-shouldered Maestro of Anxiety, one shoe forever stuck in peril, much of it self-inflicted, and over his long career, that has accounted for a lot of the public’s affection: the precarious, why-the-hell-not-ness of Mickelson’s game, the audacity of playing dangerously in a sport that often rewards restraint. This approach, not without its critics or disasters, has won Mickelson tournaments and cost him tournaments, and even though Mickelson’s own coach spoke recently about the veteran golfer playing safer, more conservatively, that old nerve is locked into the DNA. Phil Mickelson didn’t become famous for being careful. He’s famous for running after risk.

And that’s really the secret to everything, isn’t it? To be fearless, to go out and try and grab life, no matter what it is, and not wait for good things to wander into the kitchen through the cat door. Though this philosophy doesn’t always apply, or work, it has served as a delicious narrative to the Saga of Phil. At 43, Mickelson may be older and wiser—and even a little careful—but nobody wants to see him be old and wise and hang on to win a golf tournament. They want to see him fight it like an alligator and take it.

Phil Mickelson won his first Open Championship and fifth major title at Muirfield in Scotland on Sunday. Photo: Associated Press.

That was what happened Sunday in Scotland, where Mickelson jetted away from the field to win his first British Open (or “Open,” whatever) with a thrilling 5-under 66 in the final round. As always, there were Phil moments, maybe not crazy but plenty bold, including a string during a back nine in which Mickelson birdied four of the last six holes—a brilliant finish to what the golfer called “probably the best round” of his career. (On Twitter, the legendary golf writer Dan Jenkins compared it to Jack Nicklaus at Augusta in 1986 and Ben Hogan at Oakland Hills in 1951, among others.) At the 18th, Mickelson curled in a 12-foot birdie putt, and it took all of the oxygen out of Muirfield. The tournament wasn’t technically over; there were still desperate contenders out on the windswept course, hacking away. But it was over. Phil knew it. Everybody knew it. It was done.

(A brief aside: During Mickelson’s championship putt, the whole of Scotland appeared to be respectfully silent, except for one—and it did seem to be one—tiresome joker who howled the four most obnoxious words in golf, “GET IN THE HOLE!”, thereby ensuring that future golf audiences hoping to watch Mickelson’s 2013 Open moment will be subjected to this joker’s “GET IN THE HOLE!” This is an old complaint, which I have groaned about before, but I am willing to push for a world-wide ban on “GET IN THE HOLE,” or any other frat-tacular bellowing during golf tournaments. G.I.T.H. has long been a scourge—it’s irritating exhibitionist behavior that wasn’t clever the first time it was yelled—and offenders deserve an international rebuke, if not a light prison sentence.)
In Mickelson’s wake this weekend was Lee Westwood, who began Sunday as the leader, but watched it unravel over the course of a grim afternoon, carding a 75 and getting to hold on to his tattered “World’s Best W/O a Major” T-shirt. Also sinking was Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, who had a brief flash atop the leaderboard before sinking. Farmers Insurance Open champion Tiger Woods, still hunting for that first post-chaos major, finished tied for sixth.
You cannot be a champion without thinking you can win them all, but when it was over, Mickelson confessed he never really knew he would get this one, across the Atlantic. He said he wasn’t sure if his game was complete enough, if his game was well-suited for the links style of play, and yet here it was, perhaps unexpectedly. Mickelson is nowhere close to a golf fossil—he won the Scottish Open just a week before, and remains firmly among the best players in the world—but he is old enough to know that sometimes the opportunity does not arrive. He now has five majors, three of the four (Masters, PGA and British) but he has also finished second six times in the U.S. Open, which is the kind of coulda-woulda that will make someone drive a car around late at night for no reason.
But that is another big pillar of Mickelson’s appeal: that he’s no stranger to heartbreak, that he knows the other side of this very well. Those risks have not always carried rewards. As his victory settled in at Muirfield, Mickelson described the moment as the “most fulfilling” of his playing life. It’s not a sexy description, but it carries a lot of meaning. You don’t use a word like “fulfilling” when you’re 22, and have never felt doubt in your bones, or the pain of a moment slipping away. Fulfilling means you get it. It also means you want to get it again.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared July 22, 2013, on page B9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Fast and Furiously, It’s Phil.

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