Major Problems

Phil Mickelson has more wins than any other twentysomething on Tour, but there's one big hole in his record

Mickelson has been a mystery in the majors, last year skying to a career-high 85 in the third round of the British Open. Robert Beck

Also: The Supper Club | Bombs Away!

By John Garrity

The fellow in the corner, warily prodding fajitas with his fork, is making the case against Phil Mickelson. It doesn't mean a hell of a lot, the fellow says, to win 13 Tour events by the age of 28--not if your 13 doesn't include a major championship. You aren't in the same league as David Duval, Ernie Els, Justin Leonard or Tiger Woods if you are 0 for 26 in the tournaments that really matter. There's tournament golf, he continues, and then there's major tournament golf.

Since we aren't in a car, where you can terminate sports babble by poking the seek button, we let the guy go on. Besides, the fellow criticizing Phil Mickelson is none other than Mickelson himself, and it's fascinating the way he parses his career in a conspiratorial whisper, as if one of the pros at the next table might overhear and disagree with his bleak assessment of himself.

Isn't it unfair, we interject, to place so much emphasis on four randomly selected tournaments? No one faults Mark McGwire because none of his 70 home runs came in the World Series.

Lefty refuses to grab the lifeline. "I don't think it's unfair," he says. "The majors take golf to the highest level. The greens are faster and harder than you see anywhere else. The fairways are narrower. The rough is deeper. The majors challenge you in ways that regular Tour events don't."

Mickelson's humble soliloquy, delivered three weeks before this year's Masters, catches us by surprise. There is always some poor sap labeled "best player never to have won a major," and his patter invariably goes like this: I never give it a thought. Yeah, I get asked about it 30 or 40 times a day, but that doesn't bother me. I'd like to win one, but if I don't, it won't take anything away from my career. That's when you notice that the speaker has bent his spoon into a facsimile of the Volkswagen logo.

But here's Mickelson, straightening spoons with his candor. He knows he is breaking with tradition, not to mention his own practice. "In the past I've downplayed the majors," he admits, "but from now on they are the only tournaments that matter. I'm going to put all my emphasis on just those four."

We look for a maniacal gleam in his eyes, but Mickelson's betray nothing but his practiced sincerity. Later his wife, Amy, confirms his change of attitude. "He thinks that by now he should have won a major," she says. "I'm proud of him for not trying to duck it."

We are dealing, of course, with the famous Mickelson confidence. This is the guy who won a Tour event, the 1991 Northern Telecom Open, in Tucson, when he was still a junior at Arizona State; who hit a fearless flop shot off hardpan to turn the tide against the British and Irish at the '91 Walker Cup; who outdazzled Leonard in a playoff at the '96 Phoenix Open in the decade's best head-to-head battle of young stars; who won three out of a possible three points at Oak Hill in his first Ryder Cup. Mickelson's hobbies? Skiing and flying, naturally.

But there is a sense of late that Mickelson needs either a string of Tour wins or a victory in a major to recapture the public's attention, which has swung to Duval and Woods. (A recent headline in the Los Angeles Times: LEFTY IS SUDDENLY BEING LEFT BEHIND.) There is also a growing body of Mickelson skeptics who wonder why a player hailed so often for his silky putting stroke finishes so deep in the putting stats. "He's supposed to be this incredible putter," says a Tour pro who is otherwise impressed with Mickelson's game. "He must be holing a lot of them when we're not looking."

Or not. Last year Mickelson won twice, finished second twice and wound up sixth on the money list with a career-high $1.8 million--but ranked 80th in putting. This season he was 41st through the Bay Hill Invitational, averaging 1.766 putts per green hit in regulation.

Present these criticisms to Mickelson and he nods. He says they're on the mark. That's why he put away his clubs at the end of last August and spent seven weeks thinking about his game, during which time he slipped from second to third on the money list. For guidance he sought out former PGA champ Jack Burke, who mentors Steve Elkington and other pros from his headquarters at Champions Golf Club in Houston. ("The man has been there," says Mickelson, leaving where to the imagination.) For direction he studied his statistics, noting, for instance, that last year he was 37 over par on par-3 holes, which left him 169th on Tour. ("Par-3s can be big momentum killers, and it's clear I wasn't playing them properly," he says.) For hardware he turned to Scotty Cameron, who recently presented Mickelson with the simple blade putter that now rides in his bag. ("I wanted a heel-shafted putter with a blade that was the width of the hole," he says. "I have to have that toe hooking to putt effectively.")

But mostly Mickelson pondered the majors, trying to understand why, for instance, he finished 34th at Sahalee last August, his second-worst finish in a PGA Championship; or why he couldn't generate a closing kick in the U.S. Open at Olympic, where he tied for 10th; or why he shot a horrendous 28-over-par at windswept Royal Birkdale, a debacle that included a third-round 85.

Mickelson's conclusion? He had become, as SI's Jaime Diaz once described Mark O'Meara, the King of the B's -- a golfer whose game was tailored for ordinary Tour events.

Amy is due to have the Mickelsons' first child, a girl, in June. Bob Martin

"I was about attacking the pin and making ridiculous up-and-downs," says Mickelson. "When I missed a green, I could always lob the ball over those silly mounds and bunkers that modern architects build." He could also spin the ball, making it suck back or dance left or right. "On the relatively soft greens we play every week, I could do that," he says. "I made a lot of birdies."

But the majors are different. The greens aren't soft, the rough is not compliant and even a master manipulator of the ball -- Chi Chi Rodriguez in his prime, for example -- might as well be playing with garden tools. "My short game is nullified by really firm greens," says Mickelson. "I can't control the ball. It races by the hole."

It's no good, either, to play the majors with the mind-set of a conqueror. Victory more often goes to the survivalist pro, the fairways-and-greens plodder who already has barrels of water, batteries and cash put away for the Y2K crisis. So here's Mickelson, in contention at the '97 PGA at Winged Foot, attacking a sucker pin on the par-5 5th and taking five strokes to get down from a greenside bunker. "I always wanted to win," he explains. "I didn't want to wait for somebody else to lose." But in a major, as Mickelson now concedes, "those aggressive instincts are detrimental."

If Mickelson is to start winning majors, he thinks he has to stop being...Mickelson. Take those par-3s. He has to stop trying to birdie them. ("My strategy now is to make four 3s," he says.) His driver must get less work, even though he currently ranks an impressive third on the Tour in total driving. He points out that at Bay Hill he used to play the 5th hole, a 365-yard par-4, with a driver and an L-wedge -- missing the fairway half the time. Now he hits a two- or three-iron off the tee and settles for a pitching-wedge or nine-iron approach, avoiding trouble every round. He says, "It's not easy for me to play 25 feet away from the hole with a four-iron. I know I can hit that shot." But cockiness is punished severely at majors.

Mickelson has reason to be optimistic at the moment on two counts. First, to find the patience and humility he needs to win majors, he can simply tap into his outside-the-ropes demeanor. He is perhaps the Tour's most gracious star, signing autographs tirelessly and facing reporters even when he has, say, shot 85 in the British Open. ("Here comes a class act," said a security guard at Bay Hill, watching Mickelson leave the scorer's table.)

With his first child, a girl, expected in June, Mickelson is certain to get a crash course in patience. "People already think it's repulsive how nice he is to me," says Amy, who has been on the road with Phil for the past month. "With this little girl he'll really be whipped. Nobody will want to hang out with us."

Second, the major he is most likely to win -- the Masters -- is being played this week. Unlike the courses at the other majors, Augusta National sets up well for the golfer who can drive the ball far, hit high shots into the greens, and chip and pitch on glassy surfaces. That pretty much describes Mickelson, who has contended at Augusta in three of the last four years, finishing third in '96. "A place like Augusta rewards Phil's instincts and imagination," says two-time Masters champ Ben Crenshaw. "He knows he's capable of winning there."

Does he? When we ask Mickelson if he thinks there is a green jacket in his future, he answers without hesitation, "I haven't won it yet, but I think I will. It's just a matter of time." Not wanting to appear too bold, he smiles and says, "The Open is another story."

Whatever the venue, no one who knows Mickelson thinks that money has made him complacent or that disappointment in the majors has caused him to fear them. "He loves playing in majors, and I love them, too," says Amy. "I love seeing him with that intensity. He doesn't sleep as well the week of a major, and he gets really focused."

Still, you have to wonder about a guy who grins and lowers his shoulder to make it easier for the monkey to get on his back. Lefty is finishing his lunch when we give him one last chance to back down.

Duval hasn't won a major, either, we point out. Tiger has won only one, same as Justin Leonard and Vijay Singh. Colin Montgomerie has tried so hard that he's losing weight, and it took O'Meara 19 years to break through. Doesn't that suggest that winning majors is no longer the best measure of greatness?

Mickelson dabs at his mouth with his napkin, gives the question some thought and finally says, "No. You have to challenge yourself to bring out your greatest performance, and those four tournaments are the ultimate challenge."

With the monkey practically shrieking in his ear, he adds, "And I don't want to win just one."

Also: The Supper Club | Bombs Away!

Issue date: April 5, 1999