The happiest player to ever win a major

Phil Mickelson reveled in 2004 major breakthrough at Masters

For nearly 18 years, I was lucky enough to serve as the golf columnist at The Augusta Chronicle. This meant getting to write cover stories for the Chronicle’s exhaustive Masters Preview Edition. Every year from Tiger Woods’ defense in 2002 through Sergio Garcia’s return as champion in 2018 (conveniently bookended by my former boss John Boyette’s deft handling of the Vijay Singh and Patrick Reed covers), I got to go deep on the reigning champs. Unfortunately, when the Chronicle redesigned its once pretty awesome Augusta.com website, all the hard work we produced prior to 2012 or so disappeared entirely from the digital realm and was left only to tattered and yellowed newsprint in the morgue. Is it any wonder that newspapers are struggling?

Anyway, on the 20th anniversary of Phil Mickelson’s maiden major victory at the 2004 Masters, I’ve resurrected all the pieces of my takeout on Lefty from the dusty papers and will present them here over the next three days. Hope you enjoy the look back.

This story and series was originally published April 3, 2005, in the Masters 2005 preview edition of The Augusta Chronicle. (Part 1 of 3)

Contrary to his familiar image, Phil Mickelson cries.

Kindergarten parent-teacher conferences, sentimental movies, family milestones, any or all of them might turn Lefty into a softy at the drop of a Callaway.

“He’s a very passionate, emotional man,” said his wife, Amy. “He does cry and is not afraid to cry in front of the kids.”

Naturally, you would think a man with emotion so close to the surface might get just a little misty-eyed in front of the world when a lifelong goal – so gut wrenchingly sought – is attained in the most dramatic of fashions on the most revered of stages.

Winning the Masters has brought even stoics to tears. Nick Faldo cried three times. Yet there was Mickelson, basking in the rapturous embrace of a career-redefining moment, hugging his wife, his children, his parents, his in-laws, his sister, his caddie, his coaches, his friends and his competitors with the same Opie Taylor smile that was plastered all over his face for a week.

Not one glistening hint of recessed emotion ever made its way from his heart to his eyes.

“I cannot believe he didn't shed a tear over that,” said Amy. “So many close calls. So much buildup. Just the reality for all of us who've been through so much with him. It kind of got to us for quite a few months. I can tear up just thinking about it. Everyone just blubbered and Phil, never, not one time. I don't understand it.”

Mickelson does.

Yes, golf has been his life since his birth announcement showed a baby with a golf bag slung over his shoulder, and presciently stated: Phil Alfred hurried to join the Mickelson threesome on the first tee at Mercy Hospital for a 3:45 p.m. starting time on June 16, 1970. It has been his muse since he started mirroring his father's swing with the back of a right-handed club before he was 2. It has been an obsession since he ran away from home at age 3 with a stuffed dog, blanket, golf bag and a suitcase filled with nothing but golf balls because his father wouldn't take him to play on the “big course.”

Yes, golf has been his dream since he watched Seve Ballesteros stalk triumphantly up the 18th hole at Augusta National Golf Club to win the 1980 Masters and swore that one day that would be him. It has been his mission since he won a U.S. Amateur, two NCAA championships, four all-American honors and a PGA Tour event as an amateur.

Yes, golf has been his tormentor since the world tattooed the label “the greatest player never to win a major” across his brightly beaming face before he turned 30.

But despite all that, Mickelson can’t equate the culmination of a career ambition – no matter how doggedly pursued – with the truly important things in life that summon the waterworks within him. After all, golf really is just a game.

“I’ve never shed a tear,” he said, “because it’s been such a euphoric experience. I don’t really cry over golf. Win, lose or draw, as much as I love the game, it’s not the same feeling winning or losing as it is with my children or family.”

There you have Mickelson – the man and the phenomenon. His passion, prowess and perseverance made him as popular a Masters champion as Arnold Palmer. It seemed all too fitting that Mickelson so joyously exercised his major-championship demons with the same kind of charge in the same place on the same weekend Palmer bade farewell to competitive golf.

With a spectacular five birdies on his final seven holes – including an almost mystical putt to win on the last green – Mickelson draped himself in more than a green jacket. He was draped in the acceptance of his peers, the adoration of his fans and the comfort of his family.

What was there to cry about, really?

“I guess pure joy and satisfaction took over him,” said his wife. “All the hard work had paid off, and the magic had kind of gone his way. I think he was just so happy.”

Phil Mickelson leaps after his winning putt drops on 18 / Augusta National, Getty Images

THE LABEL

Sam Snead won 27 tournaments before winning the first of his seven majors at the 1942 PGA Championship. Ben Hogan won 31 times and just turned 34 before notching the first of his nine majors at the 1946 PGA.

Neither of them ever endured the questions and the label that went with them. Few people in history have ever endured them to the extent of Mickelson.

Why haven't you won a major? Will you ever win a major? Will your life ever be complete if you never win a major? In case you haven’t counted, you’re 0-for-30 … 0-for-35 … 0-for-40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46 …

“I don’t know how he does it,” his mother, Mary, said of the barrage that targeted him for so long. “Of all the remarkable things I’ve seen him do, that always impressed me. To come back and talk about your losing, that seems so hard to me.”

To Mickelson’s critics, and there are many, he was either too laid back, too scared, too much of a gambler or simply too satisfied with coming close enough. Before Mickelson left Augusta last year wearing a 43-long green jacket, he arrived as a 22-regular – as in the number of ordinary victories he collected without one validating major. Seventeen times he’d finished in the top 10 of one; eight times in the top three; three times a loser in the final group.

“I think the most difficult part of this 10-year journey has just been dealing with it … I don’t want to say failure but dealing with the losses time after time. It just gets frustrating. It can wear on you, except that you can’t let it.” — Phil Mickelson

He handled the questions and the recitations of his perceived failures with dignity. He admitted disappointment but never admitted defeat. Time, he always said, was on the side of the greatest player yet to have won a major.

“I think it bothered the golf world more than him,” Amy said of Mickelson’s front-end major drought. “People have expected more out of him, to win that many times and none of them to be a major. That’s understandable. It didn’t bother Phil. Did he desperately want to win a major? Yes. Was it because of that title? Absolutely not. It was because of the goals he has for himself.”

The questions and the label started following him after 1999 when he lost a lead on the 70th hole and the U.S. Open on the 72nd to Payne Stewart at Pinehurst No. 2.

Mickelson talked all week about walking off the course with the lead if his pager went off, signaling the pending arrival of his and Amy's first child. Ever since, the skeptics wondered if he wanted the golf immortality thing enough.

Mickelson says those critics just don’t get it.

“I get so much out of it – win, lose or draw – just having a chance to win on Sunday,” he said of that day in Pinehurst. “Even though it was disappointing to lose, it was an awesome day. I was hitting shots under crucial times, whether they were what I wanted or not. I was in the last group. It was just a terrific opportunity. And even though Payne outplayed me over the last couple holes, it was still a great day. You have to compare that to the alternative – teeing off in the first group and cruising around and watching it on TV. That’s a bad day. It wasn’t a bad day having a chance and losing it by one.”

He piled up more “good days” like that. At Augusta in 2001 and Bethpage Black in 2002 when he couldn’t chase down Tiger Woods. At Atlanta Athletic Club in 2001 when David Toms slipped ahead.

“I think the most difficult part of this 10-year journey has just been dealing with it … I don’t want to say failure but dealing with the losses time after time,” Mickelson said after his major near misses. “It just gets frustrating. It can wear on you, except that you can’t let it.”

It was the Masters where Mickelson always dreamed of breaking through. It was the Masters that he spoke so eloquently about every year since he first played as an amateur in 1991.

“The way I look at it is the winner of this tournament doesn’t just win a major,” Mickelson said on the eve the final round in 2001. “It becomes a part of the history of the game. That’s what excites me. This tournament creates … it creates something that is very special. Year in and year out, history is made here. Something occurs that we remember forever, every single year. And I want to be part of that. That’s why this tournament means so much to me.”

Mickelson didn’t want his history to be the “beautiful record” rattled off at his introduction last year. Seven top 10s in 11 appearances; three consecutive thirds; and no worse than seventh in five straight years.

“But no wins,” he said before fingering the material of the green jacket on his podium host’s sleeve. “I want what you have. I want one of these.”

Before last year, people wondered if he was history instead of on the brink of making it.

THE PATH

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” Alice says to the Cheshire Cat.

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where,” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“… so long as I get somewhere,” added Alice.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cheshire Cat, “if only you walk long enough.”

Lewis Carroll, “Alice in Wonderland”

Mickelson often references that fictional scene. He was on the road to nowhere in 2003.

He calls it “a particularly bad year for me.” In so many ways it is an understatement.

Golf was so far below his standards, it was alarming. Zero wins in a season for only the second time in his career. No Tour Championship invitation for the first time. No points in five matches at the Presidents Cup draw in South Africa as the capper.

Off the course was even tougher. Unbeknownst to the rest of the golf world, the Mickelsons endured a personal trauma that makes his professional performance that season seem exemplary.

His wife and newborn son, Evan, nearly died right in front of him in the delivery room. Those tears that come so easily to him off the course formed a torrent.

Mickelson’s mother calls that the “turning point” in his life. It just took time to show in his career.

Evan didn’t breathe for seven minutes after he was born, and Amy suffered a tear in the main artery of her uterus during delivery. Both were eventually fine, but the experience took a toll on Mickelson.

“He almost lost his son and almost lost his wife. They both were within seconds of not making it,” said Dave Pelz, Mickelson’s short-game coach and primary strategist.

“It really affected him. He didn’t play golf seriously for three or four months. Not that he didn’t care about it, but when your emotions and mental energy are in one direction, you only have so much. I personally think there was nothing left for golf.”

Said Amy: “Phil was not enjoying what he did in 2003. Always for Phil, his success has come when his desire is high.”

Mickelson realized he couldn’t take the random paths he traveled and get to the destination he desired.

“You can’t just work hard and go laterally. You’ve got to have a path or guidance on where you want to go and how to get there,” he said. “I didn’t have that guidance. In ’03, I didn’t have that right path. I was practicing and working hard and spending hours and hours on my game and my scores weren’t getting any better. And on the course, I didn’t feel like I was playing any better.”

When 2003 was over, the Mickelsons reevaluated.

“We got to the end of 2003 and we were kind of sick of hearing ourselves,” Amy said. “We’ve got to fix all this stuff. We’ll wipe it away; January 1 2004, we don’t bring it up again. None of it.”

That fresh start included a new professional focus. Mickelson chose the path his teachers, Rick Smith and Pelz, were laying out. It required a new swing, new control and a new method of intense preparation.

“Right when we got started, I knew it was the right path,” Mickelson said.

THE CULMINATION

His new path led right to the final round of the Masters. For the first time in his career, he held a share of the 54-hole lead in a major. The “controlled aggression” he executed so beautifully was a game with which even he wasn’t familiar.

Mickelson, and everyone around him, sensed that this was finally Phil’s time.

“Heading into the final round, Amy and I both felt that was a different day and things would be different,” Mickelson said. “As I made the turn though, I may have been questioning that feeling because I’ve had that feeling in the past where it hasn’t come to fruition.”

Mickelson made the turn trailing Ernie Els. As he entered the middle of Amen Corner, he heard the roar from the direction of Els’ eagle on No. 13. He walked over the Hogan Bridge knowing he was three strokes back. One of the CBS announcers called it “a dagger to (Mickelson’s) heart.”

“To have it be such a difficult journey to win my first major makes it that much more special.” — Phil Mickelson

But Mickelson wasn’t dead. He sank a 12-foot birdie putt on 12, added another on 13, tapped in for birdie on 14 and rolled in a 20-footer for another birdie on 16 to tie Els, who had made birdie on 15. The crowds that seemed to be willing him on all week were approaching delirium and violating many of the rules of decorum at Augusta National.

“It was almost uncontrollable,” Mary Mickelson said. “People are running and screaming for him. So he felt like everyone was pulling for him right along side of us.”

In the eye of the storm, Mickelson was almost illogically calm – and oblivious, to a degree, of the bustle around him.

“I certainly felt it on 16 when I made the putt and I could feel the ground shake a little bit and I could feel the chills go down my arm,” Mickelson said. “I knew there were a lot of people there, but I didn’t see them too well.”

Ever since the New York galleries at Bethpage enlisted as a whole new army of fans behind Mickelson at the 2002 U.S. Open, his popularity has risen. He is as beloved by fans as any golfer since Palmer. His followers appreciate the way Mickelson acknowledges their support with smiles and nods and hours of signing autographs. They appreciate his willingness to take risks and fail. They appreciate his humility and priorities. They appreciate that he never blows up or breaks down in the face of crushing defeats.

That appreciation is mutual.

“I do feel very fortunate every day for the fact that I’m able to play golf for a living,” Mickelson said. “If it wasn’t for the people who come out and watch and enjoy the game, I wouldn’t be able to play a sport that most people do on vacation for my vocation. And I’m appreciative of that every day.”

With his army of support behind him at Augusta, Mickelson was strangely at peace as he played the 18th hole. He smiled all the way up the hill and right through the moment his putt dropped and became that piece of history that people remember forever.

“To have it be such a difficult journey to win my first major makes it that much more special,” he said.

That happiness and peace has carried on beyond the green jacket ceremony. He very nearly won each of 2004’s remaining three majors. His confidence and consistency keep soaring.

While the timing of his equipment change from Titleist to Callaway before the Ryder Cup was questioned and criticized, the ultimate results can’t be argued. Since November, he’s fired rounds of 59, 60 and 62, won back-to-back tournaments by wide margins, topped the leaderboard after 11 consecutive rounds and lost by a lip-in a scintillating showdown with Tiger Woods at Doral.

He’s playing the best golf of his career – and getting better.

“It’s special to see someone playing with total freedom,” said CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz.

Mickelson is free of the questions that dogged him for years. He left Augusta last year as the man who really has everything: looks, talent, money, a beautiful family and the green jacket.

He really has nothing to cry about.