PINEHURST, NC – Twenty-five years ago, on the 18th green of Pinehurst No. 2, Phil Mickelson was half of one of the most beautiful and moving moments in golf history, surrounded by love and adoration. Friday afternoon, in the exact same spot, he was a man tapping alone for a double bogey, and the silence was almost absolute.
As Mickelson made the turn at 12-over for the tournament and walked to the first tee for his second nine of the day, there were a few “Let’s go, Phil!” and “Thumbs up, Phil!” calls were audible, but not nearly as loud or frequent as the cheers for Mickelson’s playing partner Rickie Fowler. Once he teed off and walked down the first fairway, you could count on two hands the number of fans accompanying him along the course.
If you take a step back and think about it, this is an astonishing decline from even just a few years ago. Mickelson was once the favorite of US Open galleries. Everyone – from wine-drinking sponsor tent dwellers to beer-drinking, sunscreen-slathered rope liners – saw something of themselves in Phil. He played the game they wanted to believe they could play: Wave away and curse the consequences. The fact that Mickelson came second in six – six! — US Opens wasn’t as important as the fact that he kept going the next year, ready to try again.
You can see a clear indication of Mickelson’s fall from grace in a subtle organizational maneuver. Back in the day – that is, before LIV – Mickelson and Tiger Woods were always on opposite sides of the draw. If Woods teed off in the morning, Woods would go in the afternoon, and vice versa.
Since both were big draws for television and the gallery on the track, it made sense to divide them. But now Mickelson is going where he wants – just two groups behind Woods this year. Mickelson finished 22 minutes behind Woods – who, it probably doesn’t even need to be said, still draws a lot of fans from the ocean currents.
At this point, Mickelson’s descent from US Open darling to afterthought isn’t exactly newsworthy or even shocking. He’s not the only star to disappear from the public eye after joining LIV; Dustin Johnson also spiraled out of the tournament, and Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Graeme McDowell are nowhere near North Carolina. But Mickelson’s fate is somehow sadder and more profound. Almost Shakespearean, to be honest, in the way he lit the match that ignited the fire that consumed his entire reputation, built over a career of more than thirty years.
The simple, inescapable truth is that Mickelson did it all to himself, working with LIV Golf and its Saudi backers in an effort to damage the PGA Tour and reshape professional golf. The fact that he managed to do exactly what he set out to do doesn’t exactly endear him to major golf fans. Some object to LIV Golf on moral or political grounds; others simply want to see the best players in the world on the same course more than four times a year.
The US Open is the only major that Mickelson has not yet won, the only major that keeps him from a grand slam in his career. Barring a miracle that would dwarf even his 2021 PGA Championship victory, he will end his career with that unfinished business. Thanks to that PGA victory at Kiawah, he still has a year of exemption left.
That means next year’s U.S. Open at Quail Hollow will likely be Mickelson’s last, bringing with it a whole new symphony of emotion and opinion. The galleries will find him then, if only to take another look at Lefty and wonder what could have been.
