Mickelson Lived Amateur’s Dream

Phil Mickelson was Colorado winning the Super Bowl or UNLV winning the National Basketball Assn. championship or Stanford winning the World Series.

Phil Mickelson was every golfer who ever walked up an 18th fairway and pretended that a gallery went from tee to green and television cameras watched his every move.

Phil Mickelson was walking through a dream, but living it and breathing it and enjoying it to the max.

Phil Mickelson, an amateur golfer, did what really made no sense over the weekend in Tucson. What he did didn’t make any dollars either, because an amateur is an amateur is an amateur.

Phil Mickelson won the Tucson Open. He came from ahead to trail and then stormed from behind to win. And he did it against the best golfers in the world. He took home a trophy and left it for two guys tied for second, veteran pros Tom Purtzer and Bob Tway, to split what he had earned but couldn’t accept.

Thank you, gentlemen, Mickelson said. It was a fine time.

That was his attitude then and that was his attitude Tuesday afternoon, when he was back to the reality of trying to get his 15 units lined up for the spring semester at Arizona State University.

“It’s nice to play against the best players in the world,” he said. “It’s really an honor. The atmosphere was so much different than I was used to. The galleries were terrific. It was more fun than it was pressure.”

This is a 20-year-old kid from University of San Diego High School who is playing golf like he wants to make the Hall of Champions before he’s old enough to buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate. He already has won two NCAA championships in as many tries and reigns as the U.S. amateur champion.

Had he been playing as a professional in Tucson, he would have picked up a check for $180,000. Money is nice, of course, but this young man seems to be genuinely enjoying the feeling that goes with such an amazing experience.

How often do amateurs win on the PGA Tour?

Scott Verplank did it at the Western Open in 1985. And Gene Littler did it at the San Diego Open in 1954.

Mickelson really did it the hard way, too. He was in the lead going to the 14th hole Sunday, and then he played that hole like, you guessed it, an amateur. He took a triple bogey and fell three shots behind with four holes to play.

“That was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever felt,” he said. “I felt I’d let it get away. I felt it was over. But I remembered my dad telling me you never know what’s going to happen in golf, that you should just keep playing hard.”

And he gets to the 15th hole staring at a very good shot at another very bad bogey.

“I had a difficult chip,” he said, “and it would have been easy to say forget it and play it safe for a bogey, but I ran it eight feet by and made the putt for a par.”

When he got to the 16th green, where he had hit his approach shot to within a foot of the cup, he looked at the scoreboard and was startled to see he was putting to regain a tie for the lead.

“In 20 minutes,” he said, “I’d gone from thinking I’d lost it to being tied for the lead. That was the greatest joy.”

He made that putt, and he birdied the 18th for the win and a nice little niche in golfing history. Halfway through his junior year of college, he had his first PGA victory. To put this in perspective, consider that Tom Kite, the PGA’s all-time leading money winner, didn’t win his first PGA tournament until his fifth year on the tour.

Turning professional must be a temptation now, right?

Wrong.

“The temptation’s always there,” Mickelson said, “but I’d like to stick it out in school and I sort of feel an obligation to represent the amateur championships in tournaments like the U.S. Open and British Open. I just don’t want to turn professional right now.”

He laughed.

“Another thing is that I can’t imagine playing in a tournament again this week,” he said. “I’ve gained new respect for the guys on the tour. They’re going to be teeing it up again in less than two days. That would blow me away. I’m still mentally drained from last weekend.”

He laughed again.

“Besides, I could turn pro and be a bum.”

The notion of turning pro was not on his agenda Tuesday afternoon. He was on his way from one class to another, hoping to flesh out his spring schedule. He has other PGA tournaments upcoming, most notably the Shearson Lehman Brothers Open at Torrey Pines.

“That one,” he said, “will be a lot of fun.”

He uses that word a lot.

Fun.

That’s what golf is supposed to be. That’s what winning is supposed to be. Golf and winner belong in the same sentence with the name Phil Mickelson. You’ll be seeing those words used in the same sentence a lot over the next few years.