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MAY 3, 2010
6
MIKE PURKEY
CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA |
Give him
credit, Phil Mickelson can – at least for a
moment – look at things from our per-
spective as opposed to seeing the world
through the most amazing pair of eyes
ever given to a golfer.
the shot and you see the target, it doesn’t
seem as daunting.
“But as I kind of looked back and saw
some of the pictures, I was like, what was I
doing? But it worked out.”
He had a wry smile on his face when he
made that last remark, a sly smirk that
says he knows things none of the rest of us
knows, sees things that only he sees. On
Thursday at the Quail Hollow Champion-
ship, he blew a tee shot deep into the trees
on the difficult par- 4 ninth. He wound up
taking a driver and hitting his ball, which
was lying in pine straw, through a gap that
no one else would choose.
As he emerged from the woods, Golf
Channel broadcaster Jerry Foltz looked at
Mickelson, who grinned and said, “I was
just chipping out.”
Arnold Palmer didn’t get to the World
Golf Hall of Fame by coming out sideways
and neither will Mickelson, who is a lock
for the Hall, with 38 victories and four ma-
jors. Whether he is considered among the
best who ever played will be left to others
to decide, but it will largely be dependent
on whether his best golf is ahead of him,
as he approaches his 40th birthday in just
a few weeks.
With Tiger Woods still reeling from his
personal catastrophe and wobbling on
unsure legs as he tries to find a competi-
tive golf game, Mickelson will never have
a better chance to win majors and secure
his place among the game’s elite. For
instance, the U.S. Open will be contested
at Pebble Beach, a place Mickelson knows
like the back of his hand, having won the
AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am three times.
Granted, the last time the Open was played
at Pebble, Woods won by an obscene 15
shots. But that was then and this is now
and we may never see that Tiger again.
Which is all the more reason for Mickelson
to take advantage of opportune situations.
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