‘Flash Phil’ finally gets real — and wins

On 46 previous occasions Phil Mickelson had stood on the first tee of a major championship and, because of sheer ability, has been considered one of the favourites.

On each occasion he failed, sometimes when it might have been easier to win and, inevitably, he acquired the tag that is at once compliment and insult: the best player never to have won a major.

To shed that reputation as he did last weekend has required a change of attitude and it took Mickelson the best part of 12 years to realise it.

The epiphany came last year, through events on and off the course.

His wife, Amy, had a difficult pregnancy and, while things were eventually all right, Mickelson spent a lot of time at home, playing in fewer events and not working on his game.

It led to him finishing 38th in the money list and the confidence that has always characterised his game was gradually being eroded. In Mickelson’s mind, 38th place is for someone else.

The Mickelson who joyfully embraced his four-year-old daughter Amanda after five birdies in the last seven holes at Augusta to win was not the Mickelson of the previous 12 professional years.

He was not the player who won a Tour event as an amateur in 1991, nor the player who made a big impact on the amateur ranks and was labelled ‘the next Nicklaus”.

He was not the player who once, cockily, in a match, gave his opponent a 10-foot putt because he was sure he would hole his own 20-footer to win the hole — and he did.

He was not the player, either, who, in a college event, chose to play a short hole with a lake from tee to green by deliberately sending his ball skipping across the water and on to the putting surface. That he then holed the birdie putt did nothing to assuage either his coach or teammates.

That was ‘Flash Phil”, the man with the talent to make a certain arrogance stick and it was that part of his philosophy that prevented him from winning majors.

Mickelson has always played with all-out aggression. No fairway was too narrow, no pin too difficult to go for, and in regular Tour events, it paid off. Prior to this Masters he had won 22 of them at the high success rate in golf of almost two a year.

The wins fed an ego that allowed no quarter. He loved nothing better than bombing a drive past his playing partner’s and then taking on shots that produced a birdie or an eagle, if successful, a double bogey or worse if not.

But it is a way of playing that fails when the nerves kick in at a major championship.

Then a more pragmatic, conservative approach is called forand Mickelson seemed constitutionally incapable of taking it. He gloried in saying daft things like: ‘I will always play aggressively because that is how I get my fun. If it means not winning a major, so be it.”

But Mickelson had to confront the facts — 0 for 46, as they say in the United States — in majors.

‘As an amateur,” he confessed, ‘I always felt that I didn’t have to do anything exceptional to get into contention — but when I turned pro, I felt I had to be firing on all cylinders, hit the ball as hard as possible, make as many birdies as possible.”

But it was not working, not in the one arena where he ardently wanted it to work, the arena in which professionals are ultimately judged — the majors.

So he went back to his long-time coach Rick Smith and they worked on giving him a slightly shorter, more controlled swing. He would lose a few yards, certainly, but he would hit more fairways, more greens.

‘I knew we were on the right path straight away,” he said last weekend. ‘It’s a much easier game keeping the ball in play. I just wish that someone had told me this earlier.”

They had, of course, but maybe 100 000 times was not enough. What Mickelson acquired was what he calls ‘a cut shot”, which is, in essence, a controlled fade.

‘It’s not that it’s short,” said Mickelson, ‘it goes a good way. It’s just that it doesn’t have heat in it — that 20 yards of roll when the ball rolls into the trees or what have you and gets me into trouble. When it hits the fairway it’s a lot softer — so when I do miss, it’s not going as far off line.”

It is not just the driving either.

‘My distance control with the irons is so much better, too. I know how far or how hard I have to hit each club now to get it to the safe spot.”

This is not revelatory stuff: it is what most pros learn 10 seconds after they leave the amateur ranks — but Mickelson proved to be a slow learner, relying instead on innate talent, superb hand-eye coordination and over-confidence.

They had served him well — but not well enough. Now he has discovered the realities of the game and, inside four months of doing so, has finally done what he so desperately wanted to for 12 years.

He is still only 33 years old; the next 12 years could be quite interesting. —