Born in the year 1970, Philip Alfred Mickelson, nicknamed ‘Lefty’, is one of the leading golfers of the recent times. Considered a golfing legend, Phil has to his credit 3 major championships and 36 PGA tour wins along with an all time career world ranking of number 2. A unique feature of Phil’s play is that despite being right handed, he swings the golf club with his left hand. That is one of the reasons behind his nickname ‘lefty’.
Phil has the distinction of ending the record 6 tournaments winning streak of Tiger Woods, when he defeated Woods and won the Buick Invitational tournament in the year 2000. Phil has often been associated with the tag of “best golfer never to win a major’, because of his inability to close out big tournaments. He is known to perform very well in the major tournaments, but still ends up not winning them; this lack of closing the big tournaments started raising lot of questions on Phil’s abilities as an effective golfer.
Phil was born in San Diego and attended the Arizona State University on a golf scholarship. He was awarded the outstanding collegiate golfer on winning three NCAA individual tournaments and three Haskin awards. He was the first left handed golfer to win the US Amateur tournament in the year 1990. Phil became the first amateur golfer to win a PGA tournament in the year 1991 by winning the Northern Telecom Open, becoming the fourth amateur player in the history of PGA to win a title. Phil also shares the record for most number of second place finishes in tournaments. He shares this record with only four other golfers in the history of the game.
Phil won his first major championship tournament in the 2004 Masters, defeating the great Ernie Ells to a nail biting finish. Wining the tournament made him only the third left handed golfer to win a major tournament. Phil is accredited as being one of the most popular players ever to play on the tour mainly because of his all round personality attributes. The ability to accept defeats gracefully, taking forward the traditions of the game are some of the attributes which are associated with Phil. He is believed to have a very sensitive and compassionate side to his personality. Phil gave a fitting example of his this side of personality when he chose to sponsor the college education of Conard Dobler’s education at the Miami University, when he cam to know about the messy financial condition of the retired NFL player Conard.
Phil has another golfing distinction for his name. He has been in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Rankings for over 550 weeks. This is the most number of weeks spent by any golfer in the top 10, who has not been on the number one position. Phil has represented the United States national team as an amateur in the Walker Cup in the year 1989 & 1991 and Eisenhower trophy in the year 1990. As a professional he has had the opportunity of representing the country in the Presidents Cup, Ryder’s and Alfred Dunhill Cup.
