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You know that over the course of his four month vacation he had to wonder once or twice, what people were going to think of him when he started out in 2007. He had to think that the main focus on most people's mind was if he could ever get over the terrible debacle of Winged Foot, when he was just drive, long iron and two putts away from not only his first U.S. Open victory, but his third straight major win.
Many believed he would win again and when he first talked about this year at the Bob Hope many figured that he would be his old self and quickly win, possibly as early as the Hope itself. But that never happened as Mickelson shot a final round 78 in the wind swept final round in the desert to start having people quietly talk. Still he had the Buick Invitational, a tournament that has been good for him with three wins in the past but when again he couldn't get things rolling finishing T51st, which got many of his detractors starting to whisper about how deep the scares of the U.S. Open were.
So when Mickelson missed the cut in his next start at the FBR Open, the whispers of Winged Foot were becoming shouts as some were talking about Phil's golfing obit and how he just wasn't the same player that he was a year previous.
| Winning the AT&T Double - those that won the tournament and the Pro-Am the same year: |
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| Year | Winner with pro-am patner | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | Phil Mickelson with amateur partner Harry You | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2006 | Arron Oberholser with amateur partner Michael McCallister | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1986 | Fuzzy Zoeller with amateur partner Mike Evans | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1974 | Johnny Miller with amateur partner Locke de Bretteville | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1968 | Johnny Pott with amateur partner Virgil Sherrill | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1959 | Art Wall with amateur partner Charlie Coe | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1937 | Sam Snead with amateur partner George Lewis | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
That is because Phil is not the same player that he was last year, in a way he could be a lot better than that and he showed us a preview of that this week at the AT&T. Yes, many will say that it was a easy win on a West Coast swing course in the state that he had already won nine PGA Tour events. But his AT&T win this weekend showed us a lot more than that, it showed us something that we had never seen before in Mickelson, one in which all elements of his game was at it's peak and one that if he had gone mano-a-mano with Tiger Woods on his best day would of been an epic battle.
In a era in which many would love to see a "Tiger Slayer" we have thought many a times that Phil would be the man. Yes he has won two Masters and a PGA Championship, but many are looking for more out of Phil, they are looking for him to do what Tiger Woods does regularly, win at beckon call and do it in every event. Only time will tell but in the last eleven years since Tiger has been on the PGA Tour, Phil has won at least once before the Masters eight times giving us all the thought that this could be the year. Who knows, maybe this will be the year because he really played damn good this week at the AT&T.
Keys to victory for Mickelson
Phil Mickelson had an incredible week this week
After going from missing the cut in Phoenix last week in which his game didn't look very sharp, he came to Pebble Beach a new man. In a way missing the cut in Phoenix was a wakeup call telling Phil exactly what he needed to do and he spent most of the off time practicing his putting and driving with all of the practice paid dividends. It's the fourth time in his career he has missed the cut and then in his next PGA Tour start win.
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Here are some other keys for his victory:
- Hit 57 of 72 greens, led that stat
- Made 25 birdies, led that stat
- Played the par 4s in 10 under, led that stat
- Played the par 5s in 11 under, co-led that stat
- Had 1.596 in putts on greens hit, led that stat
- 32 one putts, was T3rd in this stat
- No three putts. Which was first in that stat with four other players
- Ranked first in total driving
- 285.1 yards per driving was 4th
- 45 of 56 fairways hits, was T4th (in his play at Pebble he only missed 3 at of 28 fairways
- Made 31 of 33 putts at Pebble Beach from ten feet and in
- No two ways about it, Phil said afterwards that he has never hit the ball better, well he was close. This week at the AT&T he hit 45 of 54 fairways, in 72 hole event he has driven it better only five other times but four of them were wide open courses like St. Andrews, Augusta National and Kapalua. The only one that could have been better was in 1998 when he finished third in the Verizon Heritage, on those tight fairways he his 47 of 54 fairways.
- Now we can say this was also won of the best ball hitting week's for Phil Mickelson. Not only did he rank T5th in Driving distance and accuracy he was first in greens hit. If you add up those three numbers you get 11, he only beat that number twice 5 in the 1997 NEC World Series of Golf in which he was 2nd after leading the week in greens hit and fairways hit and was 3rd in diving distance. The second best was in the 2000 Buick Invitational win when Mickelson was 1st in greens hit, 2nd in driving distance and 7th in fairways hit.
- As a comparison to show how much his game changed in the five days between his exit at the FBR and the AT&T, at the FBR he made 9 bogeys for 36 holes, at the AT&T he made only five for the week. In hitting fairways Mickelson was 67.8% at the FBR and 81.8% at Pebble, in Greens hit he was 72.2% of the greens at FBR compared to 79.2 at Pebble. But lastly Mickelson took 31 putts per round and had three three putts for 36 holes compared to Pebble where he averaged 28 putts per round and didn't have a single three putt.
- Last but not least, even the luck of the draw was on Mickelson's side this week as Pebble Beach played to a scoring average of 74.98 after the first round, 71.661 after the second round and 76.317 after the third round. Guess what day Mickelson played at Pebble and shot 65 on and what day Jim Furyk, who at the time was a co-leader and shot 76 on.
Mickelson's stats (with rank in parentheses):
Fairways hit: 45 of 56 ..... (T5th) Driving average: 285.1 ..... (T5th) Greens hit: 57 of 72 ....... (1st) Putts: 112 (28.00 a rd) .... (T6th) Putting breakdown: 0-putt greens: 0 1-putt greens: 32 2-putt greens: 40 3-putt greens: 0 Play on par 3s: +1 Play on par 4s: -10 Play on par 5s: -11 Eagles: 1 Birdies: 25 ................ (1st) Scrambling: 9 of 15 (60.0%) (T42nd)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
What This Win Means for Mickelson
- Phil equaled the Tournament record of 20 under that Mark O'Meara set in 1997.
- Phil has won 16 times of the 22 times when holding or sharing the 54 hole lead.
- Phil has won 10 of 30 PGA Tour events in California plus he has won half of his 30 wins on the west coast swing. Oh talking about those 15 wins, he now has won at least once on the west coast swing in 12 of his last 17 years he has played on the west coast swing.
- *Mickelson collected $990,000 for his win, helping him surpass $40 million in career earnings ($40,532,081). He is one of just three players to do so, joining Tiger Woods ($66,648,324) and Vijay Singh ($50,845,086). For those wondering how his $40 million dollar figure relates to west coast earnings, Phil has earned a quarter of that on the west coast swing with winnings of $10,955,384.
- The AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am becomes the fourth PGA Tour event of Mickelson's career that he has won three or more times. The list includes the BellSouth Classic (2000, 2005-06), Buick Invitational (1993, 2000-01), Chrysler Classic of Tucson (1991, 1995-96) and the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (1998, 2005, 2007). The win places him in select company here, joining Mark O'Meara (5), Jack Nicklaus (3) and Johnny Miller (3) as the only players with three or more wins.
- Lastly you had to know that Mickelson knew something was up with his game. Mickelson announced on Thursday that he was playing so well that he was thinking of playing in the Nissan Open, the first time he has played at Riviera since 2001 when he missed the cut. Riviera isn't his type of course and that is one of the reasons for him not playing there in past years so you had to think something was up when he made that decision. It also means that Mickelson will have played in six tournaments in a row after the Match Play. Talking about Riviera look for the best field of the year, despite Tiger not playing there will be eight of the top-10 players in the world in the field as guys like Jim Furyk, Adam Scott, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Vijay Singh, Luke Donald, Padraig Harrington, Geoff Ogilvy, Sergio Garcia, Trevor Inmelman or should we say 11 of the top-13 world rank guys will be in Los Angeles making it the most star studded field of the year.
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