So how did San Diego’s 50-year-old Phil Mickelson do something that no golfer has done before?
How did he become the oldest golfer to ever win a major championship?
In his remarks afterward winning the US PGA Championship, just yards from a beach not that much different from the beaches here in his hometown, Phil said he believed it was possible despite everything saying it wasn’t.
And then he said this: “I hope that others find that inspiration. It might take a little extra work, a little bit harder effort to maintain physically or maintain the skills, but gosh, is it worth it in the end.”
Phil’s words mean something because he has lots of golf fans who love this San Diegan…with the crowd Sunday gathered around him and congratulating him in a way maybe never seen before.
In a world where there are too many sports starts, celebrities and politicians who are arrogant, boastful and unlikeable, Phil Mickelson is different.
As a tour veteran told the Golf Digest after the win,
Phil’s colleagues “may be annoyed by the marathon autograph sessions and the innumerable aw-shucks smiles and the endless thumbs-up gestures but it’s part of Mickelson’s gift for connecting. If the worst thing other players can say about you is that you’re trying too hard to be nice, you must be doing something right.”
So as Phil prepares to play at Torrey Pines next month where he played junior golf as a kid, lots of fans will be rooting him on as tries to do something he’s not done before, winning a U.S. Open.
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