Last Sunday I caught the last few holes of the Open Championship, which were the only ones that really mattered. Those who don’t live in a cave know that Phil Mickelson played the best six holes of his life to break out of the pack and win the fifth major championship of his career. During his interviews afterward, one of his statements stood out to me. “I’ve always tried to go out and get it,” he said, referring to championships. “I don’t want anybody to hand it to me. I want to go out and get it. And today I did.”
Those familiar with Mickelson’s aggressive style on the course would expect such comments, but to really appreciate what they mean, you can look at how he played the 18th hole. Leading by a couple of strokes with the other contenders playing behind him, most players would have taken a safe route to the green and played for par, assuming (correctly, as it turned out) that two-under-par would be more than enough to win the tournament. Mickelson, however, had none of that. Instead, he lofted a shot that landed in the only spot possible for a birdie, bouncing dangerously close to the bunker and rolling about ten feet from the pin. If his ball had landed two feet to the left, it would have been buried deep in the sand under the kind of nightmarishly steep bunker lip that British course designers consider essential to links golf. When you remember that Mickelson once blew a US Open championship (2006 at Winged Foot) with a needless gamble on the final hole, you have to marvel at the courage that he had to attempt that shot, let alone make it.
The sportswriter John Feinstein has commented frequently on how people underestimate the skills of professional golfers, wondering how hard it truly can be to drive a ball straight and make putts. On Sunday, we got to see what separates champions from the rest of us.
