CNN CNN

  • E-mail
  • Save
25 Stories on Phil Mickelson
Search this topic

SI.com: Alan Shipnuck: Phil Mickelson is Sportsman of Year

Sports Illustrated will announce its choice for Sportsman of the Year on Nov. 30. Here's one of the nominations for that honor by an SI writer. Phil Mickelson started and finished this year with some spectacular golf. He opened 2009 with victories on two of the Tour's best courses, Riviera and Doral, and then at the Masters shot a thrilling final round 67 that didn't quite earn him another green jacket but definitely stole the show. This fall Mickelson twice dusted Tiger Woods on Sunday to nab important trophies -- at the Tour Championship and then more recently at a glittery new World Golf Championship in Shanghai, where Phil dazzled new fans to the game with his good play and good humor.

People.com: Amy Mickelson Surprises Husband Phil at Golf Tournament

Mickelson arrived in San Francisco to support her husband during the President's Cup

People.com: Phil Mickelson Gets First Win During Family Cancer Crisis

"It's not easy for them," the golf tournament champ says of his wife and mother, both battling breast cancer

SI.com: Jonah Freedman: Slumping economy has mixed effect on Fortunate 50

The untouchable twosome who usually dominate the top of Sports Illustrated's Fortunate 50 list of the top-earning American athletes don't look so untouchable anymore.

People.com: INSIDE STORY: Golfer Phil Mickelson and Wife's Cancer Ordeal

"I just start crying," says the PGA pro when he thinks of Amy, who begins treatment July 1

SI.com: Mickelson says the best is ahead of him

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- At times Tuesday, it was hard to tell if Phil Mickelson was a promoter for the PGA Tour or a contender for the PGA Championship.

SI.com: Lefty Gets It Right

On Sunday afternoon, moments before he stepped to the 1st tee at the Players Championship for the most momentous round he has played in a while, Phil Mickelson offered his new swing coach a soul handshake and a manly slap on the back. "Thanks for everything, Butch," said Mickelson, and those four little words added yet another layer of intrigue to the ongoing melodrama that is his career. Butch would be Claude Harmon Jr., known far and wide by his nickname and for his work as Tiger Woods's former instructor, most notably during Woods's run from 1999 through 2002, the most dominant golf ever played.

SI.com: Butch once cool on 'pathetic' Mickelson

When a victorious Phil Mickelson walked off the final green after winning The Players on Sunday, he threw his arm around new coach and said, "First of many, Butch." But things weren't always so warm and fuzzy between instructor Butch Harmon and his new prized pupil. Just four years ago Harmon--who at the time was coaching Tiger Woods--slammed the then-majorless Mickelson, saying he would never win a big title unless he got over his "pathetic" obsession with driving the ball huge distances.

SI.com: Where's Phil?

Phil Mickelson was playing so well at the Players last week, and has such a good record at this week's AT&T Classic at TPC Sugarloaf (three W's, last year by 13 strokes), it seemed well within the realm of possibility that the surging lefty might take advantage of a little-used Tour bylaw and parlay his Sawgrass victory Sunday into a late entry for Sugarloaf. How could he lose? It seemed he would be almost guaranteed to prevail, guaranteed to pad his FedEx Cup and World Ranking points, to edge closer to Tiger, to fatten his bank account by another $972,000.

SI.com: Phil's 3 Quick Fixes

It didn't take long for Butch Harmon to tweak Phil Mickelson's swing back into championship form. And though they're both mum on the subject of what specifically they've worked on, it's obvious that three changes to his setup have made Lefty's swing tighter, more balanced and easier to control.

Advertisement
Quick Job Search :
keyword(s):
enter city: