OAKMONT, PENNSYLVANIA | Around dinnertime early Friday evening, Phil Mickelson will walk up the hill to the 18th green at Oakmont Country Club for what may be the final hole of his one-of-a-kind U.S. Open career.
An opening-round 74 on Thursday, a 4-over-par grind that took five and a half hours to complete and somehow seemed longer, left Mickelson in position to make the cut but Oakmont will likely be even more difficult as the second round churns along with trapdoors awaiting every misstep.
This is the place where Arnold Palmer walked into his U.S. Open goodbye 31 years ago, tears glistening like summer sweat as he climbed the final hill while thousands crowded around to share the moment.
If things go flat on Friday for Mickelson and he doesn’t make the weekend, hopefully the moment won’t pass quietly. More than any other player of recent vintage, Mickelson has been compared to Palmer for his way with the fans, demonstrating the value of a smile.
Say what you will about Mickelson – and he has elicited a rainbow of reactions through his fantastic and sometimes flawed career – but there may be no player who has been a bigger part of the U.S. Open story without winning than Mickelson.
Six times one player beat him in the U.S. Open.
One of those times – 2006 at Winged Foot – Mickelson probably beat himself.
Time chases down every player and in Mickelson’s case, he will celebrate his 55th birthday on Monday. This is the final year of the five-year U.S. Open exemption he earned with his time-bending victory in the 2021 PGA Championship and, reading between the lines in the USGA’s press conference Wednesday, it seems unlikely Mickelson will be extended an exemption next year when the event returns to Shinnecock Hills.
That is where Mickelson tried to make a point about the course setup in 2018 and played hockey on the 13th green, embarrassing himself when he intended to shame the USGA, a stain that was hard to remove.
The big galleries were following Rory McIlroy and the Elvis-like hysteria that once followed Mickelson in majors was a memory.
“I think the way that we would also think of Phil is we hope he earns his way in, and I think he’d tell you the same thing. That’s what he did last time. We gave him one [in 2021] and then he went out and won the PGA Championship. So wouldn’t put it past him,” John Bodenhamer, chief championships officer for the USGA, said Wednesday.
In an event that celebrates its history, Mickelson’s own history may work against him getting another invitation. He would prefer to do it the old-fashioned way, playing himself into next year’s U.S. Open. Asked recently if he would try to qualify, Mickelson was noncommittal and he has not spent any time with the media at Oakmont.
Mickelson has been bullish about the state of his game, insisting it is better than his middling LIV Golf results suggest, and there were flashes on Thursday. After a double bogey on the par-4 15th hole (his sixth hole), Mickelson drove the par-4 17th and his 30-foot eagle putt scared the hole, setting up a second consecutive birdie.
There was a time when those birdies would have sent a ripple of thunder across the property but he settled for polite applause on Thursday. The big galleries were following Rory McIlroy and the Elvis-like hysteria that once followed Mickelson in majors was a memory.
His eyes now hidden by sunglasses when he plays, Mickelson seems more distant and maybe that’s by design. His move to LIV Golf and the torch he took to the PGA Tour in the process did permanent damage to his image though he has remained steadfast in his insistence that he is on the right side of the game’s restructuring.
It’s worth remembering that Mickelson also said that Scottie Scheffler would not win a tournament before the Ryder Cup this year, a hot take he later backed off.
Mickelson has never been afraid to challenge convention, to speak his mind, to believe he knows better. It’s part of why he has been so popular. He has walked the walk even if it’s when he’s taking some unfamiliar paths.
Remember how he flew cross country overnight to the U.S. Open at Merion in 2013 so he could attend his daughter Amanda’s eighth-grade graduation? And he finished second (again) that week.
He skipped the 2017 U.S. Open altogether to be at her high school graduation.
It’s possible Friday will put an end to Mickelson’s 34th – and perhaps final – U.S. Open start. The romantic notion has Mickelson playing his way into the weekend and becoming a part of the story again but the U.S. Open isn’t much on romance.
He played without a driver in the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines on what was the longest major championship course ever at the time.
He three-putted from five feet on the 17th hole at Shinnecock Hills in 2004 to lose by two strokes and he watched Payne Stewart beat him on the 18th green at Pinehurst in 1999 while his wife, Amy, was hours away from delivering their first child.
Mickelson has 45 PGA Tour victories including six major championships, making him an all-time great though he was never ranked No. 1 in the world, never led the PGA Tour in earnings and was never player of the year – all of which can be blamed in large part on Tiger Woods.
It’s possible Friday will put an end to Mickelson’s 34th – and perhaps final – U.S. Open start. The romantic notion has Mickelson playing his way into the weekend and becoming a part of the story again but the U.S. Open isn’t much on romance.
But the U.S. Open has never had anyone quite like Mickelson and if this is the last time, the hope is he doesn’t go quietly.
That’s never been his style.