It’s been quite a week at the 2023 Masters, but it’s also been quite a year for Phil Mickelson. Returning to Augusta National Golf Club after forgoing last year’s proceedings for the first time since 1994, the three-time green jacket winner arrived on the grounds a shell of his former self.
A year of beatdowns, callouts by colleagues and a self-imposed hiatus from the spotlight tore apart one of the great personalities — and players — to ever grace the sport. Gone was the Lefty who would fly by the seat of his pants, seldom thinking about what would come out of his mouth. In his place, a calculated mystique.
Except, for the last three days, the Mickelson of old returned to the course.
On the course for a practice round Tuesday, Mickelson was mostly left to himself as patrons’ interest was drawn elsewhere. Alone on the practice area, he was rarely chopping it up with his fellow man and turning down opportunities to speak to the press. Rather, he remained a bit of a recluse — at least compared to his former, affable persona — into the evening hours where the loquacious lefty was escorted from the bench to the gallery in the courtroom that is the Champions Dinner.
When Mickelson returned inside the ropes two days later for the first round, it was clear he was finding his groove. A reprieve from his misdoings — real and perceived — Mickelson saw Augusta National as the canvas on which this artist could express his innermost thoughts.
To say Mickelson has struggled with form since transitioning to LIV Golf would be about as understated as Viktor Hovland’s scripting. He’s without a top-10 finish in a four-round tournament since a rather large one on the coast of the Atlantic now two years adrift. A short stint in the year’s first major felt inescapable.
But let’s remember: This is Phil, after all. He is a modern day Houdini. The unexpected should be expected. Driver off the deck from the pine straw? That’s nothing new. Shots described as “salty,” hacks from the other side of the plate, flop shots Dikembe Mutombo wouldn’t dream of swatting? They’re all on the table, as we saw immediately Thursday.
“I flipped over an 8-iron,” said Mickelson of a right-handed swing on the 14th in Round 1. “I felt like I needed a little bit heel-to-toe height and as much width as I could. I had like a leaf that I practice swung, and I was like, ‘All right, if I can hit this leaf, I can hit the ball.’ If you ever watched ‘Dodgeball,’ ‘If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.’ I thought, ‘If I can hit this leaf, I can hit a ball.’ I hit the leaf and did it twice, and I’m like, ‘All right, I can do it. Let’s go do it.’
“I swing right-handed. To keep your speed up, it’s really important to swing the opposite direction because the acceleratory muscles of the opposite direction, or the deceleratory muscles of your normal swing. So, I swing right-handed every day like a number of times and try to do that.”
All this led to an opening 71. Perhaps more importantly, it led to Mickelson opening up.
Enthusiasm was injected into his strut. Lefty’s thumbs up to patrons were more springier. The 52-year-old, seemingly without a shred of confidence two days prior, all of a sudden had the presence of the six-time major champion we had all come to know the last 20 some odd years.
Anywhere else — at any other tournament on any other golf course — I am not sure any of that happens: the seemingly whimsical discovery of form, the rejuvenation of a downtrodden man, the second-round 69 to catapult his name to the first page of the leaderboard and the subsequent birdies to open up his third round.
After a rain shortened Saturday, Rick Gehman and Greg DuCharme break down a wet and cold day from Augusta National at the 2023 Masters. Follow & listen to The First Cut on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
At one point on Saturday, just three players found themselves ahead of Mickelson as biblical amounts of rain hailed from the heavens. They were the fiercest major champion of the last decade (Brooks Koepka), the winningest player of this young year (Jon Rahm) and the reigning U.S. Amateur champion (Sam Bennett).
“I would use the word more ‘spiritual’ because, if you love golf, when you come [to Augusta National], it’s more of a spiritual experience where you feel this appreciation for this great game and the gratitude that you have,” Mickelson said Friday. “Then this tournament, this course gives something for everybody to aspire to.
“If you’re a kid and you’re dreaming of playing in the Masters and you want to win it, it gives you something to aspire to. It did for me. Then just like yourself, just to be able to play here would be great. It’s like exciting, right, just to play here. I’m just kidding. But it’s fun to just come out and just play here. Again, it’s something to aspire to play the golf course where you see history made every year, and that’s what this place does for me and I think all golfers.”
This year, Augusta National won’t be handing Phil another green jacket or his seventh major title but rather something he hasn’t experienced in quite some time: a sense of himself.
Mickelson is not going to win the Masters in his return to Augusta. He’s not going to outmaneuver or out-alpha Koepka like he did at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island when he became the oldest major champion in the game’s history
In fact, he may never win the Masters again, but Lefty returned this week in more ways than one.
Gone and forgotten about, removed from memory, without any semblance of quality in his game, he reminded all of us — and most importantly, himself — of what used to be and the emotions his play (and antics) can still evoke.