Bob Moczulewski, a Phil Mickelson fan from western Massachusetts, leaned over the Augusta National ropes off the eighth fairway and shouted a thank you to his fellow lefty for signing his hat at the Travelers Championship in Connecticut.

The Travelers is known on the PGA Tour for its fan-friendly, player-friendly experience, but back when he was a member of that tour, Mickelson took the extra mile.

Phil always extended himself with the paying customers, earning his popularity and unofficial title as his generation’s Arnold Palmer.

“Hey Phil, I was there when you signed autographs for everyone after a round at the Travelers in Hartford,” Moczulewski shouted Wednesday.

“Thank you, sir,” Mickelson responded, adding his signature thumbs-up.

“No, thank you,” the 74-year-old fan replied. “God bless you.”

Moczulewski and his friend from New Hampshire, Bob Bialo, explained that Mickelson didn’t leave that day in Connecticut until every autograph request was met.

“He stayed for a full hour,” Moczulewski said. “I mean, who else does that?”

Nobody.

Mickelson has always been a serial signer for kids and grown-ups alike, even after his most crushing US Open defeats (see Winged Foot, 2006, and Bethpage, 2009).

That face time combined with his go-for-broke style made the earth shake when Mickelson won his first major at the 2004 Masters, and again when he conquered Augusta National in 2006 and 2010.

He was the people’s choice even in Tiger Woods’ prime, a truth that makes his current standing in the game a sad, sad thing. Ever since Mickelson took the Saudi money and ran to LIV Golf, he has looked and sounded like a haunted man.

He has become golf’s answer to Macbeth.

His extreme weight loss has only hardened the visual of a hollowed-out star.

As Mickelson practiced on the putting green Wednesday following his nine holes with fellow LIV member Harold Varner III, two longtime golf fans kept asking each other, “Is that him? Is that Phil? Is it?”

Informed it was indeed the 52-year-old Lefty, one of the men said, “He’s lost so much weight.” The other responded, “He looks so old.”

Mickelson was 50 when he won the 2021 PGA Championship to become the oldest major winner ever.

It was a remarkable bookend achievement for a storied career launched by his PGA Tour victory as a 20-year-old amateur in 1991, his first of 45. Mickelson’s legacy as an all-time great could not be touched.

All he had to do was smell the azaleas from here to retirement.

But Mickelson put that legacy up for sale, and found a taker for the reported price of $200 million.

It was the ultimate unforced error, and Mickelson has paid dearly for it. After being quoted calling his future Saudi business partners “scary motherf——” and after exiling himself from the 2022 Masters and the sport as he knew it, Mickelson has plunged into a state of complete irrelevance on a circuit that offers no world-ranking points and that only a precious few actually follow.

The former Phil the Thrill, now ranked 425th in the world, is sitting in 42nd place in the individual LIV standings, which lists only 49 participants. His team, the Hy Flyers, is sitting in 10th place in the 12-team league.

In his two seasons on the LIV tour, Mickelson has failed to finish in the top 25 (out of only 48 players) eight times in 10 starts.

At his age, nobody would hold it against Lefty for missing cuts left and right on the PGA Tour.

He could’ve done some winning on the Champions Tour, and kept giving the fans their 15 seconds of fame by making eye contact with them and signing their programs and caps.

Instead Mickelson is double-bogeying his way into oblivion on a tour that plays for nothing but a truckload of money.

What do you call a Hall of Famer who does that?

“A nutbag,” according to Mickelson’s supposedly dear friend, Freddie Couples.

Yes, a nutbag who also happened to be a beloved winner of three green jackets.

“It’s fun to be back,” Mickelson said Tuesday. “Everyone has been wonderful.”

He called this his favorite week of the year, and yet former Masters winners Fuzzy Zoeller and Tommy Aaron told Golfweek that Mickelson kept to himself during the champions dinner and didn’t speak all night.

That sure didn’t sound like the Phil who always acted like the smartest guy in the room.

“He always used to be a needler,” said Bialo, the fan from New Hampshire.

Those days are over.

During Wednesday’s practice round, when Mickelson wore Hy Flyers logos on his hat and shirt and carried the Hy Flyers name on his bag (Varner had a Golf Saudi logo on his bag), one of his fans from the northeast wondered why Lefty had to make this dreadful career choice.