Phil Mickelson spoke it into existence on Friday, as a warm and familiar Augusta National feeling lifted him from the depths of his LIV Golf despair.
“I’m going to go on a tear pretty soon,” Mickelson said.
And for a three-time Masters champion, a tear only means one thing — making a run at another green jacket.
Despite an extended run of dreadful golf as LIV’s big $200 million catch, the 52-year-old Mickelson woke up the echoes Sunday with a spirited charge up the leaderboard, making five birdies on the back nine — including a pair at Nos. 17 and 18 — to shoot 7-under 65, matching his finest Masters round (1996, Round 1) and posting the best tournament score ever by a player age 50 or over.
Remarkably enough, after starting the final round 10 shots behind leader Brooks Koepka, Mickelson was the clubhouse leader into the early evening while eventual champion Jon Rahm started separating himself from the field.
Rahm would win his second major title with a score of 12-under, four strokes clear of Mickelson, who wore the logos of his LIV team, the Hy Flyers, while playing like his former PGA Tour self and finishing in a tie for second with Koepka.
Clubhouse leader. #themasters pic.twitter.com/knz660UE7F
— The Masters (@TheMasters) April 9, 2023
“I had so much fun today,” Mickelson said. “I feel like I’ve been hitting these type of quality shots, but I have not been staying focused and present for the upcoming shot, and I make a lot of mistakes. … To come out today and play the way I did and hit the shots when I needed, it’s so much fun. I’m grateful to be a part of this tournament and to be here competing and then to play well. It means a lot.”
Mickelson showed how much this performance meant to him with his emphatic fist pumps on the 18th green, after he buried his eighth and final birdie putt.
It was a stunning turn of events for the world’s 425th-ranked player (LIV golfers don’t qualify for world ranking points), who stood in 42nd place in the 49-player LIV standings.
But Augusta National has a history of reinvigorating aging Masters champs and Hall of Famers, and it certainly had that effect on Mickelson, who had been met earlier this week with a subdued response from a gallery that has showered him with love in the past.
Asked why he felt his fellow LIV member was so emotional on the 18th, Harold Varner III said: “I think he’s been through a lot. I’d be pretty emotional too. … His life’s been turned upside down, some his fault, some not. … From the outside looking in, I’d be pretty emotional as well.”
The fans clearly embraced Lefty on this Sunday.
His playing partner, Jordan Spieth, said the roars on the back nine “felt very, very like eight, nine, 10 years ago.”
The 2015 Masters champ said he was just trying to match Mickelson shot for shot as the sun faded.
He failed, bogeying the 18th to finish one behind Mickelson.
“Today is hopefully a stepping stone to really kick-start the rest of the year and continue some great play because I have a unique opportunity,” Mickelson said. “At 52, no physical injuries, no physical problems, being able to swing a club the way I want to, to do things in the game that not many people have had a chance to do later in life. … This doesn’t feel like a fluke.”
After missing the cut in the only two majors he played last year — the U.S. and British Opens — Mickelson correctly predicted he was finally ready to resurrect his game, though he wasn’t sure when, exactly, that would happen.
