Phil Mickelson

Other players to accomplish this feat include Doug Sanders (1956 Canadian Open) and Gene Littler (1954 San Diego Open).

With five holes remaining, Mickelson led by a stroke, but made a triple-bogey and was then three strokes behind.

The leaders ahead of him then stumbled, and he birdied 16 and 18 to win by a stroke.

It was the most recent win by an amateur at a PGA Tour event until 2024, at The American Express, with Nick Dunlap taking the title.

That April, Mickelson was the low amateur at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.

Philip Alfred Mickelson (born June 16, 1970) is an American professional golfer who currently plays in the LIV Golf League.

Philip Alfred Mickelson was born on June 16, 1970, in San Diego, California, to parents Philip Mickelson Sr., an airline pilot and former naval aviator, and Mary Santos.

He was raised there and in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Mickelson has Portuguese, Swedish, and Sicilian ancestry.

His maternal grandfather, Alfred Santos (also Mickelson's middle name) was a caddie at Pebble Beach Golf Links and took Phil to play golf as a child.

Although otherwise right-handed, he played golf left-handed since he learned by watching his right-handed father swing, mirroring his style.

Mickelson began golf under his father's instruction before starting school.

Phil Sr.'s work schedule as a commercial pilot allowed them to play together several times a week and young Phil honed his creative short game on an extensive practice area in their San Diego backyard.

At age 20, he was only the sixth amateur to win a tour event and the first in over five years after Scott Verplank at the Western Open in August 1985.

Mickelson graduated from the University of San Diego High School in 1988.

Mickelson attended Arizona State University in Tempe on a golf scholarship and became the face of amateur golf in the United States; he captured three NCAA individual championships and three Haskins Awards (1990, 1991, 1992) as the outstanding collegiate golfer.

With three individual NCAA championships, he shares the record for most individual NCAA championships alongside Ben Crenshaw.

Mickelson also led the Sun Devils to the NCAA team title in 1990.

Over the course of his collegiate career, he won 16 tournaments.

Mickelson was the second collegiate golfer to earn first-team All-American honors all four years.

In 1990, he also became the first with a left-handed swing to win the U.S. Amateur title, defeating high school teammate Manny Zerman 5 and 4 in the 36-hole final at Cherry Hills, south of Denver.

Mickelson secured perhaps his greatest achievement as an amateur in January 1991, winning his first PGA Tour event, the Northern Telecom Open, in Tucson, making him one of the few golfers to win a PGA Tour event as an amateur in the history of the PGA Tour.

He bypassed the tour's qualifying process (Q-School) because of his 1991 win in Tucson, which earned him a two-year exemption.

With his two-year PGA Tour exemption from the Tucson win, he played in several tour events in 1992 while an amateur but failed to make a cut.

Mickelson graduated from ASU in June 1992 and quickly turned professional.

In 1992, Mickelson hired Jim "Bones" Mackay as his caddy.

He won many PGA Tour tournaments during this period, including the Byron Nelson Golf Classic and the World Series of Golf in 1996, the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 1998, the Colonial National Invitation in 2000, and the Greater Hartford Open in 2001 and again in 2002.

He appeared as himself in a non-speaking role in the 1996 film Tin Cup, starring Kevin Costner.

His 2000 Buick Invitational win ended Tiger Woods's streak of six consecutive victories on the PGA Tour.

After the win, Mickelson said, "I didn't want to be the bad guy. I wasn't trying to end the streak per se. I was just trying to win the golf tournament."

He has won 45 events on the PGA Tour, including six major championships: three Masters titles (2004, 2006, 2010), two PGA Championships (2005, 2021), and one Open Championship (2013).

With his win at the 2021 PGA Championship, Mickelson became the oldest major championship winner in history at the age of 50 years, 11 months, and 7 days.

He is nicknamed Lefty, as he plays left-handed.

Mickelson is one of 17 players in the history of golf to win at least three of the four majors.

He has won every major except the U.S. Open, in which he has finished runner-up a record six times.

In 2022, Mickelson became the only golfer who has won 3 (or more) of the 4 majors to join the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, leaving his PGA Tour membership of 30 years.

Mickelson has spent more than 25 consecutive years in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking.

He has spent over 700 weeks in the top 10, has reached a career-high world ranking of No. 2 several times and is a life member of the PGA Tour.

Although naturally right-handed, he is known for his left-handed swing, having learned it by mirroring his right-handed father's swing.

He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2012.