For many years Phil Mickelson was able to pull off an impressive feat. He was somehow the lovable loser who won a prolific number of golf tournaments. On and off the course his record is a dichotomy of both triumphs and defeats the result of both daring and seemingly stupid decisions. In his biography of one of the most important golfers of the last three decades Alan Shipnuck gives the reader a behind-the-scenes view of the man golf fans have been dazzled and befuddled by for 30 years.
2022 was obviously just the right time for the release of Shipnuck’s book. As one of the most famous golfer’s on the planet, Phil’s story is well known. A product of the San Diego area dominating junior golf he headed off to Arizona State University where he dominated college golf and became the last college golfer to win a PGA Tour event at the Phoenix Open. After turning pro he found great success on the PGA Tour but struggled to win his first major, and his struggles included his now legendary defeat at the hands of Payne Stewart in the 1999 US Open at Pinehurst. Finally in 2004 he broke through at Augusta to win the Masters. Seventeen years later – in 2021 – Phil became the oldest man to win one of golf’s four majors doing so a month shy of his 51st birthday on the Kiawah Ocean Course at the PGA Championship. This is all well-covered in Shipnucks’s book.
In the wake of Phil’s stunning victory at Kiawah the golf world was full of speculation about whether Phil could continue winning golf’s biggest tournaments well into his 50s, but Phil soon flipped the script in ways that only he could. In announcing the part he played in helping to form the upstart LIV Golf series of tournaments he set the golf world on fire in many ways including with inflammatory comments to Shipnuck which he now claims were off the record – a claim that seems false. It is with this backdrop that Shipnuck’s book was released, and – at least for me and likely many others – was a big part of the reason I wanted to read it.
One of the more interesting revelations in the book is that Phil was pushing to remake the PGA Tour into something that resembled LIV long before LIV was thought of. Shipnuck quotes Brandel Chamblee speaking about a time he was paired with Phil at the B.C. Open many years ago, “Knowing that I was on the Player Advisory Council . . . he spent the whole time in my ear saying the PGA Tour should be reduced to only thirty players – nothing but the stars. He was totally oblivious to the fact that would eliminate my job.” With his decision to help get LIV golf off the ground it seems Phil never gave up on his seemingly long-time dream of further enriching the top of the pro golf pyramid at the expense of everyone else.
There has been much speculation about why Phil seems so intent on cashing in on every possible dollar at the expense of his reputation and eventual place in the game as an elder statesman even though he has earned such an incredible amount of money during his career. Does he actually need the money? If so, where did it all go? Who does he owe? Shipnuck does a good job of exploring the facts and rumors that have swirled around Phil for the better part of three decades. Mobbed up bookies. Insider trading scandals. Prolific gamblers. College admission scandals. And more. He’s famous for his escape shots like the one from the trees and pine-straw to the right of the 13th fairway at Augusta, but his off-course “escape shots” might be more impressive than those we’ve all watched on Sunday afternoons. Somehow Phil has escaped all of it mostly unscathed.
Those who follow the PGA Tour will remember the scandal that erupted around Matt Kuchar when he failed to pay a substitute caddie a bonus after he won at Mayakoba in 2018. One argument that was made in defense of Kuchar is that a local, substitute caddie is not entitled to the type of bonus that a regular caddie would receive because the local caddie does not take on the burden of a year’s worth of travel expenses. It is curious then that Phil has not faced more criticism for the facts surrounding his breakup with his longtime, iconic, and beloved caddie Jim “Bones” Mackay. Shipnuck reports that Phil failed to pay Mackay somewhere in the neighborhood of $900,000 that had accrued over a decade related to his FedEx Cup payouts. In addition, Phil refused to let Mackay keep the 18th hole flags following their victories, which is customary in professional golf. As Shipnuck reports, it was only with the looming breakup between player and caddie before Phil attempted to make Mackay whole and even then he did so in a way that showed disrespect to his longtime confidant and friend.
Based on the controversy that erupted around Kuchar’s caddie payment scandal one would think Phil’s actions with regard to Mackay would have garnered more outrage than they did. But why didn’t they? I have two thoughts.
The first is that Phil has had so many scandals regarding money, including things related to possible criminal indictment, this seemed both normal and less scandalous than other incidents. In a strange way Phil escapes the level of scrutiny that others might receive for similar actions because he’s set a fairly high bar for scandal, especially scandal related to money, over the years.
Second, despite his scandals through the years, Phil has done very well crafting a positive image for himself and becoming a fan favorite. One of the common themes throughout Shipnuck’s book is the many dimensions of Phil. He comes across as a bully and a shyster. But his ability to use his magnetic personality to connect with fans as well as his penchant for helping those he meets that are in need is also a big part of the story. As large as some of the scandals that Phil has sidestepped could have been, he has leveraged his very positive public image and remained a fan favorite for decades.
Shipnuck’s book is a fun read. Phil has been an important part of professional golf for three decades. Even if you’ve been paying close attention to his career it’s likely that you’ve forgotten some of what happened along the way. Reading it as one continuous narrative puts into perspective what Phil has meant to the game and what the game has meant to Phil. It also seems likely that Phil isn’t done being a lightning rod in the game. As new facts come out about what Phil has been up to I imagine this won’t be Shipnuck’s last word on him. At least I hope not.