Phil Mickelson (born June 16, 1970, San Diego, California, U.S.) is an American professional golfer who became one of the most dominant players on the Professional Golfers’ Association of America (PGA) Tour in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Early life and career
Mickelson took to golf at an extremely young age, hitting his first golf balls when just 18 months old. He learned the basics of the sport by mirroring his father’s swing, which led the naturally right-handed Phil to adopt the left-handed stroke that would later lead to his nickname, “Lefty.” He won dozens of San Diego-area tournaments as a junior golfer, and he captured an unprecedented three consecutive national Junior Player of the Year awards (1986, 1987, and 1988). His golfing prowess earned him a full scholarship to Arizona State University (ASU), where he established a reputation as one of the greatest American amateur golfers of all time. Mickelson was named first-team All-American in each of his four years at ASU, and he won three National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) individual championships (1989, 1990, and 1992). In 1990 he won the U.S. Amateur Championship, and the following year he won his first PGA Tour event, the Northern Telecom Open, becoming only the fourth amateur to win a PGA tournament.
Mickelson joined the PGA Tour in 1992. His first professional win came in 1993 at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, where he had played golf matches in high school. Mickelson won at least one tournament in each of the following three years, and he finished the 1996 PGA season with his first top-10 world ranking (seventh). He rose to second in the rankings in 2001, finishing behind Tiger Woods. The two golfers developed a rivalry that came to dominate the sport throughout the decade as the outgoing Mickelson and the more-reserved Woods divided golf fans with their disparate personalities and approaches to the game. Despite his great success on the Tour, Mickelson gained a reputation as the best player in the world to have never won a major tournament (the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open [Open Championship], or the PGA Championship), a distinction made more burdensome by his finishing second or third in six majors between 1999 and 2003.
