One Magical Sunday

by Phil Mickelson

  Love III

  E

  9

  O’Meara

  E

  10

  6

  Juniper

  Par 3

  180 yards

  As I walk up to the tee box on #6, I’m thinking about my final round here in 1995 where I hit the ball long, made double bogey, and knocked myself right out the tournament. Today, the pin is in that same spot and I’ll gladly take a par.

  Chris DiMarco, using a six-iron, hits first and sends it long and into the crowd. He’s right where I was in ‘95 and I know he’s got trouble over there. I pull out an 8 iron in order to make certain I don’t hit it too long. I want the ball to land just over the crest on the green—that’ll give it twelve or thirteen yards in which to stop. The key here is that I’ve got to hit it far enough to catch the shelf—otherwise it’ll roll way down to the left and off the green.

  My swing feels good and the ball is going straight at the pin. It appears to hit on the shelf and I think it has stopped. But as I’m walking toward the green, I see the ball has just barely caught the slope, and is rolling back down the hill. It finally comes to rest a few yards off the green. From there, it’s not nearly as hard a shot as being long would have been. I’m going to be chipping back up the hill and think I’ll be able to stop it close.

  As I walk down toward the green, I catch a glimpse of my wife, Amy, in the gallery. I know she’s there supporting me. What a great feeling.

  I first met Amy in the autumn of 1992 under somewhat unusual circumstances. Several of my golfing buddies and I went to a Guns N’ Roses concert way out in West Phoenix. There was so much traffic that three of us left the car about two miles from the park and jogged through the desert to get to the concert site. (One of the guys stayed behind to drive the car up to the parking lot). We were jumping over ravines and sliding down slopes along with a lot of other people. We made it to the concert on time and, after it was over, hung out backstage awhile before going back to the car. As luck would have it, a huge rainstorm came up during the concert and really doused the area. It also caused a lot of flash flooding; in fact, a few cars in the low areas were actually washed away.

  Due to all the flooding, a massive traffic jam out of the concert occurred. Nobody would be going anywhere for quite some time. So we pulled the car over and the four of us went to sleep. By sunrise the next morning, things had cleared up and we were able to get home by 7:30 a.m.

  One of my buddies had been telling me for quite some time about this beautiful girl who lived upstairs in our apartment complex. “You’ve got to meet her,” he kept saying. But I never took the time because I wasn’t into going to parties and, besides, I was always too busy playing golf.

  Well, when we pulled into the apartment complex, Amy McBride came bounding down the steps headed to her 7:40 morning class. She was dressed in shorts, a sweatshirt, and had a baseball cap on. Boy, did she look awesome! I (on the other hand) had been up all night, was covered in mud, dirt, and dust—and must have smelled like a men’s locker room.

  My friend introduced us—and she was very nice. “Hi. How’re you doing, Phil,” she said. “Nice to meet you.” She was so stunning that all I could say was “Hi.” That’s how I met my future wife—and it would never have happened if it hadn’t been for that rainstorm the night before.

  Two months later, I ran into Amy at a Special Olympics event during the Phoenix Open.

  Part of my job with the Phoenix Suns was to work at the Phoenix Open hospitality tent. I didn’t really like golf and wasn’t feeling very well because I had just had my wisdom teeth pulled. So I tried to pay one of my co-workers to take my shift. But she had something else to do—so I had to go.

  Sometimes, I think fate takes a hand in you meeting “the one”—because that’s where Phil and I ran into each other for the second time.

  Amy Mickelson, Phil’s Wife

  This time I didn’t waste any time in asking Amy for a date. At first, she was reluctant to so much as give me her phone number. Actually, it took thirty minutes of persistent talking before she would even consider going out with me. Finally, she relented and we set up an afternoon date to play tennis a few days later.

  I remember Amy calling me and saying she had a date with a guy she had just met. She said she was going on Saturday afternoon because it was easier to get out of a date during the day if it didn’t work out.

  I asked her what he was like and she responded: “He seems really shy and cute. But he’s an athlete—and you know how those ASU athletes are.”

  Renee McBride, Amy’s Mom

  On our date, I found out that Amy had grown up in San Francisco and Salt Lake City, that she loved to dance, and that she was a member of the Phoenix Suns cheerleading and dance team. Actually, I was intrigued with just about everything Amy said and did. At twenty-one, the last thing I was looking for was a soul mate. But I knew right away that this girl was really something special.

  The next day, I talked to Amy again and asked her how the date with the new guy went. She paused a moment and said: “You know, Mom, he is really a neat person—and so much fun. We laughed during the entire date. There’s just something about this guy. I feel drawn to him.”

  I sensed a very different tone in my daughter’s voice. And it wasn’t long thereafter that I turned to her father and said: “Amy’s going to marry this guy.”

  Renee McBride

  When we first met, Amy was a junior at ASU. I had graduated and was just starting on the PGA Tour as a professional. Because I knew she was special, I wanted to introduce her to my world because it is not as glamorous as most people think. So I asked her to come to the 1993 Bob Hope Celebrity Pro Am in Palm Springs, California—which was only a few hours from Phoenix. “It’ll be really fun,” I told her.

  When I first met Phil, I was only twenty years old and didn’t know anything about golf. I grew up in a tennis family, and when he told me he was a pro golfer, I thought he worked in the shop at a golf course. I also thought that golfers were very nerdy and that it was a sport for old men. I could understand how golf would be challenging if they had big defenders coming at them like in football. But the ball just sits there on the ground. I mean, come on, how hard could it be?

  Well, when he asked me to go to the Bob Hope tournament to see him, I thought we were going to be walking together on the golf course, holding hands and spending some fun time together.

  Amy Mickelson

  On Thursday, the day before Amy arrived, I played in the celebrity rotation with actor Joe Pesci, former football player and coach Mike Ditka, and another former football player, the huge Lawrence Taylor. When we got to the 18th hole (which is a par 5 over water), Ditka hit a couple of shots in the water. Then Pesci hit a couple of shots in the water. And then Lawrence Taylor hit a couple of shots in the water. So my ball was the only one that counted when we got up to the green. At this point in the tournament, I was about even par (all the professionals’ rounds count in the five-day event). So I was hoping to make the 15-foot birdie putt I had, not only to help our team, but also to get my own round going.

  Well, I spent a lot of time lining up this putt. And it looked good from the moment I stroked it. The ball was rolling, rolling, rolling—going right on the line I thought it would. When it got about 18 inches from the hole, I started walking because I could tell the ball was going right in the middle of the cup.

  Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, another ball came rolling onto the green, hit my ball in mid-roll, and deflected it off its path—and I didn’t make my birdie. I looked over in the direction where the ball came from and Lawrence Taylor was standing there with this sheepish look on his face. He had been practice putting and hit my ball.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Well, I was really hacked off and started walking toward him to give him a piece of my mind. But he got bigger and bigger as I got closer and closer—and all I could get out of my mouth was: “No problem,
L.T.” For gosh sakes, what else could I say to Lawrence Taylor? I got over it quickly, though, because Amy showed up for the next day’s round of golf.

  The Bob Hope Pro Am always has a fun atmosphere, which is why I thought it would be a great place for her to be introduced to pro golf. But I forget that there are a lot of pretty girls running around wearing T-shirts that say, “Bob Hope Classic.” And the girls will sometimes walk inside the gallery ropes and flirt with the golfers and celebrities. When a few of them came up and started talking to me, I saw Amy out of the corner of my eye and could tell she was not happy.

  To say that I was not happy is an understatement. I thought we were at least going to be spending some time together. That day, Phil only had about a dozen people following him, including me. The Bob Hope girls were inside the ropes giggling and flirting with Phil and his playing partner. I didn’t know what was going on or who these girls were. I had rearranged my entire schedule to be able to see Phil. But now I was thinking that there were a lot of other nice boys in the world. I didn’t need this.

  Amy Mickelson

  Well, this may not have been the smartest thing in the world to do, but I decided to play a joke on Amy. I wrote out a little note and wrapped it around my hotel room key. There were about a dozen people in the group following us. So I asked Bones to take the note to “that little blonde over there.” And he said, “Sure thing.”

  Bones the caddy came over to me and said: “My boss told me to give this to you.” And I thought, “Well, he’s trying to make up with a nice little note. That’s so sweet.”

  But I just didn’t understand why he handed it to me because Phil was standing on the edge of the green (only ten feet away) with a big grin on his face. When I opened the note, the hotel room key fell onto the ground. And the ladies who were standing around me just gasped.

  Well, I was so mad, I picked up the key and threw it at Phil as hard as I could.

  Amy Mickelson

  Luckily, Amy had a great sense of humor and, fortunately, forgave me for the prank. It wasn’t long after the tournament that we started getting really close. A couple of months later, Amy visited me when I played in another tournament (the Western Open). I was paired with Justin Leonard (future British Open champion), who at that time was a young up and comer. Even back then, Justin was known for his consistent play. Solid in the fairways, great approaches to the greens, lots of birdie and par putts. He was just a terrific golfer, period. Amy followed along in the gallery with us. It was her very first professional golfing event—and I remember wondering what she was thinking at the time.

  I really thought Justin was a very boring player. He always hit it in the fairway. He always hit it up there on the green. Then he’d hit one or two putts and he was done.

  Phil, on the other hand, was having much more fun. He hardly ever hit it in the fairway. And he’d hit these shots that would bend around the trees. And when he was in the bunkers around the green (which was often), he’d hit the ball right up there next to the pin. It was fun to watch.

  Amy Mickelson

  That day, Justin and I were also playing with 1995 Masters champion Ben Crenshaw. Amy followed along for the entire round and I saw her spending a lot of time with Ben’s wife. At dinner that night, Amy really seemed to have picked up a pretty good knowledge of golf.

  Julie Crenshaw, Ben’s wife, came up to me after one of the early holes, introduced herself, and said: “That was a great birdie Phil made.”

  “What’s a birdie?” I asked.

  Julie smiled at me and said, “What in the world do you and Phil talk about?”

  “Not golf,” I responded.

  Well, Julie spent that entire round teaching me about birdies, eagles, bogeys, double bogeys, honors, par 3s, par 4s, and par 5s. On the back nine, she’d quiz me. “Okay, is this a par 4 or a par 5?” she would ask. Then when we’d go up to the next hole, she’d ask: “Okay, who has the honors?”

  So in one round, thanks to Julie Crenshaw, I got a terrific golf education.

  Amy Mickelson

  It wasn’t long before Amy and I were spending every moment we could together. I was new on the PGA Tour at the time and missed a lot of tournament cuts—which meant that I didn’t get to play on Saturdays and Sundays. It wasn’t good for my career, but Amy liked it when I missed cuts because I’d come home two days early.

  We soon started to get very serious in our relationship and, of course, that entailed a visit to Utah to meet her parents. So six months after we met, Amy and I flew to Salt Lake City.

  Okay, this was big. Really big. I told Mom and Dad that I wanted to marry this boy.

  I was a mess. I was so nervous. I wanted them to love him as much as I did.

  Amy Mickelson

  During that first meeting with Amy’s parents, I probably didn’t show my very best colors. However, I did show my true colors because I wanted to make sure they knew I wasn’t trying to sugarcoat anything. So I pretty much put myself out there.

  That evening, we all came back to the house after a nice dinner and were sitting around watching Cheers, my favorite television show. I mentioned to everybody that the producers of Cheers had called me and asked me if I wanted to sit at the bar on one of the show’s final episodes. But things just didn’t work out because of my schedule.

  “Man!” I said. “I would have given my left nut to have been on that show!”

  I admit that might have not been the smartest thing to say out loud—and I regretted it the moment I said it. Amy’s father and little brother thought it was really funny. But her mom kind of grimaced. After that, I figured I needed to do something to show her mom that I wasn’t a complete moron.

  Fairly early in their relationship, Amy and Phil were at our house and talking about their similarities. They were acting like they were meant to be together.

  “We both have a big sister,” they said. “And they both have blue eyes.”

  “We both have a little brother. And they both have brown eyes.”

  “We’re both the middle child. And we both have green eyes.”

  They would just sit at the table and stare at each other.

  Gary McBride, Amy’s Dad

  A couple of months later, I managed to endear myself to Amy’s father, as well. I had this little event at Euro Disney in France and I asked her to go with me. “Hey, why don’t we go to Paris together. It will be really fun. We’ll go for a week and see the Eiffel Tower. What do you think?”

  “Oh, I’d love to go,” she responded, “but I really don’t think my dad would let me.”

  “Come on,” I said, “you’re an adult.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll call your father.”

  “No, that doesn’t sound like such a good idea. Maybe I should call him.”

  We went back and forth for a week about who should call her father about this trip to Paris. So finally, I called him.

  “Mr. McBride, I love your daughter,” I said. “We really are in love—and I’m going to Paris and it would really be fun if she could go with me. There would be separate rooms, of course.”

  You know, that phone call kind of hit me wrong. Phil was nice, very nice. But dads are pretty protective of their daughters. And when he said they would have separate rooms, I was thinking: “Right—like there are no hallways.”

  Gary McBride

  After thinking about it for a few seconds, my dad called me up. “Amy,” he said, “if you marry Phil, there will be lots of trips. If you don’t marry him, then you shouldn’t be going on this particular trip. This is your decision, Amy. But you’re not going.”

  So I told Phil and he agreed with me that I shouldn’t go to Paris with him.

  But we’ve been married for quite some time now—and I still haven’t been to Paris.

  Amy Mickelson

  That same year (1993), I won my first tournament as a professional. It was the Buick Open in my hometown of San Diego—and the first thing I
did after I won was to call Amy—who was back at her apartment in Tempe. “Did you see me?” I asked. “I was on television. I just won my first tournament.”

  “No,” she said. “I was down at the swimming pool with my girlfriends.”

  Because Amy was working for the NBA at the time, she figured that golf was much like basketball where you won fifty or more percent of your games. And she figured that golf was much the same. “Well, this is a really big thing, Amy,” I said. “This is a huge day for me. I want you to come out to San Diego and celebrate with my family and me. It would mean a lot to me.” So that night, Amy got on a plane, flew out, and met my parents for the first time (We stayed in separate rooms, of course.)

  One of the things I did after I won the Buick Open was to present my grandfather (Alfred Santos, my mom’s dad) a white flag from the tournament. He took it and proudly put it up on the wall of his kitchen. That was a tradition I established—he got a flag after every win.

  My grandfather had a tough upbringing. He was forced to leave high school in order to help provide for his family. So he became a professional fisherman, which took him away from home for months at a time. But when he got married and had three daughters, he made a key decision. He sold his fishing business, took the money and invested it, and then started working small odd jobs here and there. In other words, he sacrificed his own prosperity to be home to help my grandmother raise my mom and her two sisters. My grandfather put his family first but, with hard work and some shrewd investments, he still became a success. I always admired the fact that he was able to win at both and, in that respect, I’ve tried to model myself after him.