One Magical Sunday

by Phil Mickelson

  Then Payne cupped my face in his hands and said: “Phil, you’re going to be a father and there’s nothing greater in the world. You and Amy are going to make wonderful parents.” I was just so impressed that Payne would be thinking about the situation Amy and I were in—let alone mentioning it on the green right after he had just won the U.S. Open.

  As soon as I finished my post-round press conference, I flew home. When I arrived at the house, Amy and her mother were fast asleep and I didn’t wake them up. It was a difficult night for me. That tournament meant a lot and I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the last few holes—reliving every shot. If only I had done this. If only I had done that. I finally fell asleep at 7:30 on Monday morning.

  At 9:00 a.m., Amy’s water broke and we rushed to the hospital. It’s interesting to think about it now, but had Payne missed that 15-foot putt, I would have been teeing off with him in North Carolina for an 18-hole playoff to determine the winner of the 1999 U.S. Open—on that same Monday morning!

  Amanda Brynn Mickelson was born on June 21, 1999, at 6:11 p.m.—just about twenty-four hours after the Open concluded. What magical timing. I simply cannot describe how special that feeling was when I saw my wife give birth to my daughter. There are few experiences in life that people always cherish—and those are the events we live for. For me, Amanda’s birth was one of them. I never felt so at peace.

  My friend Payne Stewart died later that year in a tragic airplane accident. It was Payne’s destiny, I now believe, to have won the 1999 U.S. Open. But his passing just reinforces to me how inconsequential golf is in the larger game of life. Payne left behind his wife, Tracey, and their two children, Aaron and Chelsea. He was a very special person and I think of him often.

  For my third shot on #8, I’m about twenty yards right of the green. All I have to do is pitch it over a mound and drop it behind the pin. Then the ball should catch a slight incline and roll back down to within five or six feet of the hole. So I hit a nice lob shot. The ball lands right where I wanted it to land. But it does not roll back down as far as I’d hoped. Now I have an interesting little ten-footer to make birdie. On the green, I really take a close look at this putt. Actually, it sets up perfectly for me. I love hooked putts like this—putts that move left to right. It’s not downhill. It’s not very quick. I can be aggressive and give it a good roll.

  When Philip was in high school, he hit thousands of putts just like this one on the practice green at Stardust. And he hit most of them in the dark. After the sun went down, the green was poorly lit by a few small lights that were quite a distance away. He really couldn’t see more than ten or fifteen feet. So he practiced those little left-to-right ten-footers over and over and over again.

  Phil Mickelson, Sr., Phil’s Dad

  I’m confident as I stand over this putt. I make a very good stroke—and when the ball is about two or three feet from the hole, I think it’s going right in the center of the cup. But during that last eight to ten inches, the ball stops its rate of turn, catches the left edge of the cup, and lips out. I breathe a deep, deep sigh because I’m so surprised the ball did not go in the hole. I quickly tap in for par. As we’re walking off the green, I turn to Bones. “You’re pager hasn’t gone off, has it?”

  “Nope, all clear,” he responds. Bones’ wife, Jen, is expecting their first child any day now. He’s carrying a pager that is always on. We also have a phone in my bag, but it’s turned off. Another major tournament. Another baby being born.

  As we head for the 9th tee, I’m thinking that I just let two holes slip by (#7 and #8) on which I could have made birdie. I’m tied for second now, with Bernhard Langer and Paul Casey. We’re all one shot behind Ernie Els.

  PLAYER

  SCORE

  HOLE

  Els

  -5

  9

  Mickelson

  -4

  8

  Langer

  -4

  8

  Casey

  -4

  8

  DiMarco

  -3

  8

  Singh

  -2

  13

  Garcia

  -2

  16

  Choi

  -1

  10

  Triplett

  -1

  10

  Love III

  E

  12

  Couples

  E

  12

  Cink

  E

  10

  Harrington

  E

  10

  Price

  E

  10

  9

  Carolina Cherry

  Par 4

  460 yards

  Dogleg Left

  The front nine at Augusta rounds out with a superb closing hole. And it sets up well for me because of the dogleg left. So on the tee, I go ahead and rip a driver just like I’ve been doing all week—fading it to the left to take advantage of the dogleg. The ball lands just where I want it to—right in the center of the fairway.

  Now I have 143 yards to the hole. My lie is on a downslope, but that’s not going to be any problem. The green slopes from back to front, there are two bunkers on the left side, and the pin placement is toward the front. My goal here is to hit the ball close to the flag and stop it fast. But as I have been doing in most of this round so far, I fly it a little too far. My ball lands on the backside of the green leaving me a long putt. I don’t think it’ll be too bad from there. A par for sure, maybe birdie.

  So I missed my second shot on the 9th hole at Augusta. But it was a good miss. Some people think I get lucky when I hit the ball too far and it still lands on the green. But I play them that way. There’s no such thing as an impossible shot.

  * * *

  “Mr. and Mrs. Mickelson,” said the doctor, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but it’s all but impossible for you to conceive again. You are an infertile couple. It was almost a miracle that you had one baby. Mrs. Mickelson, you probably won’t get pregnant again, but we’d like to explore some fertility options in order to give you a chance.”

  Amy and I agreed to undergo fertility treatments, but told the doctor that we’d begin after our one-week vacation to Hawaii. In January 2001, we went back to the Grand Wailea on Maui and again rubbed our hands on the Hawaiian God of Fertility. Six weeks later—Presto!—Amy was pregnant again. We never did start the fertility treatments. It’s true. I swear. There must be magic in our lives.

  All that year, while Amy was pregnant, I tried to spend as much time as possible with Amanda, who, at two, needed some attention. I remember one time when she was throwing one of those fits that all parents of kids her age have to go through. To try to get her to calm down, I let her watch a movie before bedtime. But she kept crying and complaining. This wasn’t the movie she wanted. She wanted dessert and candy. She wanted this and that. So finally, I said: “Amanda, if you keep this up, we’re not going to have a movie tonight.” Well, she kept it up.

  “I’m sorry, Amanda,” I said, “but you chose to keep this up, so I have to turn off the movie.” So I turned the movie off and put her in bed. Of course, now she really started screaming. “I want my movie! I want my movie!”

  “Now, Amanda, we need to stop this. I’m going to leave the room and if I come back and you’re still crying, the first thing that’s going to go is your silkies” [her small baby blankets].” So I left and came back in a couple of minutes and she was still howling.

  “Amanda,” I said, “that’s not a very good choice. So now I have to take away your silkies. I want you to know that if you keep yelling like this, the next thing to go will be your friends [her stuffed animals]. I don’t want to take them away. I want you to sleep with your friends.” I left again, but came back a few minutes later because she was sti
ll screaming.

  “Amanda, it really makes me sad that you chose to lose your friends, too. Now you can cry here all you want. And tomorrow, if you can act better, you can have your silkies and your friends back. Then we’ll start a new day.” So I took Amanda’s silkies and all ten of her stuffed animals and put them at the foot of our bed.

  The next morning at about 7:30, she woke up and came into our room. “Daddy,” she said sweetly, “I can act better today. Can I have my friends and silkies back now?”

  “Yes, you can, Amanda,” I said. And she embraced them all in her arms and took them back to her bed. And ever since then, Amanda always knows that when we say we’re going to do something, we’re really going to follow through. And it makes a big difference in how she behaves and reacts to us when she does something wrong. (That’s a lesson learned from my parents coming around again with my own children).

  Overall, I had a pretty good year in 2001, although I gained quite a bit of weight because Amy was pregnant. You know how it is—when she would eat, I would eat. When she didn’t feel great, I didn’t feel great. I think they call that “sympathy” pain.

  I didn’t feel any pain on the Tour, however. As a matter of fact, I was having a lot of fun. At the Bay Hill Invitational, I played a pretty good practical joke on Colin Montgomerie. Monty, of course, is from Great Britain. He has a wonderful sense of humor and he’s one of those guys you can always joke around with.

  While I was at the tournament, I read an article in the newspaper in which he was asked why he had not won any tournaments in the United States. He responded by saying that it was very difficult for him to play well because he always received very poor tee times. He said he was always teeing off either very early or very late. On the PGA Tour, of course, there are very strict rules for who tees off when. They always give midday tee times to those who have already won victories on the Tour to accommodate television. Those who have not won are assigned either early or late tee times.

  Well, I thought Monty had made an interesting comment. So I asked a friend for a sheet of paper with an official PGA Tour letterhead and I wrote this short “official” note to Monty (which I left in his locker):

  Dear Colin,

  After reading your comments in the newspaper, we at the PGA Tour Policy Board held an emergency meeting last night to discuss your concerns about these terrible tee times you’ve been receiving. We think we have a solution.

  Win a freaking tournament! [Another G-rated version.]

  Sincerely,

  The PGA Tour Policy Board

  The next morning, I saw Monty out on the practice green. He would hit a few putts and then go over to his caddy and say: “I cannot believe they would send me such a letter!” Then he’d make a few more putts and go back to his caddy. “Can you imagine them doing that?” he’d say.

  Well, after observing him for a few minutes, I grabbed my putter and a couple of golf balls and went over to the putting green. “Hi, Monty,” I said. “Say, did you get my letter?”

  “You did it?!” he shouted. “You did it?!”

  On a more serious note, I almost managed to win the final major of 2001, the PGA Championship. That year it was held in Duluth, Georgia, and I really played well. I had three straight rounds of 66, but going into Sunday’s last round, I was still trailing David Toms by two shots. David was really hot that week. He shot rounds of 66, 65, and 65—and on Saturday, he had a hole-in-one on the 15th hole only minutes after I had taken a two-shot lead with a birdie on the same hole.

  During the final round on Sunday, I managed to catch David by chipping in from off the green for birdie. But when I went to the 16th tee, I was not in a patient frame of mind. I hit a tree with my drive, but the ball miraculously bounced back in the fairway. On my approach shot, I went right for the pin, but missed and left myself a 50-foot putt. Still impatient, I tried to make a spectacular putt to win the tournament but ended up running the ball eight feet past the cup. Then I missed that quick, downhill curling putt and made a bogey.

  On the 18th green, David Toms sank a testy 10-footer for his par and won his first major championship by one shot. I’d had a great tournament and finished by myself in second place. And I was one of only three players in the field to shoot under par for all four days. One more time, however, I walked away without the trophy.

  It didn’t matter, though, because a few months later, Amy presented me with something far more valuable: our second daughter, Sophia. She was born on October 23, 2001, in the middle of the Tour Championship. This time, however, I took absolutely no chances and skipped the tournament completely. I didn’t want Amy going through the same thing she’d experienced with Amanda, so I just stayed home.

  Unlike Amanda, however, Sophia had some real problems after her birth. She had a cone head, she was purple, and her face seemed to be bleeding. Amy was fine, thank goodness, but we had to stay in the hospital for ten days with Sophia because of all her problems—which included jaundice, heart flutters, acid reflux, and colic.

  After four or five days in the hospital, people would come to visit us and say, “Wow, Sophia is looking so much better. Her color is great and she’s so much prettier.”

  Honestly, I didn’t know what they were talking about. She was beautiful from the moment she came out.

  Amy Mickelson

  A day or so after Sophia was born, my mom and Amy’s mom came over to the hospital to be with Amy, Amanda, and Sophia. The women sent me off to go see the Arizona Diamondbacks play in the World Series—a few hours’ reprieve that I felt a bit reluctant to do, but they insisted.

  Well, I was sitting in one of the first rows behind the Diamondbacks’ dugout and the television camera apparently picked me up when they focused on right-handed batters. And sure enough, several members of the media blasted me. “If he can go to a baseball game, surely he can come play in a golf tournament.

  But you know there’s a big difference between three hours at a baseball game and six days away in another city. I bet there’s not a mom in this country who’d fault me for my decision to stay home for the birth of our daughter.

  Not long after Sophia got out of the hospital, I began taking up martial arts training. I learned very quickly that there is a lot of crossover application to golf. For instance, in your golf swing, you have to stabilize your lower body while you swing the club. And in the martial arts, you have to stabilize your hips when you make a kick. That training really helped me create better strength and balance for my golf swing. And I really loved the practice sessions.

  Whatever Phil tries, he wants to be the best at it. He also wants to practice on everybody around him. When he was doing magic tricks, he was always asking people to “pick a card,” and when he was into flying, he was always asking people to go fly with him. (Of course, I strongly advised anyone who would listen not to fly with Phil!)

  Well, during this karate kick he was on, we were sharing an evening with several of our friends on Tour. After dinner was over, Phil went around to everyone saying: “Attack me! Strangle me!”

  Most of the people looked at him like he was crazy—which, of course, he is. But Jeff Sluman’s wife, Linda, said, “Okay, I’ll attack you.” And she leaped on his back and started pounding on him and clawing at him.

  Oh, I was so embarrassed.

  Amy Mickelson

  In 2002, I finished second at the U.S. Open again. This time it was to Tiger Woods. The tournament was held up in New York at Bethpage, which is a public golf course. That seemed to make a big difference in the fan response. I mean the New Yorkers were great all week and really supported the event.

  I started out kind of slow, but then began to make a lot of birdies on Saturday’s third round. On Sunday, I played one group in front of Tiger, who had a five-shot lead over the field. He was really on fire during that entire tournament. I made a good run at him, but could only make up two of the five shots. Even though I finished second at another major, it was a very uplifting event for me. The peo
ple of New York gave me an experience I will always cherish.

  I have to say that, by the end of 2002, I was really enjoying my career as a professional on the PGA Tour. With the exception of 1999, I had won at least one tournament every year. I had four victories each in 1996 and 2000, two victories each in 1993, 1997, 2001, and 2002, and one victory in the years 1994 and 1995.

  So when I gave my grandfather his two flags for my victories in 2002, he looked up on his wall and counted them—twenty-one in all. Then he looked at me and said: “Philip, enough of these regular Tour wins. Don’t bring me any more flags unless it’s for a major. I want the Masters up there.”

  Back on the 9th green, I have a long putt—at least sixty feet. It has a big right to left break. I’ve had it before and I know it is not hard to get the ball close. I just have to get it to the tier about thirty feet away, and then let it slowly roll down to the cup. As I stand over the ball, I’m actually thinking I can hole it. The putt looks good from the moment I stroke it. But it misses by three or four inches just outside the left edge and rolls a foot by. I tap it in and walk off the green.

  We’ve completed the front nine and have now circled back to the clubhouse. I have not shot a particularly good score, either. I’m out in 38 strokes—two over par. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I’m still only one shot off the lead.

  PLAYER

  SCORE

  HOLE

  Els

  -5

  10

  Mickelson

  -4

  9

  Langer

  -4

  9