PHIL MICKELSON
COULD PHIL MICKELSON’S PLAYING CAREER BE OVER?
One year after his surprise runner-up finish in the Masters, Phil Mickelson has taken a big step backward. He has finished out of the top 20 in nine of the 10 LIV Golf events. His didn’t break par in any of the 12 rounds he played in the four majors, missing the cut in two of them.
Mickelson says he is an equity shareholder in his HyFlyers team on LIV Golf and believes he will be involved for decades to come.
“But as far as my career, I’m realistic with where I’m at,” he said last week in a conference call to promote his latest YouTube venture called “Pros versus Schmoes.”
Mickelson has been injury-free for most of his career. He’s just not producing the scores.
“I see glimpses, and my teammates see glimpses, of me being where I expect to be able to compete at this level,” he said. “But I’m also realistic with myself, and if I’m not able to I’ll step aside and let somebody come on in and take the HyFlyers to new levels.”
Mickelson, who won the 2021 PGA Championship at age 50 to become golf’s oldest major champion, has one more year of eligibility for the U.S. Open. He can play the Masters and PGA Championship as long as he likes and the British Open for six more years.
BRANDT SNEDEKER TO RECEIVE PAYNE STEWART AWARD
The Payne Stewart Award has become one of the most cherished honors on the PGA Tour, and it took on special meaning for Brandt Snedeker when he was announced as this year’s recipient.
Snedeker was still at Vanderbilt when Stewart died in an October 1999 plane crash, so he never met him. That was case for Zach Johnson and Justin Rose in recent years, and it will continue as time goes on.
Snedeker still felt connected in a couple of ways.
His family is from the Springfield, Missouri, area, where Stewart was raised.
“My grandmother actually knew Payne Stewart’s father and that’s how she became a golf fan,” Snedeker said. “She didn’t play golf and she actually got me started in the game of golf. So indirectly through Payne’s father I got to play golf at an early age. I probably wouldn’t have.
“Just through that one little act of giving me a set of golf clubs and that one interaction she had with Payne’s dad kind of started this whole process,” he said. “It’s kind of cool, 37 years later to be sitting here with that award means tons to me.”
Snedeker’s rookie year was 2007, when he won the Wyndham Championship and reached the Tour Championship. The Payne Stewart Award ceremony was held at the Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta that year, and Snedeker attended to watch Hal Sutton get honored. The ceremony rarely disappoints with genuine emotion and humility from the winners.
Snedeker said he set a goal of one day receiving the award.
“I went to it every year I played the Tour Championship and just saw these heroes, icons of mine breaking down on stage and going through what they’ve given back in their communities and kind of reinforce what the tour is all about,” he said.
