Si Woo Kim closes strong to win The American Express

According to one estimate, some 500 million tweets fly through the Twittersphere daily. And those are just the ones sent by Phil Mickelson. OK, that’s not technically true, but sometimes it seems that way. Since jumping into social media with both feet on Aug. 22, 2018, Mickelson — who this week takes on a new role as host of The American Express tournament in Palm Desert, California — has been a high-volume, high-quality, must-follow in the world of golf and beyond. “I didn’t realize how powerful a tool it was,â€� Mickelson tells the PGA TOUR. He does now. How did Mickelson, who didn’t even have a Twitter account 18 months ago, become such a player amongst golf’s social media set? To borrow a phrase from the man himself, it’s a recent development. ’I’ve got this Twitter thing down’ Mickelson will turn 50 this summer, which means when he first joined the PGA TOUR, “socialâ€� meant you happened to get paired with Lee Trevino. When that began to change, he played on, leaving social media to younger players and veterans such as Stewart Cink, Ian Poulter and Bubba Watson, early adopters all. It didn’t last. When along came Mickelson’s big-money, winner-take-all match against Tiger Woods in November 2018, the popular lefthander, a 44-time TOUR winner, wanted a way to promote it. His inaugural tweet, a GIF of him winking while at the Presidents Cup, featured the copy, “I got this @Twitter thing down.â€� Well, yes and no. He had to get up to speed on a new platform, and a language spoken more fluently by his kids and players like Thomas and Rickie Fowler. No worries; Mickelson backed up his bravado. He was funny, zany and daring. He was also prolific. If his match with Tiger inspired the leap into social media, then Mickelson’s earlier Mizzen+Main commercial, a goofy spot for performance menswear in which he danced and did the worm, informed his style. The video went viral, not only opening his eyes to the power of social media but establishing his brand of self-effacing humor. This led to half-serious, half-mocking posts about his calves and thumbs. If you were following him on Twitter or Instagram recently, you would have seen him working out in the gym, skiing down a mountain, and taking a selfie with his coaches and caddie. The copy read, in part: “I am ready to work hard and play some great golf again.â€� #hitbombs #attackpins Says Henrik Stenson, who posts only intermittently, “It takes a lot of effort to be that active. Whether that’s because he thinks it’s a lot of fun or to raise his profile and gain more followers and give more value to his sponsors, I’m not sure.â€� The answer to the “whyâ€� question is multi-pronged, but in general Mickelson says he wants to provide a forum for stories that have gone untold, and for players whose personalities don’t always come across when they’re between the ropes. He also just wants to have fun because, well, he’s Mickelson. He ticks all those boxes with “Phireside with Phil,â€� talk-show style interviews with TOUR pros (Bryson DeChambeau, Justin Thomas, a shirtless Zach Johnson) and others (comedian Larry David). The setting: anywhere. The subject matter: anything. His one rule: Stories can’t denigrate anyone except, maybe, the person telling them. “I think everybody that watches those feels they’re getting the insight onto what’s going on on TOUR, and some funny little things that have happened,â€� Mickelson says. Some cringe-worthy things, too. Zach Johnson absent his shirt doesn’t even rate as cringe-worthy compared to a few other Mickelson moments, but it does beg for an explanation. “Well, if you know Zach, when we play in the team events, he walks around shirtless all the time,â€� Mickelson says. “So it’s just him, it’s just who he is. And I think it came to him, ‘Look, I’ll be on your show if I can be shirtless.’â€� The response has been unmistakable; people are watching, even if it’s through their fingers. Stenson, who beat Mickelson in an instant-classic duel at the 2016 Open Championship at Troon, has not been on yet but hasn’t ruled it out. “He asked me, but we were soaked in rain gear after one of the practice rounds at the British Open, so it never happened,â€� Stenson says. “Yeah, I’ll join him at the Phireside at some point when the timing is right.â€� Given the popularity of the Phireside concept, and the fact that Mickelson has 715,000 followers on Twitter alone – picking up north of 100,000 on day one – Gary Woodland sums it up nicely when he says of Lefty’s social media game, “I would say it’s pretty strong for a guy coming out of nowhere.â€� Legendary Tweet-storms The most popular athletes on Instagram are soccer players, and they start at 200 million followers (Cristiano Ronaldo). But Mickelson holds his own in the golf space with 716,000, between Ian Poulter (423,000) and Bubba Watson (791,000). If nothing else, Mickelson has proven that golf Twitter and golf Instagram are not just the domain of the young. World Golf Hall of Famer Gary Player calls Mickelson a great follow. So does PGA TOUR Champions player Brad Faxon. “He’s hysterical,â€� Faxon says. “Almost like you want to shut your eyes and not watch some of the stuff he does. Childlike enthusiasm. Talk about no inhibitions. I admire it. Hope he plays great this year but really hope he gets me on his phireside chat.â€� Adds Player, “Phil gets it right. His personality shines through. He is engaging, funny and authentic.â€� No doubt, Mickelson has cultivated a loyal following. Whom does he follow back? On Twitter, his tastes run toward fellow TOUR pros and LPGA stars, but also the NFL (Tom Brady, J.J. Watt, Antonio Gates of the L.A. Chargers). He follows golf media (NBC’s Dan Hicks, David Feherty, Peter Jacobsen) and even some of the parody accounts that have taken an interest in him. Few of these accounts, though, are as active, and as goofy, as Mickelson’s. When he didn’t make the season-ending TOUR Championship last August, he spent the night before the first round firing off 180 tweets over roughly four hours. Census takers are still trying to find just one person he didn’t tweet to. “I just want you to know that my life would be complete if you won a U.S. Open,â€� someone tweeted. “Mine too,â€� Mickelson responded. And so on. One of the better exchanges: Barstool Sports tweeted a photo of him swimming, with, “Since When Does Phil Mickelson Have The Body of a Greek God?â€� Replied Mickelson, who has radically altered his diet, “It’s a recent development.â€� Absent much to post about in the way of good results last season, other than his AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am victory, and in between Phiresides, his newfound obliques and legendary calves have been a popular fallback in his postings. The best of these may have come last September, when Brady was battling a calf injury and declared limited for a New England Patriots practice. Mickelson jumped all over it. “I’m on standby for a flight to Boston,â€� he tweeted. “Let’s not let inadequate calves hold us back.â€� Replied Brady: “The Phil Mickelson Method … for jacked calves? Sign me up.â€� Younger players are among those who have watched with an air of bemusement. “He’s kind of fallen in love with it,â€� Fowler says. “People love the tips and things like that, the Phireside stuff. Not sure how I feel about the name; it’s kind of a little corny. But he’s having fun with it, and I think people are getting to see his character and his playfulness. It’s definitely entertaining.â€� Adds Thomas, a friend who lost a playoff to Mickelson at the 2018 World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship, “He’s not faking anything. He’s just being himself. People are like, ‘It’s not him,’ but I’m like, ‘Trust me, it’s him. It’s Phil.’ He’s not acting any differently. People are just seeing the side that we see every week.â€� The Phuture of Phireside Now that he’s a year and a half into it, Mickelson the social media maven has learned a few things, and has a good idea where he wants to go next. “It’s really struck me what a unique opportunity this is to engage and develop a much closer, more emotional relationship with the fans,â€� he says. “And so I want to continue to do that but really from my angle as opposed to a younger guy. “Me being somebody that’s almost 50 now,â€� he continues, “I want to use it as a way of telling the stories that have already happened that people haven’t heard about as opposed to posting what’s going on in the here and now.â€� He plans on having some caddies on the Phireside, “because they have some unique stories,â€� he says. But, he adds, he’s leery of his brother. Tim Mickelson once told this reporter a story about playing poker with Phil on a houseboat; Phil stacked the deck when Tim went to the bathroom and never told him. Perhaps wisely, Phil seems to have opted not to open himself up to further such yarns. Asked if he would go on the show, Fowler says, “I would have to figure out what we’d talk about.â€� Mickelson’s second interview with Thomas, recorded in the locker room at the BMW Championship last fall, hasn’t aired yet. “He just asked if you want to do a story,â€� Thomas says of how it all came to be. “And I brought a couple up and he was like, ‘Yeah, it sounds good.’â€� Could he see himself doing so much social media at 50? Thomas shakes his head. “I don’t think enough people will care what I’ll think at that age,â€� he says with a laugh. “But Phil will always be relevant.â€�

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After slow and steady improvement but a failure to play his best on Sundays, Kevin Tway comes up huge with five closing birdies, three in a sudden-death playoff, to break through for his first PGA TOUR victory at the Safeway Open at Silverado Resort & Spa. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Tway made like his famous dad, Bob, who watched with tears in his eyes at home in Oklahoma. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. The father-son thing doesn’t always work out. Golf is hard, playing it at this level is beyond hard, and being the son of a famous golf pro can be downright daunting. The name (and high expectations) follows you everywhere, and Bob Tway was more accomplished than most, his eight victories on TOUR including the 1986 PGA Championship at Inverness, where he holed out from a bunker to win. Still, Kevin persevered, turning his DNA into a positive. “He knows my swing so well,� Kevin said of his dad. “He can watch on the telecast or he can look at ShotLink and he knows what kind of tendencies I have, where I’m aiming, why I hit that one left. We talk after every round about each shot and what I was feeling and what I wasn’t feeling.� 2. The big number at Safeway was 10, but not how we anticipated. Brandt Snedeker, who took a four-shot lead into the back nine, was vying for the 10th TOUR win of his career. He didn’t get it, faltering with a back-nine 39 to open the door for Tway, who stormed through it with his birdie-birdie finish in regulation and three straight birdies in the playoff. Still, we got a historic 10 at the Safeway: Kevin’s victory made the Tways the 10th father-son duo to win on TOUR. “Well, it just shows it’s very difficult to do,� Bob said. “People always ask the kids, ‘Is it hard to play with a father who has played on TOUR?’ I think when they’re young, I think it is. I think there are expectations that other people have, and I think you feel it. “But I think overall, and I think Kevin would even admit, that overall it’s a good thing,� Bob continued. “There’s a lot of knowledge that can be passed (on).� 3. Moore distinguished himself. The five-time TOUR winner hung tough with a birdie on the last hole of regulation, plus two more on the first two holes of the playoff (also the par-5 18th). He just couldn’t match winner Tway’s birdie on the third extra hole, the par-4 10th. “I’m going to be honest,� Moore said, “I didn’t even expect to be in this position.� Finishing 40 minutes ahead of the last threesome, Moore carded a 67 and then hung around to watch as Snedeker hit a tree and bogeyed the par-4 17th, then failed to birdie the easy 18th. On the first playoff hole, Moore got up and down from behind the 18th green, sinking a testy short putt for birdie to extend the playoff with Tway. (Snedeker had bowed out with a par.) And Moore nearly eagled the second playoff hole, also 18, his long putt coming up just short. “I was proud of how I played,� Moore said, “and hitting good shots in the moment.� 4. Snedeker will have to regroup. This was a stunning result, considering Snedeker was four ahead at the turn. His three bogeys on holes 10-12 gave everyone else hope, and while it seemed he had steadied himself with a birdie at the par-5 16th hole, he got out of position and hit a tree on 17, leading to a costly bogey. Knowing he needed to birdie 18 to win, and fighting a left miss that had plagued him for much of the back nine, Snedeker blocked his drive right, into a fairway bunker. Then he made matters worse as he accidentally laid up into the right rough with his second shot. “I tried like hell to get out of it,� Snedeker said of his left miss, “and kind of kept doing it, kept doing it, and it stinks when that happens. That’s why you practice and play so much, put yourself in position to see how it holds up. Today it didn’t hold up. That’s disappointing. “It will be a long night and a long trip to Malaysia,� he added, “but Thursday next week, another opportunity to come out here and try to fix what I did wrong.� 5. Couples was the feel-good story of the week. Fred Couples finally accepted a sponsor’s exemption to play the Safeway, and was happy he did as the week was full of highlights. He loved the course, celebrated his 59th birthday, and shot a second-round 65 in the company of pals Snedeker and Patrick Cantlay to make the 500th cut of his PGA TOUR career. It was all so much fun he’s thinking of coming back next year. “I’d love to come back,� said Couples, who earlier had said this would be his final non-major TOUR start. There’s just something about Napa. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Tway was 19th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, 22nd in SG: Approach-the-Green, 7th in SG: Around-the-Green, and 18th in SG: Putting. For the week, Tway was one of three players to go a combined 8-under on holes 16-18 in regulation. This marked the best week of Tway’s career in Scrambling, as he saved par 80 percent (16/20) of the time he missed the green. His previous bests were: 76 percent (19/25) at the 2018 Corales Puntacana Resort Championship, 75 percent (18/24) at the Valero Texas Open. 2. Ryan Moore’s playoff record fell to 2-3, but he has five TOUR wins and has been remarkably consistent. This marked his fourth top-10 finish in six Safeway starts, and he is coming off a 71st place finish in the FedExCup, the 12th straight season in which he’s advanced to at least the second Playoffs event. 3. Snedeker’s playoff record fell to 2-2 as he recorded his eighth runner-up finish on TOUR. He led the field with 23 birdies, with Troy Merritt (T4) finishing second with 22. Snedeker was aiming to win back-to-back Regular Season tournaments (Wyndham Championship). 4. Luke List (T4) played his final five holes in 4-under (birdie, par, birdie, par, eagle) to close with a 5-under 67. In 123 TOUR starts, he also owns two runner-up finishes (2017 Sanderson Farms Championship, 2018 The Honda Classic) and two thirds (2017 Houston Open, 2018 RBC Heritage). 5. Aaron Baddeley (69, T4) was trying to become the first Monday qualifier to win since Arjun Atwal at the 2010 Wyndham Championship. With the top-10 finish, Baddeley earned a spot in the field at the Sanderson Farms Championship, Oct. 25-28.

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