Davis Love III on THE PLAYERS moving back to March

Phil Mickelson will defend his fifth title at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this week. His winning years so far have included 2019 (beating runner-up Paul Casey), 2012 (Charlie Wi), 2007 (Kevin Sutherland), 2005 (Mike Weir), and 1998 (Tom Pernice, Jr.). Ultimately, though, all roads go back to 1919, the year Mickelson’s paternal grandfather, Al Santos, started as a caddie at the newly opened Pebble Beach Golf Links. “My grandfather was one of the original caddies in the caddie yard,� Mickelson said Wednesday. “He had to quit school in fourth grade to help work and support the family. … He could carry around this silver dollar here that I have. He would reach in and touch it whenever he felt poor and it made him feel like he had money. Often times, he would go to bed hungry and not eat because he wouldn’t spend it. He just wanted to always feel like he had it. “Our family has come a long ways since we look back at him caddying for 35 cents a loop.� We are all a product of our ancestors, as we’re reminded weekly by the PBS show “Finding Your Roots.� And grandfathers, so influential in the lives of so many PGA TOUR pros, have been front and center lately. Cameron Champ won the Safeway Open last fall as his grandfather, Mack “Pops� Champ, watched while on hospice in Sacramento. J.T. Poston shot a final-round 62 to win the Wyndham Championship with his grandfather Charles “Doc� Cunningham on site. Related: Power Rankings | History-making high school team set for defense Mickelson’s grandfather, who died shortly before Phil won his first major title in 2004, is always with him, in a sense, as the 44-time TOUR winner plays along this scenic coastline. This week, as he always does at Pebble, Mickelson will carry the 1900 silver dollar Al kept in his pocket and rubbed for better fortune every time he felt poor. It’s Phil’s lucky Pebble ball mark. According to Michael Bamberger’s excellent feature on golf.com last June, Al Santos was a product of Steinbeck’s Monterey, “the son of a Portuguese Cannery Row fisherman and his Portuguese wife.� He helped the family as a caddie, often doing a double-loop, and later became a tuna fisherman, captaining his own boat with his brothers off the coast of San Diego. To commemorate Mickelson’s five wins at Pebble Beach, all amateur participants this week will receive a replica of the silver 1900 Morgan dollar that has the same specifications as Mickelson’s treasured heirloom. A local artist, Ashley Bennett-Stoddard, created the coin, which has a diameter of 38.1 millimeters and weighs 26.7 grams. Mickelson called the replica “pretty special� and said he’ll likely carry both coins this week. “I think they’re kind of cool and it reminds me that I’ve had some success here,� said Mickelson, whose pro debut came in the 1992 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. Two generations later, Phil famously gave Al a signed pin flag from each of his growing stack of TOUR wins, and Al pinned each to the kitchen wall. Their bond comes into high relief at Pebble, and as it happens, Mickelson arrives at his get-well place this week in need of some special mojo. In his 16 starts after Pebble last season, Lefty missed the cut seven times, with a ho-hum T18 at the Masters his best result. He missed the TOUR Championship, again, and, for the first time, the Presidents Cup. Despite boasting a slimmer physique and proclaiming to feel renewed in his energy levels, Mickelson started this season with more of the same: missed cuts at the Safeway Open, The American Express and the Farmers Insurance Open. “I knew that I was playing well,� Mickelson said from last week’s Saudi International, where he finally saw a return to form with a T3 finish, “but it was more of a focus and visualization and some mental things that I needed to strengthen and get stronger.� He is 49, with little left to prove, but seems to be enjoying the battle against undefeated Father Time. He boasts of higher clubhead speed than ever, and his waistline has gone positively retro thanks to regular fasts and his elimination of carbs and sugars. Having won the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship two seasons ago, and at Pebble Beach last year, he need not strain his memory to recall better times. “I would not be surprised if it just came together,� Stuart Appleby said on Golf Channel after Mickelson shot a final-round 67 to finish three behind winner Graeme McDowell in Saudi Arabia. And if it came together? “He would know what to do,� Appleby said. In other words, when you’ve won 44 times on TOUR and find yourself in the hunt again despite missing your last two cuts on TOUR – well, you remember how to close. Especially at Pebble Beach, and especially when you carry that little piece of your roots in your pocket. Does the old silver dollar have a win or two left? As Mickelson might say, you never know.

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KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — Phil Mickelson has delivered so many thrills and spills over 30 years of pure theater that no one ever knows what he will do next. RELATED: Ben Cook wins low club professional at PGA Championship | Final leaderboard His latest act was a real stunner: A major champion at age 50. Mickelson captured his sixth major and by far the most surprising Sunday at the PGA Championship. He made two early birdies with that magical wedge game and let a cast of contenders fall too far behind to catch him in the shifting wind of Kiawah Island. He closed with a 1-over 73, building a five-shot lead on the back nine and not making any critical mistakes that kept him from his place in history. Julius Boros for 53 years held the distinction of golf’s oldest major champion. He was 48 when he won the 1968 PGA Championship in San Antonio. Pure chaos broke out along the 18th hole after Mickelson hit 9-iron safely to just outside 15 feet that all but secured a most improbable victory. Thousands of fans engulfed him down the fairway — a scene typically seen only at the Open Championship — until Mickelson emerged into view with a thumbs-up. Chants of “Lefty! Lefty! Lefty!” chased him onto the green and into the scoring tent, his final duty of a week he won’t soon forget. Three months after 43-year-old Tom Brady won a seventh Super Bowl, Mickelson added to this year of ageless wonders. Mickelson became the first player in PGA TOUR history to win tournaments 30 years apart. The first of his 45 titles was in 1991 when he was still a junior at Arizona State. Mickelson became the 10th player to win majors in three decades, an elite list that starts with Harry Vardon and was most recently achieved by Tiger Woods. “He’s been on TOUR as long as I’ve been alive,” Jon Rahm said. “For him to keep that willingness to play and compete and practice, it’s truly admirable.” Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen had their chances, but only briefly. Koepka was 4 over on the par 5s when the game was still on and closed with a 74. Oosthuizen hit into the water as he was trying to make a final run and shot 73. Mickelson finished at 6-under 282. The victory came one week after Mickelson accepted a special exemption into the U.S. Open because at No. 115 in the world and winless the last two years, he no longer was exempt from qualifying. He had not finished in the top 20 in his last 17 tournaments over nearly nine months. He worried that he was no longer able to keep his focus over 18 holes. The PGA Championship had the largest and loudest crowd since the return from the COVID-19 pandemic — the PGA of America said it limited tickets to 10,000 — and it was clear what they wanted to see. The opening hour made it seem as though the final day could belong to anyone. The wind finished its switch to the opposite direction from the opening rounds, and while there was low scoring early, Mickelson and Koepka traded brilliance and blunder. Koepka flew the green with a wedge on the par-5 second hole, could only chip it about 6 feet to get out of an impossible lie and made double bogey, a three-shot swing when Mickelson hit a deft pitch from thick grass behind the green. Mickelson holed a sand shot from short of the green on the par-5 third, only for Koepka to tie for the lead with a two-shot swing on the sixth hole when he made birdie and Lefty missed the green well to the right. Kevin Streelman briefly had a share of the lead. Louis Oosthuizen was lurking, even though it took him seven holes to make a birdie. And then the potential for any drama was sucked out to sea. Oosthuizen, coming off a birdie to get within three, had to lay up out of the thick grass on the 13th and then sent his third shot right of the flag and into the water, making double bogey. Just like that, Mickelson was up by five and headed toward the inward holes, the wind at his back on the way home with what seemed like the entire state of South Carolina at his side.

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Tiger Woods has built his summer around The 150th Open at the Old Course at St. Andrews. The 15-time major champion has said throughout his career that the Old Course is his favorite, a sentiment that he has echoed this week. Woods, 46, has won three previous Open Championships, including the 2000 and 2005 iterations at St. Andrews. After competing at this year’s Masters (finishing 47th) and PGA Championship (making the cut but withdrawing after Round 3), Woods sat out last month’s U.S. Open with an eye ahead to The Open. It’s now here. Woods commenced his opening round Thursday at 2:59 p.m. local time, alongside Max Homa and Matt Fitzpatrick. Keep it here for hole-by-hole updates throughout Woods’ opening round at The 150th Open.

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