Weekend Wrap

We've got a 9:00 appointment, so let's see if we can cover the waterfront in the allotted time.

Phil in Phull - You have to admit that this was fun...  

Phil Mickelson ended the longest drought of his career with a playoff victory Sunday over Justin Thomas in the Mexico Championship, capping off a final round of lustrous cheers in thin air that included Thomas holing a wedge for eagle on the final hole of regulation. 

Mickelson, who closed with a 5-under 66, won for the first time since the 2013 British Open at Muirfield, a stretch of 101 tournaments worldwide.

"I can't put into words how much this means to me," Mickelson said. "I knew it was going to be soon — I've been playing too well for it not to be. But you just never know until it happens."

 Yes, Muirfield seems back in the Paleozoic Era.... No doubt that he needed this.  

He's still got the lofty goals, and good on him for that.  But logic says he'll get the the wrong 5-0 first:

It took Phil Mickelson 1,687 days to achieve career PGA Tour win No. 43. But even at 47 years old, Mickelson believes he’ll get to 50 wins on Tour. 

“Oh I will,” said Mickelson when asked Sunday after his WGC-Mexico Championship victory. “Yeah, I’ll get there.” 

Mickelson, who prior to Sunday hadn’t won since the 2013 British Open, still sits at ninth on the all-time PGA Tour victories list, two wins behind Walter Hagen, 36 behind the only active player ahead of him, Tiger Woods, and 39 shy of leader Sam Snead, who won 82 times in his Tour career. 

“I don’t know (when I’ll get to 50),” Mickelson said. “Seven more wins and I’ll be there, but I don’t have the month or the time, but I will get there.”

The Tour Confidential panel ledes with that very question:

1. Phil Mickelson ended his winless slump at the WGC-Mexico Championship on

Sunday, his first victory since the 2013 British Open at Muirfield. It was Tour title No. 43 for Phil. What's your biggest takeaway from Mickelson's play in Mexico, and how many wins will he end his career with?

Michael Bamberger: A big-muscle swing can last and last and last, and an abiding love of the game is so important, too. Billy Casper had the former. Arnold Palmer had the latter. Phil could win at least 44.

Well, hater's gonna hate.

Josh Sens: I think we already knew that Phil still had the length and touch to win again. What we saw was that his talk about wanting to show the young'uns a thing or two was not just talk. He's fully into it. It's a matter of him putting well and avoiding those occasional big numbers that have long been his bugaboo. As for his career win total, Phil is about as young a 47-year-old as we've seen in golf. No reason he couldn't win another small handful of events. Dare I say ... 47?

I'll just note that Phil's at the stage where it matters less how often he wins, as opposed to what he wins.  A win in March is nice....  one say in mid-June? 

We're ahead of ourselves here, but those TC guys brought his name up:

2. Who has the better finish at the Masters: Phil or Tiger?

Rory?  Oh, never mind, just last week that was the comparison du jour.

Bamberger: Phil. If Phil contends, he can win. If Tiger contends, he could win, but he has to overcome far more to get there.

I think that's well-argued, though that's why we're going to see Tiger in the next two weeks.

Sens: Phil has to be the favorite at this point but man, it's gonna be a fun week. 

Passov: Tiger has the better finish at the Masters — he wins it. Phil rallies to capture the U.S. Open.

Joe, I don't what's in that hookah of yours, but I hope you brought enough to share.

And, just a quickie before we go, did you hear Justin's cry in the wilderness on Thursday?  Said he had never felt more uncomfortable over a golf ball.  Send his Dad/coach some video, and Dad told him to grow a pair.  No, not really, he gave him a thought, and JT reeled off a tasty 62-64 weekend.  Does Dad give lessons to walk-ins?

Another Drought Ended -  This still-young lady also arose from the dead:

SINGAPORE (AP) — Michelle Wie holed a 36-foot putt from off the green on the final hole to win the Women's World Championship by one stroke on Sunday and capture her

first LPGA tournament since the 2014 U.S. Women's Open. 

With four players in contention to win on the last hole, Wie managed to separate herself from the pack when she drained her lengthy birdie putt on the 72nd hole at the Sentosa Golf Club for a final round of 7-under 65 to finish at 17-under 271. 

The 28-year-old Wie, who led the tournament after three rounds a year ago before fading on the last day, leaped into the air and clenched her fist in celebration as the ball disappeared into the bottom of the cup.

Shockingly, the TC panel found time to give her a shout-out:

3. Michelle Wie birdied the 72nd hole to win the Women's World Championship in Singapore, her first victory since the 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst. Could you see Wie one day returning to the top of the game, or are wins likely to come sporadically through the rest of her career?

Bamberger: Past performance would of course suggest sporadic wins. You can win sporadically and wind up in the Hall of Fame.

True that, though she'll forever be pegged an under-achiever, and not without cause.

Dethier: It feels like the LPGA is primed for a big year, with some of its biggest stars set to contend early and often. Wie is so dynamic a player and personality that it would be great to see her in contention every week — but she has to cement her spot as a top-five American player first.

Agreed, though Dylan is quite new on the beat, and may not be familiar with their longstanding history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Quantifying The Mess -  Friday we had Alan Shipnuck's unscientific attribution of the cause of the distance explosion:

Agronomy: 5%

Technique/Trackman: 20%

Athleticism/Training: 20%

Club: 25%

Ball: 30%

I had some quibbles, as did Shack who offers his own:

Agronomy: 0%

Technique/Trackman: 35%

Athleticism/Training: 10%

Clubs: 35%

Ball: 20%

Shack has explication at that link, all quite interesting.  Thinking it through further, I'm struck by how the individual components interact with each other, using Trackman, for instance, to guide the choice of golf ball and shaft, thereby optimizing launch conditions.

Tiger Scat - By now you've heard that The Big Cat is teeing it up at Innisbrook this week, which I feel is for the best.  It obviously means that he's healthy enough to play two consecutive weeks again, this time hopefully eight rounds.  It also indicates to me that he thinks he can compete at Augusta, though there's still much rust to be scraped off.

Most of you might think he's never seen the Copperhead before, but that's a mistaken impression.  He played there early in his career in an event that's gone the way of the Dodo bird, but I can only hope that the #metoo movement doesn't get a hold of this photo.  Talk about a hostile work environment:

Playing the role of MiniMe was Kelli Kuehne... Talk about a hostile work environment.

Tomorrow is a travel day, and that might not be the end of it.  This week is the Junior National Freestyle Championships in my adoptive home of Park City.  The favorite nephew will be competing, and the family will be in attendance.  

here's a run of his from Steamboat Springs this season:

We've tentatively scheduled his knee replacements for the summer of 2029.