At Augusta, Phil Mickelson is no LIV Golf rebel… he is the king of the world!..see more

At Augusta, Phil Mickelson is no LIV Golf rebel… he is the king of the world! Crowds flocked to watch him on Thursday at the Masters and it feels like he is a contender once again

Phil Mickelson finished his opening round at the Masters on Thursday one over
Crowds flocked from around the course to watch the three-time winner play
This week marks the 20th anniversary of Mickelson’s first triumph at Augusta
Phil Mickelson loped on to the first tee at Augusta National as if nothing had changed.

He was met by warm applause and some cheers and even if they do not allow anything as uncouth as hollering at the Masters, a few of the patrons came close. Mickelson nodded his head in acknowledgement and appreciation, the way he has always done.

That is what happens here. When a golfer drives down Magnolia Lane, Augusta absolves him of all his sins and beatifies him. It takes only the good things and preserves him at the moments of his greatest triumphs. And so Mickelson is not a LIV Golf apostate within these walls. He is a king of the world again.

Augusta acts as a sanctuary like that. For Mickelson, that means that no one talks here about him being the catalyst for the fracture that is still tearing men’s golf asunder. No one mentions Mickelson referring to the Saudis, who bankroll LIV, as ‘scary mother*******’, a quote that helped define the schism.

He does not face the same kind of questions he faced at St Andrew’s during the Open in 2022, for instance, when he was quizzed about why he had not attended a dinner for past champions held by the R&A. Mickelson soon grew perplexed by the line of questioning. ‘Let it go, dude,’ he told one journalist.

Phil Mickelson finished up his opening round at the Masters on Thursday one shot over-par
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Phil Mickelson finished up his opening round at the Masters on Thursday one shot over-par
This week is the 20th anniversary of the American’s first-ever win at Augusta National
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This week is the 20th anniversary of the American’s first-ever win at Augusta National
The LIV Golf star seems to come alive at Augusta, finishing as a runner-up last year
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The LIV Golf star seems to come alive at Augusta, finishing as a runner-up last year
This week, none of that exists. Augusta National is where golfers come to forget the bad things. And this week, after all, marks the 20th anniversary of Mickelson’s first triumph at Augusta, the first major victory of his stellar career. It had taken him 47 majors to land his first win and five more followed.

So even though Mickelson stayed away from the event in 2022 in the midst of a self-imposed exile at the height of the LIV controversy, he came back last year and scythed through the field on the final day, finishing tied for second with Brooks Koepka. After so much vilification, it felt like a rebirth.

Mickelson has not exactly torn up the fairways since then. Last week, at the LIV Golf tournament in Miami, he finished 47th out of a field of 54 and the HyFlyers team which he captains and whose logo was plastered across his hat and shirt here, finished 13th and last of all the competitors.

And yet at Augusta, he seems to come alive again. His runners-up finish last year was a remarkable performance in light of everything that had gone before and even though he is now 53, he appears in better physical shape than he was in most of the years of his prime on the PGA Tour.

‘Phil’s looking fit,’ a lady standing in the crowd of onlookers near the first tee observed. And indeed he is. It is as if the wilderness he cast himself into when he joined LIV Golf has wrapped him in its embrace and rolled away the years.

He smote his opening drive down the first fairway and even though it was met only by nervous applause, it stayed out of trouble, coming to rest on the lip of the bunker that lies in wait at the top of the hill the players have to climb as they march up the other side of the valley that dissects the first fairway.

Mickelson gazed after it. He pulled his sunglasses down from the bridge of his nose so that he could peer over them, the better to see where his ball had ended up. He looked satisfied. His approach found the front of the green but he could not get down in two and dropped a shot on the first hole.