Phil on ‘PARADE’

THE PHIL MICKELSON INTERVIEW at Parade.com (Phil Mickelson: “I Couldn’t Be Any Luckier”) is a feel-good piece that covers a lot of ground many golf fans already know, with a few new anecdotes thrown in.

Phil says, “I’m much more emotional than Tiger.” No surprise there. And Lefty says he wants to make 2011 the kind of golf year he was expecting to have in 2010. He better get busy.

Following is one of my favorite paragraphs from the Kate Meyers interview. It really sums things up.

In this era of golf, Mickelson’s name will always come after Tiger Woods’s. He is the anti-Tiger, though not because he’s gracefully weathered the obstacles life has thrown at him while Tiger is still stinging from self-inflicted wounds. He’s the anti-Tiger because on the course he plays a mild-mannered, sometimes bumbling Clark Kent to Woods’s Superman. And fans love him for it. He never looks chiseled, never seems invincible, and—despite 38 PGA wins—has never been No. 1 in the world. He’s been faulted for taking too long to win his first major (in his 12th year as a pro) and for making too many suicidal shots at critical moments. But throughout his nearly 20-year professional career, he has had the same caddie, the same manager, and the same wife.

Does Phil have a chance next week at the Masters? You bet he does.

I don’t care how Phil is playing, the place energizes him. It offers the risk-reward shotmaking opportunities he lives for. And, of course, experience is huge at Augusta National.

PARADE’S photo shoot with Phil Mickelson

−The Armchair Golfer

(Image: Courtesy of PARADE)