#270 | What Makes Phil Mickelson One of Golf's Most Complex Figures?—The Only Golfer Who Can Make a 40-Foot Putt and a Meltdown Look Good!
Quick SUMMARY:
Douglas Vigliotti reviews “Phil” by Alan Shipnuck, an unauthorized biography of golfer Phil Mickelson. Vigliotti explores Mickelson’s career, personality, controversies—especially his involvement with LIV Golf—and the book’s blend of fact and interpretation. He discusses the author’s background, shares personal anecdotes, and reflects on themes of talent, risk, and resilience, highlighting Mickelson’s complex character, his rivalry with Tiger Woods, and the broader lessons his story offers about confidence and dedication.
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TOPICS COVERED IN the EPISODE:
Introduction & Newsletter Reminder (00:09) - Host introduces the podcast, the book Phil, and reminds listeners about the monthly newsletter.
About the Author: Alan Shipnuck (01:12) - Background on Shipnuck’s career, his golf writing, and context for the book’s “unauthorized” subtitle.
Book Overview & Biographies as a Genre (02:17) - Explains the book’s focus on Phil Mickelson’s life, career, and the nature of biographies as journalistic works.
Phil Mickelson, LIV Golf, and Controversy (03:27) - Discusses the book’s coverage of Mickelson’s involvement with LIV Golf, Saudi Arabia, and the resulting scandals.
Phil’s Personality, Talent, and Maverick Mentality (04:37) - Covers Mickelson’s gambling, golfing ability, and the host’s personal connection to the book.
Phil vs. Tiger Woods: Rivalry and Respect (05:53) - Explores the rivalry between Phil and Tiger, their mutual respect, and differences in their careers.
Phil’s Paradoxes and Career Highlights (07:02) - Describes Mickelson’s complex personality, major wins, and infamous losses, including the 2006 Winged Foot meltdown.
Talent, Pressure, and Life Lessons (08:08) - Reflects on how talent shapes perspective, using Phil’s skills as a metaphor for broader life lessons.
Phil’s Competitive Edge: Personal Story (10:37) - Host shares a personal anecdote about witnessing Mickelson’s dedication at a tournament late in his career.
Conclusion & Listener Engagement (12:56) - Wraps up with a final quote, encourages subscribing, and shares ways to connect with the host and learn more.
READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week I have a work of nonfiction to share with you. It is a biography. It came out in 2022. It's around 250 pages or so, and it is titled “Phil” by Alan Shipnuck. So I will tell you a lot more about this book. The author. Why I am sharing this book with you, what some of my favorite quotes are, or excerpts, and all of that good stuff. But first, I wanted to remind you of the newsletter that goes with this podcast, and that is a once-a-month email that rounds up all of the episodes from that month, complete with full book and author information, episode summaries, all of my favorite quotes and additional book recommendations. So if that sounds like something that you're interested in, or maybe you want to go sign up, then all you have to do is head over to the website Books for Men.org.
01:12 - So as always, I like to start with the writer. Alan Shipnuck is a golf writer formerly for Sports Illustrated and Golf Magazine. And honestly, I'm not even sure where he writes now. Actually, scratch that, no pun intended. He actually writes for an online publication about golf called Skratch with a K, not a C. He's published quite a few non-fiction golf-centric books, I think probably nine or so, most recently “LIV and Let Die”, a narrative nonfiction about the battle between LIV and the PGA, which has sort of changed a lot since he wrote that book. They have this strange, symbiotic relationship now, and he has an upcoming book on Rory McIlroy that'll be coming out, I believe, next year. And then, of course, there's the book that I am sharing with you today, which was slightly controversial at the time because of the portrait it painted of the subject matter, Phil Mickelson, which I think, and this is an assumption, is the thing that prompted, for legal reasons, the subtitle to key on the word unauthorized.
02:17 - So the full title of the book is “Phil: The Rip Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf's Most Colorful Superstar”. Now, I could be completely wrong, and I am assuming that. But otherwise, why emphasize the word other than to signal that the subject matter didn't sign off on it? I guess this is probably a good time for me to pivot and just start talking more about the actual book. So most obviously, it is about the legendary golfer Phil Mickelson, who is still playing today, and it's about his life, his game, his career, his relationships on and off the course with caddies, players, etc., and it dabbles into his personal life, which a biography needs to because that's how it informs the man, right? But I guess it's important for me to just remind you that biographies as a form, are sort of a journalistic endeavor in a way. Meaning there is a point of view at which the biographer comes at the subject, which means when you read a biography, to try to view things as what is an observation and what is an inference.
03:27 - So what is the observable fact of something? And then what are you inferring from it? But to be honest, I probably could have done without all the tabloid-y afterword aspect of this book, but that's just me. I get that's what sells books. Part of the reason why I raise that is just to say this was extremely current at the time. So it intersected with something that was actually happening in the golf world. He was reporting on what was a real-life scandal with Phil Mickelson in Saudi Arabia and LIV golf, which now, funnily enough, in hindsight, sort of looks like a joke because of the amount of people who just followed the money straight to live, regardless of the source. And for everything that people ripped Phil for at the time, the observation, not an inference, of what actually happened was by defecting, and then all of these players also defecting into LIV. It did trigger the PGA to make a lot of changes, and it did change the way that they distributed money to their players.
04:37 - So like, whether you like the modality or not, it did actually happen. And I'm not saying that that was the sole reason why Mickelson did it. I mean, the guy got paid $200 million or something like that. I think the real reason why he took so much heat at the time, or for those off the record, shitty comments, which is part of what made Shipnuck's reporting so controversial at the time, because Phil was openly saying things behind closed doors that he wasn't saying to the public. But aside from the tabloid nature of this book, it's also about Phil's larger-than-life personality, his penchant for gambling, and his otherworldly golfing ability. He's really a top ten golfer of all time, probably. I'm a bit biased because, as a kid, I was a huge Phil Mickelson fan growing up, mostly because of that maverick mentality, something that I always had a soft spot for across sports and art, for that matter. And so this was actually a gift from my mother one Christmas. I don't think I would have ever actually bought this book based on what I knew about it before and after it came out, but I'm so happy that it was given to me as a gift, and I read it because it's a lot more than just all that tabloid stuff that I don't really care about.
05:53 - Not just with this book, but in general, it's just not my chosen form of entertainment, I should say. One of the things that this book does point out is that what's pretty much well known, at least in the golfing community, is that talent-wise, Phil and Tiger were pretty much neck and neck. It’s just that Tiger had that other gear that focus so few golfers have ever had. And there was this great respect and competition between the two, even though Tiger pretty much had him pegged when it comes to numbers throughout his career, which is even crazier when you think about the career Mickelson has had. And if he didn't play in the same era as the best golfer of all time, how much greater his career could have possibly been? Which is interesting. But there's a fun quote from one of Tiger's old swing coaches, Hank Haney, that really shows the respect that they had for each other, despite their many differences on and off the course, and he says …
06:54 - “Whatever was going on with them personally, Tiger had the utmost respect for Phil's game. He felt he was a great closer because he knew he wasn't afraid. Tiger had more respect for Phil's short game than any other part of any other player’s game, and he always marveled at Phil's mental strength. Tiger used to say, ‘I can't believe how he hits one off the map and then stiffs the next one.’ Most players, Tiger included, hit a couple of foul balls, and they start worrying, where the fuck is the next one going? Phil had an amazingly short memory, which might be his greatest trait.” One of the interesting things about Phil is that he's just so complicated, like all greats tend to be. He's generous, but at the same time selfish, likeable but at the same time unlikable. He's like a man full of paradoxes. And among his many highlights of his career, there are these moments of complete disaster. So he won a PGA Championship at 50, which is like unheard of. But this is the same guy who has six second-place US Open finishes, never winning. Won the only major that he never won.
08:08 - And his ‘06 meltdown on hole number 18 at Winged Foot is kind of legendary. If you get a chance, I would go watch it on YouTube. But as hard as it is to watch. In this book, they recount it, and it's just as hard to read about. Again, it's almost cringeworthy, but again, a testament to the paradox of who Phil Mickelson is as a person in all of his competing qualities. Geoff Ogilvy, the person who ended up winning that tournament, has a great quote in this book about that meltdown that he had, and he says, “His handicap is how good he is at that shot. Most players don't have that shot, so they don't see it, and they don't even consider that it's an option. They just wedge it out. They're forced into the right decision because they don't have the skills. Unfortunately, Phil has the skills to hit it from anywhere. He thought he had the shot. So you can't second-guess that because he can pull off the impossible.” And I think this quote is so informative in so many ways, not just on Phil Mickelson, but in general for people who, you know, I used to have a mentor, and he said to me, Doug, if you have $100 in your pocket, you see $100 deals.
09:29 - If you have $1,000 in your pocket, you see $1,000 deals. If you have $10,000 in your pocket, you see $10,000 deals. And it just goes to show you that we don't see or consider what we truly don't have access to in life. And when you talk about skills and talent, it could be a very pressure-laden thing to know that you can do something and not do it. And this is a very interesting lens to not just look at Phil Mickelson, but also to look at your own life. Maybe that's what made Tiger, Tiger, his ability to control that ability that was off the charts. But the thing for Phil that made him so endearing was his bravado and his confidence in this book. They tell a story about how he once conceded a 40-foot putt in a US amateur matchplay to just fuck with the guy, and then he ended up beating him six-five. And to me, like, there is nothing that is more demoralizing and also arrogant than to do something like that, but in the end, he undoubtedly is just somebody who loves the game of golf.
10:37 - And for me, all you need to know about him from a competitive standpoint is this personal story that I got to witness with Phil Mickelson, and that was one year I was at the Travelers with my father, and this was, I think, the year that he ended up winning that PGA Championship. So he was in his 50 or 51. It was late in his career with the PGA right before he moved over to live, and he had a really bad Thursday and shot really, really poorly. Now, keep in mind this is a 50-year-old golfer who has a storied career, six major championships, 50 wins, millions and millions of dollars won. And he's in Hartford, Connecticut, at the Travelers Championship. And he just hit a shitty round of golf on a Thursday, the first day of the tournament. My father and I are walking back to our car, and it's about 7:00 at night. The tournament for the day has dwindled down. Nobody else is out on the practice range except for one person. And that one person was Phil Mickelson.
11:37 - And there was nobody out there covering this. Or I don't even know if anyone else made this connection. But for me, when I looked at everything in the context of what was happening. I was like, That's greatness. That's someone who's just so devoted to being great at what he does that it's a detriment, probably, to every other aspect of his life. But it's a testament to greatness. And it was just remarkable to me to see somebody at that stage of their career in such a what would be a meaningless golf tournament in the context of an entire career. He's out there practicing at 7:00 at night after his shitty round of golf. The only person. It was amazing to me. Anyway, I'll wrap this up with one quote from Phil that pretty much sums it up, and he says, “Win, lose, or draw, I just love having a chance on Sunday,” and I think that that is probably good advice for everyone. All right, so on that note, I wanted to thank you so much for listening and remind you that if you enjoyed today's episode, please click subscribe on whatever podcast platform you are listening to this on.
12:56 - It is the best way for new listeners to find the show and in return, inspire more men to read. If you'd like to connect with me, maybe tell me how I'm doing. There are two ways you could do so: on Instagram @DouglasVigliotti. It's the only social media that I have, or via my website, DouglasVigliotti.com. I have a new book out titled “Aristotle for Novelists: 14 Timeless Principles on the Art of Story”. And if you want to learn more about that, you could visit the website AristotleforNovelists.com. Last but not least, if you want more information on this podcast specifically, which includes signing up for the newsletter that I mentioned at the top of this episode, then all you have to do is visit the website BooksforMen.org.
