Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods offered their congratulations to Phil Mickelson on Sunday after the 50-year-old became the sport’s oldest Major champion by winning the PGA Championship.
Nicklaus holds the record for most men’s Majors with 18 and Woods is second on the all-time list with 15, and while both have won far more than Mickelson’s six, his performance clearly impressed them.
“Fantastic golf this week at Kiawah,” Nicklaus, who won the last of his Majors at the 1986 Masters aged 46, said in a video posted on Twitter.
You played great, you didn’t make any dumb mistakes, which is the whole key to winning Major championships. Well done my friend.
— Jack Nicklaus
“You played great, you didn’t make any dumb mistakes, which is the whole key to winning Major championships. Well done my friend.”
In collecting his first Major since the 2013 British Open, Mickelson, who turns 51 next month, surpassed Julius Boros as the oldest Major winner. Boros was 48 when he won the 1968 PGA Championship.
“Truly inspirational to see @PhilMickelson do it again at 50 years of age. Congrats!!!!!!!,” Woods tweeted.
Woods is recovering from serious leg injuries suffered in a February car crash and was unable to compete in the PGA Championship.
Mickelson has never doubted himself over the course of his 30-year PGA Tour career and still has the hunger and desire to win that drives all great players, the six-time Major champion’s brother and caddie Tim said on Sunday.
Tim has been on his brother’s bag since 2017, so Sunday’s triumph was the first time he has been able to share victory in a Major from inside the ropes.
“He never doubted himself,” Tim said after Phil’s two-shot win over Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen at Kiawah Island.
“His will and desire to win now is as high as it’s ever been in my opinion. Certainly it’s probably higher than when I started caddying for him.
“I think the best players in the world all have that, and Phil has just carried that on for 35 years.”
Phil’s manager Steve Loy predicted there was much more to come.
“He’s healthier than he’s ever been,” Loy said.
“I think he’s going to win five more times, maybe 10. You can’t tell him no. Every time I try to tell him: ‘Look, we are running out of time’, he’s going: ‘I don't want to hear it’.”
Loy described Mickelson’s career in chapters — the first when he won on the PGA Tour as a 20-year-old amateur, the second when he got his first Masters title in 2004 and the third when he captured the British Open at Muirfield.
“This is, I don’t want to say, the final finale,” Loy said.
Meanwhile, Mickelson had to replace a damaged one-iron barely 20 minutes before the final round on Sunday but the setback did nothing to unsettle the 50-year-old American.
Mickelson’s caddie and brother Tim, took off to retrieve a different club from his locker leaving Mickelson, the only player left on the practice range, to continue his warm-up with instructor Andrew Getson.
Mickelson later explained the face of his club had cracked on the range.
“You can’t swing it as hard as I hit it and not expect them to crack,” Mickelson joked.
“Fortunately I had a four-wood that’s a very comparable club to that one-iron distance-wise and I was able to use that club effectively. There was a few times that I hit it and I hit that club very well.
“It’s just one of those things that happens and you just have to be prepared for it, which is why I bring backup clubs out here.”
Players with six or more career victories in the four Major championships that comprise the modern Grand Slam:
18 — Jack Nicklaus
15 — Tiger Woods
11 — Walter Hagen
9 — Ben Hogan, Gary Player
8 — Tom Watson
7 — Harry Vardon, Bobby Jones, Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer
6 — Lee Trevino, Nick Faldo, Phil Mickelson
— Reuters
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