KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — To understand Phil Mickelson’s thoughts on fighting golf’s young stars, Bryson DeChambeau’s bazooka driver and the unforgiving march of time at 50 along life’s back nine, we go to ... Padraig Harrington.
Unpeeling the remarkable onion that was Mickelson finishing his round Friday with a birdie binge to summit the leaderboard at 5-under 139, midway through the PGA Championship, stunned.
No one older than 48 has won a major, stretching back to Julius Boros setting the bar at the PGA in the free-spirited days of 1968. Mickelson, though the winningest active player on Tour, stands No. 115 in the Official World Golf Rankings.
The San Diego native recently swallowed what, for him, must have amounted to a significant amount of pride and accepted a USGA exemption to play in next month’s U.S. Open at hometown Torrey Pines.
Yet there he was Friday on the Ocean Course, firing pinpoint approach shots into winds so cruel that just 18 of the 154 still in the field as the second round ended were under par at all.
This might not have been as core-rattling as John Daly announcing he planned to run the Boston Marathon, but it felt close.
So, so many questions. Phil?
Phil (Padraig): What’s the biggest hurdle to punching Father Time in the nose?
“I think that can be the hardest thing as you get older,” said Harrington, in Mickelson’s stead, since Phil answered just four questions after his round of 69 — beginning with a riveting inquiry about his 2-wood.
“There’s a new kid on the block and you’re wondering, can you compete with him?”
Compete, Mickelson did. And then some.
The man with 44 PGA Tour victories, 20 more than the next active player (Dustin Johnson, who missed the cut), clawed back from dropping two strokes on his first nine at a place where wind conditions make every lost shot potentially lethal.
Mickelson birdied No. 2, the 11th hole of his round. He then snapped up strokes on four of his next seven to sprint past the field. The day closed with him in a tie with relative youngster Louis Oosthuizen (38).
Phil (Padraig): How do you manage staying competitive as you age?
“Unfortunately, as you gain experience you lose innocence,” said Harrington, who will turn 50 himself before nearby Charleston’s leaves brown in the fall. “There is a sweet spot on the way up when you’re gaining a bit of experience, and yet you have that innocence.
“As you get older ... (you) have some scar tissue in there and we can overthink things at times.”
Mickelson recently acknowledged battling focus issues. He vowed that the younger field — the average age in the top 125 of the FedExCup standings is 33.1 — would “eat me up” if the mind wandered.
Back-to-back bogeys on one of the game’s biggest stages can badger focus like no other. Mickelson, though, chopped away at the longest course in major championship history for the final nine holes to transform a cute little golf story into a gasp.
Phil (Padraig, of course), walking off the podium, unsolicited, noodled on the profound thoughts he shared.
“That was all a bit philosophical, wasn’t it?” said Harrington, with a reflectful smile.
Mickelson, of course, doesn’t do profound. He doesn’t do unsolicited. He rarely does reflectful smiles.
The man who has played on a dozen Ryder Cup teams and just as many at the Presidents Cup almost never offers a peek into his vault of unfiltered thoughts. Pull back the curtain? Well, that’s a nonstarter. It’s made of immovable lead.
Make no mistake about it, what Mickelson did was more than simply turning back the clock. That phrase is designed for those performing beyond their age, summoning stamina of players somewhat their junior.
This was as if Mickelson climbed into the time machine on the British sci-fi show “Doctor Who” and landed in 2005, when he won four times on Tour — including at the PGA Championship.
What he orchestrated in the first two rounds on a course long enough to require Ubers, windy enough to scatter hair pieces, against opponents young enough to run circles, squares or parallelograms around him was astounding.
Irons started landing on greens like lawn darts, first on No. 2 and then on 4. Then the putter heated up, draining a 15-footer on 5. The putter lost its ever-lovin’-mind on his 18th hole of the day when a nearly 23-footer found the lip of the cup and tumbled in.
What type of history are we talking about? The last player 50 or older to hold at least a share of the lead halfway through a major was Sam Snead at the PGA ... in 1966.
So on Friday, you wanted to hear Mickelson emote. You want him to regale and relate. That Phil is not at the PGA Championship, because that Phil does not hang out at the interview tent.
“I’m having a blast,” Mickelson said.
Hard to tell.
The only reason Mickelson holds down the No. 50 spot on Tour for driving distance is because 31-year-old South African Erik van Rooyen, known most for his ankle-baring pants, does not hit it about 7 inches farther.
Mickelson made up for the tee box as he neared greens.
Silky CBS voice Jim Nantz stoked his golf-soothsayer credentials during an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, shortly after the Masters. Asked about Mickelson’s imprint on the game, Nantz applied the brakes.
“I think there’s a lot more still to come from Phil,” Nantz said. “Don’t know what it is, but when you say ‘legacy’ sometimes, you’re saying he’s done everything he’s going to do. He’s so smart, so creative. There’s a lot more to come from him.”
In a matter of weeks, it seems.
Harrington eventually decided to speak for himself.
“In the position he is in, I expect him to contend and I wouldn’t put it past him being there at the end,” said Harrington, adding a homespun reference for emphasis. “I think he has the bit between his teeth.”
That might explain why the cat has his tongue.
