Phil Mickelson wins at Pebble Beach
Phil Mickelson finished off the final two holes at Pebble Beach Golf Links on Monday morning to capture his fifth win at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
Mickleson had a three shot lead with two holes to play 0n Sunday evening when his paying partner Paul Casey deemed it too dark to continue and while Mickelson had wanted the option to finish, the PGA Tour blew the horn to call play for the day.
“I thanked Paul (Casey) this morning for having us finish this morning,” Mickelson told CBS Sports following the round. “Sometimes I get in my own little bubble that I don’t see the big picture and he really protected both of us. The greens were beat up and we had a chance to come out on fresh greens and better weather and be able to see a lot better. I was very appreciative of that and I told him so.”
Mickelson finished in style with a birdie on the picturesque 18th at Pebble Beach for his 44th career PGA Tour title. He also tied Mark O’Meara with five titles at this event.
This was Mickelson’s first win in America since the 2013 Phoenix Open with his past two wins being the 2013 Open Champion and the 2018 WGC-Mexico Championship.
Mickelson currently has three legs of the career Grand Slam needing only the U.S. Open to finish it off and this year’s tournament will be at Pebble Beach Golf Links in June.
So how does this win help Mickelson’s confidence?
“It does absolutely nothing,” Mickelson said on CBS Sports. “Very simply, it’s nothing like the course we will see … the rough will be so different and the greens will be so firm that it will be like a whole different golf course.”
Mickelson now has a runner-up at the Desert Classic where he led for the first three rounds following an opening round 60 and lost on the 72nd hold to Adam Long and a win at Pebble Beach that sandwiches a missed cut in Phoenix.
For his win at Pebble Beach, Mickelson pockets $1.368 million and joins Tiger Woods as the only players to surpass the $90 million mark in career earnings.
Next up for Mickelson is this week’s Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club, another event he was multiple times.
Notables in the field included Jason Day (T4, -13), Matt Kuchar (T22, -7), Dustin Johnson (T45, -4), Jordan Spieth (T45, -4) and Tommy Fleetwood (T45, -4).
