With six wins for him and one less for her, the American and the Taiwanese are seventh and eighth in the rankings of major winners.
He is undoubtedly one of the most popular golfers in the world. With his good-natured face and his taste for risky shots in the most compromising situations, Phil Mickelson has once again made history by becoming, at the age of 50, the oldest player to win a major, the PGA Championship, by winning against the odds in the second major of the year, leaving Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen two strokes behind.
In May, Mickelson won his sixth major and relived moments of glory that were far behind him.
“It’s just an unbelievable feeling because I knew it was possible, but everything was pointing to it not happening,” said the golden left-hander from San Diego, who had gone more than two years without a win and whose last major victory was nearly eight years ago. He had not been a serious title contender in a major for five years.
For 53 years Julius Boros had held the distinction of being the oldest major champion. He was 48 years old when he won the PGA Championship in San Antonio in 1968.
Born in San Diego, California, on June 16, 1970, Mickelson had demonstrated his tremendous golf talent with Arizona State University by earning four All-America honors and matching a Jack Nicklaus feat in 1990 by winning the U.S. Amateur Championship and NCAA Championship in the same year. He captured the 1991 Northern Telecom Open as a college student, becoming only the second amateur since 1954 to win a PGA Tour event.
Then, as a professional, his successful career took some unexpected turns. Although he had accumulated 22 victories in his first 12 years on the PGA Tour, Mickelson had zero wins in his 46 majors.
Then came the 2004 Masters and the Californian became truly great. He holed a six-meter putt on the 18th to win his first major. His leap of joy celebrating the triumph has become one of the iconic images of the tournament.
The following year he won the PGA Championship at Baltusrol, and in 2006 he wore his second green jacket, and he did it in style. At one point in the final round he was tied for the lead with five players, but by the 16th hole Mickelson was up by four strokes and was able to enjoy the applause of the crowd as he walked down the final fairway at Augusta National.
Four years later he won his third green jacket and became the eighth player in history to have three or more Masters victories.
All majors are special, but this one had even greater meaning for the Mickelson family. His wife, Amy, was diagnosed the year before with breast cancer. That she was even in the stands with the family was a victory: it was the first tournament Amy had the strength to attend since beginning treatment.
When Phil and Amy embraced after the win, tears could have filled Rae’s Creek.
Lefty, the Lefty, was the second highest paid athlete of 2010, behind Tiger Woods, with earnings of around 40 million dollars. His earnings in PGA Tour tournaments exceed US$95 million.
In 2012 he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame. That year Mickelson won his 40th career PGA Tour title (he now has 45 and is the ninth player with the most victories) and continued his ascent to the pantheon of all-time golf greats.
His legacy, however, may lie in the special bond he has created with golf fans. Many have called him the Arnold Palmer of his generation.
When Mickelson won his first Masters title, Sports Illustrated’s Alan Shipnuck tried to explain Lefty’s impact: “As a phenom in 1991, Mickelson was saddled with the Next Nicklaus label, but he’s always had much more in common with Palmer. Both have made an intensely personal connection with fans, thanks to a personable, approachable manner and a go-for-broke style. They have also been defined as much by their crushing defeats as by their many triumphs.”
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YANI TSENG, THE TIGRESS OF TAIWAN
Yani Tseng’s sporting history can be described as convulsive. From being at the top of the world to suffering a slump in his game from which he has not yet recovered. And she is only 32 years old.
Tseng is one of the Asian players who most strongly took over from Asian golf pioneer Seri Pak, who, with her 1998 U.S. Women’s Open victory, inspired the wave of women from the Far East.
If the Korean Pak, elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame at the age of 29, made history, Tsung was also to leave a great mark on the sport. The so-called Taiwanese Tiger made history at the 2011 Nabisco Women’s British Open at Carnoustie in Scotland. Tsung, then 22 years old, was also a fervent admirer of former world number one Annika Sorenstam, whom, by the way, she had a record against.
Tseng, by winning the British Open for the second consecutive year, defeating Brittany Lang by four strokes, became the youngest player -both male and female- to win her fifth major.
Sweden’s Sorenstam was 32 when, in 2003, she won the LPGA Championship, her fifth major, and Tiger Woods was 24 when he took fifth at the 2000 PGA Championship.
“It was great to make history on this golf course and I feel wonderful now,” said Tseng, who was then ranked No. 1 in the world and had won the LPGA Championship a month before Carnoustie. “I hope to keep winning,” she declared, “next year there are four more majors and I’ll try to get organized and keep working hard.”
Tseng became only the third player in history to win the Women’s British Open in a row, joining Sherri Steinhaurer (1998, 1999) and Debbie Massey (1980, 1981).
“I wish I won more, but I’m very happy,” Tseng said. “In my mind I think about it and say ‘Wow, five majors.’ I never thought about it. One really feels very special.”
But their expectations were not met.
Tseng turned professional in January 2007, the same month she came of age. That same year she competed on the Asian Women’s Tour and won the Indian Open. She also played on the Canadian Women’s Tour, where she won the CN Canadian Women’s Tour at Vancouver Golf Club.
By finishing sixth in the final of the LPGA Tour qualifying tournaments in 2007, she earned a card to play on the American Women’s Tour in 2008. In June of that same year, she scored her first victory on that Tour and, by winning the LPGA Championship, became the first player from Taiwan to win a major on the LPGA Tour. At 19,
also became the youngest player to win the LPGA Championship and the second youngest to win a major on the American Women’s Tour.
With that dazzling sporting background, Tseng was named LPGA Rookie of the Year in 2008.
On March 29, 2009, Tseng became the fastest player in LPGA history to reach the $2 million mark in career earnings. She reached that monetary record in 32 tournaments, in a period spanning one year, one month and thirteen days.
On April 4, 2010 Tseng won the LPGA Tour’s first major of the season, the Kraft Nabisco Championship. On August 1, Yani won her second major of the year, the Women’s British Open, and became the youngest woman in the modern era to win three majors.
In September 2010, a Chinese company offered Tseng a five-year sponsorship deal worth $25 million with the right to use a luxury villa and private jets. Tseng rejected the offer because one of the requirements of the deal was that he had to change his citizenship from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to that of the People’s Republic of China.
In January 2011, her victories catapulted her to No. 1 in the women’s world rankings. That season, she became the youngest player ever to win four world LPGA Tour, including the LPGA Championship. In her title defense at the British Open she once again rewrote golf history, becoming the first to win the tournament twice in a row since it was made official as a major, and in the o the youngest golfer -both male and female- to win five majors.
At 22, Yani Tseng had a promising career ahead of him. But something happened that upended her plans and expectations. Her game hit an unexpected bump at the end of the 2012 season, and a year later she had dropped in the world rankings from the top spot to 38th. In 2014 she continued to fall and finished the year as 84th in the aforementioned rankings. Five years after his fifth major, Tsent had fallen to 102nd, by the end of 2018 to 328th and is currently above 1,300 in the world rankings.
There was no injury or other explanation for such a sudden change in Tseng’s performance. “I was playing really well during the practice rounds,” she said, “but once tournament time came it was like I lost control of my mind, my swing, my body. I had no confidence,” said the winner of five majors and 15 LPGA Tour tournaments.
In 2019 he suffered a back injury that led to pain in his left leg. He opted to rest rather than undergo surgery and was scheduled to return to competition last year, but the Coviv pandemic sent him back to Taiwan, where he remained until early this year. She continues to play on the LPGA Tour, but her results continue to be light years away from what she was achieving when she was at the top of the sport.
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