Vintage Phil Mickelson: Lefty holes out with dazzling chip-in at LIV Golf Virginia

USA Today

9 hours ago

Vintage Phil Mickelson: Lefty holes out with dazzling chip-in at LIV Golf Virginia
Phil Mickelson turns 55 next Monday, but he still flashes skill of the excellence that helped him win six major titles and more than 50 times worldwide over his career.
Look no further than Sunday during the final round of 2025 LIV Golf Virginia, where Lefty was in contention coming down the stretch but found himself with a horrific lie. He was standing in a bunker, leaning back and the ball well above his feet.
But this is Phil Mickelson we're talking about. And he pulled off an incredible shot, landing it on the green before the ball checked and spun into the hole for birdie. You'll have to watch it to appreciate the craftiness of it.
"That is unbelievable," screamed David Feherty, and even that might have not been an appropriate reaction for just how good of a shot it was from Mickelson.
"That was one of my better ones. I don't know what to say because I have to aim so far left because I'm hooking it over my shoulder and trying to guess how much it's going to hook is the challenge," Mickelson said. "But it wasn't hard stopping it. It was hard guessing how much it was going to hook because it was soft greens and I had such an uphill lie, the ball was going to go high, but just judging how much the ball was going to come over my shoulder, that was the challenge.
"Even I was a little bit surprised."
Mickelson finished at 13 under after a 6-under 65 in the final round, placing him two shots behind winner Joaquin Niemann. Mickelson's T-4 is his third top-10 finish of the season for LIV Golf, and he heads to Oakmont with a chance to complete the career grand slam in what might be his final U.S. Open.
An outside chance, yes. But we can dream.