Philip Alfred Mickelson (born June 16, 1970), nicknamed Lefty, is an American professional golfer. Mickelson is one of 12 players in the history of golf to win three of the four majors. He has won every major except the U.S. Open, where he has finished runner-up a record six times.
Mickelson attended Arizona State University in Tempe on a golf scholarship and became the face of amateur golf in the United States, capturing three NCAA individual championships and three Haskins Awards (1990, 1991, 1992) as the outstanding collegiate golfer. With three individual NCAA championships, he shares the record for most individual NCAA championships alongside Ben Crenshaw. Mickelson also led the Sun Devils to the NCAA team title in 1990. Over the course of his collegiate career, he won 16 tournaments.
Mickelson was the second collegiate golfer to earn first-team All-American honors all four years. In 1990, he also became the first with a left-handed swing to win the U.S. Amateur title.
Mickelson secured perhaps his greatest achievement as an amateur in January 1991, winning his first PGA Tour event, the Northern Telecom Open, in Tucson, making him one of the few golfers to win a PGA Tour event as an amateur in the history of the PGA Tour. At age 20, he was only the sixth amateur to win a tour event and the first in over five years after Scott Verplank at the Western Open in August 1985. Other players to accomplish this feat include Doug Sanders (1956 Canadian Open) and Gene Littler (1954 San Diego Open). With five holes remaining, Mickelson led by a stroke, but made a triple-bogey and was then three behind. The leaders ahead of him then stumbled, and he birdied 16 and 18 to win by a stroke. To date, it is the most recent win by an amateur at a PGA Tour event.
That April, Mickelson was the low amateur at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Georgia. With his two-year PGA Tour exemption from the Tucson win, he played in several tour events in 1992 while an amateur but failed to make a cut.
He has won 44 events on the PGA Tour, including five major championships: three Masters titles (2004, 2006, 2010), a PGA Championship (2005), and an Open Championship (2013).
Mickelson has spent over 25 consecutive years in the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking. He has spent over 700 weeks in the top-10, has reached a career-high world ranking of No. 2 several times and is a life member of the PGA Tour. Known for his left-handed swing, even though otherwise right-handed, he learned by mirroring his right-handed father's swing.He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2012.