With LIV Golf’s globetrotting schedule, three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson has not found time to make his annual scouting mission to Augusta National ahead of the tournament this spring. But when a reporter asked about that reconnaissance trip, Lefty wanted to give something for an answer.
After all, Hurricane Helene devastated the Augusta area last year, prompting chairman Fred Ridley to say in October that there was significant damage to Augusta National. At the time, Ridley assured fans the maintenance crew would repair the course. From all reports, it has, although several players, including 2017 champion Sergio Garcia, heard, there are some different looks with a few missing trees here and there. “I’m sure it’ll [still] be great,” the Spaniard said Wednesday.
Regardless, it’s yet another reason for competitors to get up to Augusta National before the 89th Masters.
Back to Mickelson, who was in a jovial mood on Wednesday [Thursday AEST] during a press conference ahead of this week’s LIV Golf Miami event, returning this year to Trump Doral Resort. He began his response to the scouting trip question with, “I’ll give you a little Augusta story, if I may.”
Mickelson, you may indeed.
“Speaking of trees going down,” he continued. “I was playing a practice round there one year. It was two weeks prior to the tournament. Probably nobody even knows that this happened.
“Two weeks prior to the tournament, I’m playing the 11th hole [tee shot] and I see this tree on the left fall over right in the middle of the fairway. Crash down, like right by the group in front of us. They were probably 100 yards [90 metres] away. This massive Georgia pine comes down, rips up the fairway.
“By the time I had walked from my tee shot into the fairway, I could hear on the walkie-talkies go off … 100 workers piling in, racing to this tree, firing up the chain saws, started cutting this thing down. By the time I walk off 11 green, all the limbs of the tree have been cut off and put on a truck. By the time [I got] to 18 tee and I looked down, they were re-sodding the fairway. You couldn’t tell two days later this had happened. It was one of the most impressive things I had seen, their ability to handle stuff like that. I’m sure the course is going to be in great shape [this year].”
"It was one of the most impressive things I had seen."
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) April 2, 2025
Phil Mickelson shared an incredible untold Augusta National story. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/bHKtzOvV3h
Mickelson, now 54 but coming off his best LIV Golf result since joining the league in 2022 with a third place at LIV Golf Hong Kong last month, was also asked about another tradition at Augusta: the Tuesday night Champions Dinner. Specifically, his favourite story.
“I wish they would videotape those guys tell some stories because it’s so much better coming from them than hearing it second-hand,” he said.
The Californian, who captains the HyFlyers team on LIV, didn’t know if this tale was told at the Champions Dinner but he had a great anecdote about how Arnold Palmer’s reverence for Ben Hogan played a role in the first of Palmer’s four victories at Augusta.
“He really looked up to Ben Hogan,” Mickelson said.
The story goes, Palmer learned he had been invited to a Monday practice round with Hogan ahead of the 1958 Masters. Only problem was, he had just lost in a playoff at the Azalea Open Invitational in Wilmington, North Carolina, that Sunday. He had to drive five-plus hours through the night just to arrive in Augusta early enough to play a practice round with Hogan and Dow Finsterwald.
“They go out and play, and Arnold is tired, he hadn’t slept, and he had just won, and he’s emotionally spent, and he kind of hit it everywhere, he slapped it around,” Mickelson said. “He overheard as they were having lunch and he goes to wash his hands, he kind of hears Hogan say, ‘How did that kid get into this tournament?’ That really got him upset, and he said ‘[Hogan] never called me Arnie, he never called me Palmer.’ [Hogan] always called him ‘kid.’ [Palmer] never liked that. He said, ‘That really spurred me on. I was determined to show him. He went out and won that year.”
Mickelson will compete next week at Augusta National for the 32nd time, having won in 2004, 2006 and 2010. Two years ago, at age 53, Mickelson finished T-2 at Augusta behind winner Jon Rahm. Safe to say he loves the place, and he’s looking forward to returning to the hallowed turf.
“To be a part of the past history,” Mickelson said, “having won there knowing that every time we go back we’re a part of the history and we get to partake in everything that transpires that week, and the way they treat the past champions, which is better than any tournament in the world, it’s just a special feeling to be a part of that. It’s almost a religious experience every time you set foot on Augusta National.”
