If there’s one thing we know about Phil Mickelson, it’s that the man is not afraid to break a few rules in order to get what he wants. But at Augusta National Golf Club, even Lefty, a three-time green jacket winner, is supposed to fall in line. Supposed to.
Evidently, that’s not the case, according to an incredibly-told story by Mickelson himself that he put out on all his social channels on Thursday night. To set the scene, Mickelson, sitting in his golf cart, takes viewers 20 years back to the 2004 Masters, a tournament he was entering on an absolute tear, in part thanks to a “towel drill” he had been working on that season with legendary short game coach Dave Pelz.
Oddly enough, the drill was designed for Mickelson to set up towels at specific yardages, all the way up to 175 yards, making it sound like a little more than just a short-game drill. The idea was to build reference points, and Mickelson needed a large area to himself on the range to do it. He had been doing it all season up to that point, and wanted to continue doing it the week of the Masters.
We’ll let him take it from there:
Mickelson has proven time and time again that he’s got some serious stones, but even for him, this was a little too ballsy. Just the idea of sneaking under the giant magnolia trees to literally steal something from Augusta National Golf Club, be it a blade of grass or a sign, is a terrifying. But then to plot to do it again at the following year’s Champions Dinner, again waiting everything out to duck under the trees and swipe another sign, is downright insane behavior. He was quite literally asking to be banned from the property, or at least be given some sort of stern talking to or strongly-worded letter to stop what he was doing or else. Some people are just above the law.
Mickelson is a lot of things, but one thing he is not is a bad storyteller. By the way, if these are the stories he’s willing to share with us, can you imagine the ones he’s not?
