Phil Mickelson certainly sounds like he’s enjoying the PGA Tour Champions – winning three of the four events he has entered helps that. His latest victory came Sunday in Jacksonville, Florida, in the Constellation Furyk and Friends.
But it’s not just about the winning. The 51-year-old prefers the aggressive nature he can display on the senior circuit, and he said he’s having a good time playing with guys he knows better while he’s less familiar with the up-and-coming golfers on the PGA Tour.
“I don’t feel like there are tournaments on the regular tour that are really exciting me to get out and play, so it’s fun for me to get out here and work on a few things that I’m trying to improve on and play with guys that I know. I know all these guys here,” he said Sunday after winning at Timuquana Country Club .
A four-hour delay during Friday’s first round at Timuquana sent everyone inside.
“With that rain delay, I go into the locker room and everybody in there I know, whereas on the regular tour there’s so many new, young, fresh players, I don’t know who two-thirds of them are.”
Jim Furyk became the second golfer to win his first two times out on the senior circuit last year. It didn’t take long for Mickelson to become the third. Now he has three wins in four outings and more than $750,000 in earnings.
“It’s a good start. I’m having fun, I’m having fun playing here. I’m enjoying being around the guys, I’m enjoying the golf courses, how I can be a little bit more aggressive and like when I made a mistake on No. 5, I can still recover. You do that on the regular tour, you just get eaten alive. You just can’t make those mistakes there and have a chance to compete and contend and win. So I like how you don’t have to be perfect and I can get away with a shot or two here or there, so it makes it fun to play and play aggressive.”
Make no mistake: Mickelson is not declaring that he won’t play the PGA Tour from now on. After all, he is the reigning PGA Championship winner.
“I think if I can play well in tournaments on the regular tour and compete and maybe win a time or two like at the PGA and have some credibility when I come out here, I think that would be a good thing because it shows how high a level of performance goes on out here on the Champions Tour,” he said. “If I can continue to stay up in the world rankings and compete in some regular Tour events, when I do come out here, I hope to help out.”
Mickelson’s next PGA Tour Champions event will be Oct. 22-24 at the Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Richmond, Virginia, when the PGA Tour will be at the Zozo Championship in Japan. He then most likely will play the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship on Nov. 11-14 in Phoenix, the same week as the PGA Tour’s Houston Open, which Mickelson chose to play in 2020 because it was the week before the pandemic-delayed Masters.