Mickelson entered Hall winging it all the way

He won a major with two drivers in the bag, then blew another with zero drivers in his club quiver. He won a tournament with five wedges in his bag. He hit defining shots that would astound, and more than a few that drowned. He was often smarter than the rest, and almost as often, too stubborn for his own survival.

Sure, we have all second-guessed the tactics at times, but the totality of his results are indisputably stout. Forever toiling in the shadow of Woods, the most insane yardstick to which anyone can be compared, Mickelson stands ninth in PGA Tour victories, an achievement that, quite possibly, will never again be broached as the game goes increasingly global.

He won for the 40th time earlier this spring at Pebble Beach, with a vintage performance that was nothing short of Ping K15 Driver astounding, especially given that at age 41, he had shown signs of slipping back into the thickening pack of merely occasional contenders. He shot 64, the lowest score of the day, torched playing partner Tiger Woods in the process, and headed off to Augusta National in search of his fourth green jacket.

Among PGA Tour players at least a year younger than Mickelson, the leaders in victories are David Duval (13) and Justin Leonard (12). They are 40 and 39 years old, though, and there's no way they're sniffing 40 wins, because neither player has won in four-plus seasons.

You know the rest. He launched a shot in the final round that caromed into a stand of bamboo, where it took so long to extricate his ball, he likely learned to speak Vietnamese, and it cost him a shot at the Masters title. But first, he hit two shots right-handed, going down in flames in his unforgettable Lefty style. Be it triumph or trainwreck, Mickelson has done it with more flair than anybody since Arnold Palmer, his early role model. He didn't just take the road less traveled to the clubhouse, he sometimes hacked Callaway Razr X Tour irons a new path with a 9-iron as his machete.

Mickelson will officially have his mug placed on the venerable wall at the hall, testament to his 40 PGA Tour victories and four major championships, numbers that do not remotely encompass all of his contributions to the game.

"I don't know at what age I started to act that way," Mickelson shrugged. "I know that when I was a psychology major in college, one of the ways to face a fear was to tackle it head on. There was a few different ways, but the one that I felt was the best was, if you don't like snakes, go hang out with snakes a bunch and eventually you're going to get over the fear.

With that, Harmon related a frightening family episode involving his wife, who had an apparent heart attack while the pair was in Utah. The couple's son was back home in Las Vegas, however.

Unfairly, according to his defenders, Mickelson's aw-shucks demeanor on the course has drawn criticism over the years. His swing coach, Butch Harmon, says his top client has often been described as "goofy," and that would be one of the kinder terms.

"That's kind of the way I approach discount golf clubs," he said. "If there's a shot that I don't feel comfortable with, I'll go on the range and work on it until I do, until I turn that weakness into a strength, and where I see a lot of mistakes being made out here is people practice their strengths, and they don't take their weaknesses and turn them into strengths. It feels better to practice things you're good at, not the things you struggle at, and I've always tried to do the opposite."

Eyeballing the younger set (discounting Tiger, who's almost five years younger than Phil), Adam Scott has eight PGA Tour victories at age 31 and Sergio Garcia has seven at 32. Honestly, we're not sure either has the inner appetite to get to 20, much less 40. Mickelson, the last amateur player to win a title on the tour 21 years ago, looks like he still has some gas in the tank, too.