2020 Reflections: Phil the Bartender, Major Championship Impact…and Of Course, COVID

Match 3

With the Christmas holidays approaching and 2020 coming to an end, Colorado AvidGolfer looks back at the season in golf.

By Anthony Cotton

With lost tournaments, delayed major championships and not one, but two heaping helpings of Peyton Manning in “The Match,” it’s not a stretch to say 2020 was unlike any other season in golf. The year has also seen record numbers of rounds played across the country—up 17 percent in Colorado from a year ago, according to the National Golf Foundation and Golf Datatech. That’s better than the national figure of almost 11 percent; if that figure seems small, consider that it also includes the almost 20 million rounds that were lost in the spring when many courses across the country were closed.

 

That was the result of the novel Coronavirus, which, unfortunately, is the dominant storyline in Golf 2020   It’s the thread that runs through almost everything, good and bad, that occurred in the sport. Even so, like the increased numbers of people who found solace in playing, there were any number of bright spots to be found throughout the year. Over the next few weeks, Colorado AvidGolfer will take a look at some of things, both locally and nationally, that brought a smile to our collective faces.

That list would certainly have to include The Match—the first edition of the made-for-television charity event in May, featuring Manning, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Tom Brady was so popular that a second challenge was quickly put together. This time, with Woods and Brady unavailable, Mickelson teamed up with former NBA star (and normally horrendous golfer) Charles Barkley, the pair claiming an upset victory over Manning and Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry.

While perhaps lacking in great golf, the contest was good for a great many laughs—including this story from Golf Magazine about one of the first encounters between Phil the Thrill and the Round Mound of Rebound:

Some 30 years ago, Barkley thought Mickelson was a bartender.

Barkley had just been traded from the Philadelphia 76ers to the Phoenix Suns. Mickelson had just turned pro. And Mickelson’s then-girlfriend-now-wife, Amy, was a Suns cheerleader who wanted the two to meet.

“Amy used to dance for the Suns, and she was the greatest lady, got to know her really well,” Barkley said on a video Mickelson shared on social media. “So obviously when I got traded to Phoenix, things were really, really hectic, so I had a tight schedule. She says to me, ‘Will you play golf with my boyfriend, Phil?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, yeah, OK.’”

A month goes by. Nothing.

“She says, ‘You going to play golf with my boyfriend, Phil?’” Barkley said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ll play golf with your boyfriend, Phil.’”

 

Three months go by. Still nothing.

“She says, ‘Are you ever going to play golf with my boyfriend, Phil?’” Barkleys said. “I’m like, ‘OK, Amy, I like you. What’s the deal? What’s his name?’ She said, ‘Phil Mickelson.’

“I said, ‘What? You going out with Phil Mickelson?’ I said, ‘Amy in the future, you start out with my boyfriend, Phil Mickelson. I thought you were going out with Phil the bartender. I would have canceled everything I was doing to go play golf with the great Phil Mickelson. But she started out with, ‘My boyfriend, Phil.’ How the hell am I supposed to know his last name is Mickelson.”

Match 3

When it comes to 2020’s  major championships, one might say the glass was three-quarters full—or maybe one-fourth empty. Because of the pandemic, the British Open was cancelled; in addition, the other three majors were rescheduled, resulting in The Masters being played in the Fall for the first time ever. When the curtain came down on the season’s biggest events in men’s golf, long-time national golf writers Mike Purkey and John Hawkins of the Morning Read, debated which of the year’s majors had the biggest impact:

 

Hawk’s take: The combination of Who + How makes this one a no-brainer.  Collin Morikawa’s drive to 7 feet and subsequent eagle at the par-4 16th Sunday was unquestionably the shot of the year, but he also chipped in for a birdie at Harding Park’s 14th and went 65-64 on the weekend to finish atop a star-stacked leaderboard at the PGA Championship. When a 23-year-old kid joins Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy as the youngest winners in tournament history – by closing with the lowest 36-hole total ever at a PGA and all those late fireworks – few elite gatherings in any recent year are worthy of comparison.

More than Morikawa’s heroics, Harding Park’s debut as a major-championship host doubled as the first of golf’s Big Four to be held in the coronavirus era. After 14 majorless months and a three-month suspension of the season altogether, the 102nd PGA served up oversized portions of all we missed about the game. Suspense. Surprise. Brilliance in the clutch.

The U.S. Open and Masters both produced blowouts, courtesy of the two best players in 2020. Though Bryson DeChambeau and Dustin Johnson proved dominant on their marches to victory, neither tournament exactly concluded with a bang. Golf’s most vivid memories usually come from a homestretch for the ages. This year’s PGA was punctuated by exclamation points galore.

Purk’s take: In the spring of 2017, Dustin Johnson was playing the best golf of anyone in the world, which more than justified his No. 1 ranking. Quite naturally, he was the favorite to win the Masters that year. But a slip-and-fall on some stairs at the house he was renting injured his back, and he was forced to withdraw without hitting a shot in competition.

Three-and-a-half years later, Johnson found himself in the same situation: No. 1 in the world, and no one was playing better golf than he was. This time, the Coronavirus Masters was in November, and the joke was that Johnson rented a house on one level, with no stairs.

Until 2020, Johnson was as cursed and star-crossed at majors as anyone since Greg Norman. He had won only one major title, the 2016 U.S. Open, but would have had four more if majors were only 54 holes, including this year’s PGA Championship at Harding Park in August, where he led after three rounds.

But with a record-setting 72-hole total of 20 under par at Augusta National, Johnson finally earned a green jacket that had been tailor-made for him for years. In many ways, nothing is sweeter than redemption, and two major titles are way more than twice as good as one.

Speaking of major championships, the final major of the year is the U.S. Women’s Open, which begins Thursday at the Champions Golf Club in Houston. Jennifer Kupcho, the Westminster native who finished tied for 11th place last week at the Volunteers of America Classic, will be paired with In Gee Chun of Korea and Moriya Jutanugarn of Thailand in the opening two rounds. The trio will tee off just before 10 a.m. on Thursday.

The tournament will be the 10th major championship in the 23-year-old Kupcho’s career; according to the Colorado Golf Association, that’s the most majors played by a Colorado golfer before their 24th birthday.


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Colorado AvidGolfer Magazine is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. CAG publishes eight issues annually and delivers daily content via coloradoavidgolfer.com.

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