Embracing links challenge finally pays off for Lefty

To comprehend the inexplicable development that unfolded at Muirfield, one needs to start with this number when he or she talks about Phil Mickelson in the major championships: Four.

It represents the number of cuts he has missed in the Open Championship in his career. It also represents the number of cuts he has missed in the Masters, U.S. Open and American PGA Championship, combined!

Or, how about these numbers: two and 32.

Two, as in the number of top 10 finishes the lefthander had accumulated in the Open Championship prior to this year.

Thirty-two, as in the number of top 10 finishes he had stockpiled in the other three major championships combined.

Armed with such data, it’s safe to say that were you a betting man and someone told you Mickelson was three-quarters of the way to the Grand Slam, you’d drop a few euro on that missing piece being the Open Championship.

You’d be wrong.

Riding what he called “probably the best round of my career,” Mickelson blitzed Muirfield’s vaunted back nine in 32 strokes, and with a 5-under 66 recorded the lowest closing round by a winner since 1997.

It added up to something that even the abundantly-confident Mickelson wasn’t sure was in his future.

A Claret Jug.

“I always wondered if I’d develop the skills to win (an Open Championship),” Mickelson said. “This (championship) has been the biggest challenge.”

For so many summers, be it England or Scotland, the trip over for the Open Championship was pretty much an exercise in futility for Mickelson. Gifted enough to have won a PGA Tour event as an amateur, the lefthander never had a problem on the lush fairways and target-golf that is week in and week out in the States, but put him on the spectacular links, expose him to wind and demand that he keep his ball flight down?

Well, just for example he was tied 73 in his Open debut in 1991 and it wasn’t until his eighth trip — St Andrews in 2000 — that he roared up the leaderboard. All to the way to joint 11th. Yawn.

But as much as he struggled over here playing the world’s greatest championship, he was competing in, but not winning, the three majors in the states. Constantly reminded that he was perhaps the best player never to have won a major, Mickelson as he got into his early 30s seemed resigned to his fate. He insisted on more than one occasion that he would continue to have fun with his explosive and aggressive mentality and if he remained major-less, so be it.

And then he won the Masters that unforgettable Sunday in 2004. The following year, Mickelson won the American PGA and by 2010 he had piled up three green jackets, that PGA, and a healthy list of runner-up finishes in the US Open. In other words, he had discovered how to play and compete for the biggest prizes — save for the one on links.

If he saw it as a hole in his legacy, he didn’t say, but for the last few years, Mickelson has seemed to be a different player come Open Championship time. It was if the last layer of stubbornness had been shred; he would figure out this links business.

Not to say he had shrugged off the Open in the past, but in recent years he has embraced the challenge, going so far as to warmup at the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart. The results have improved. In 2011, he had a chance to win at Royal St George’s, but was outplayed by Darren Clarke.

No such problem this time around. Starting the day five behind Lee Westwood — who could probably study Mickelson’s history to learn a thing or two about how to improve one’s fortunes in the majors — the lefthander kept telling himself to get to “even par” at the turn to make it a “nine-hole tournament.”

With birdies on both outward par-5s, five and nine, Mickelson did just that and when he shot 32 coming home to the 37s posted by the others he was fighting with, Westwood and Adam Scott, the Claret Jug was his. At 3-under 281, he won by three.

“I could not be more proud to be your champion,” Mickelson told the assembled crowd in the Muirfield grandstands.

Many, for sure, could not have been more surprised that he was.