The Most Brutal Rivalry in Golf History

one was a charismatic Country Club kid the kind of player that had graced the golf world for over a century the other was a quiet mun kid with a Minds like no other and an ability never before seen Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson couldn't have been much more different yet they shared the stage at the summit of golf for a quarter century and that forced a brutal rivalry that has taken a toll on each of their legacies ever since the very beginning in golf we don't see a ton of rags to Rich's stories at least we didn't see a ton of them in the 9s sure there were a few but nothing like we experienced with baseball or basketball and so there's never been a ton of focus on the early lives of golfers because they're generally very similar golfing father growing up at a country club with every opportunity viable in front of the kid Phil Mickelson well is almost a perfect example of that he grew up in San Diego and Scottdale Arizona his father being an airline pilot and real estate investor had plenty of time to teach him the game and his grandfather was a cadd at Pebble Beach by no means did he grow up with everything at his footsteps but it's a story we've definitely heard before but you can't really say the same for Tiger now Woods's father had been an elite athlete before and just like Phil's dad was a veteran but that's really where the similarities ended tiger grew up playing at public courses and a Navy course in California where his father turned him into a golf robot effectively he was programmed to break all of Jack Nicholas's records and win everything in golf from a very early age and on his way to becoming a pro he eventually did that even outshell an already professional film Mickelson while coming up as an amateur in the early 1990s the mikkelson name was gathering hype as he climbed up the rankings at Arizona State he won three individual NCAA championships became the first left-hand golfer to win the US Amer in 19 1990 and won a PGA Tour event even before he went professional in January 1991 I am getting some martime young Phil snagged a lot of headlines and looked to be a very big name for a long time in golf and then a scrawny teenager started really picking up momentum you have to uh make a putt you make a putt you have to hit the shot you hit the shot you just sort of like drop into another Zone and uh you block out everything Tiger Woods his insane mentality and wild athleticism grabbed the World by storm and grabbed the title of the next big thing kind of right out from under Phil tiger won three straight us Junior amers followed that up with three straight us amers while also being the lam in the 1995 Masters and from there Tiger Mania took over the world and distracted people from Phil mikkelson Tiger Woods Mania the golf Superstar Tiger Mania Tiger Woods Mania officially has arrived at the Copper Head course I don't think I have to remind anyone of how incredible tiger was in those early years in 1997 Woods won the Masters by a then Record 12 strokes and two months later set another record in the fastest Ascent to world's number one in golf history 12 under in his last 27 holes prompting six-time Masters champ Jack Nicholas to utter quote he's playing a type of golf we are not familiar with I felt ready to go uh probably actually too ready to go when Thursday came around I was too far up and I settled down and I'm playing well now you know obviously he he's setting a standard right now it's very difficult for anybody to keep up with in 2000 he won six straight PGA Tour events and well almost won a seventh and would have if it weren't for Phil Mickelson he beat tiger by four strokes to win that Year's Buick Invitational in La Hoya California at that point despite them both being prominent players for a few years that rivalry really started to take shape though not necessarily grabbing all the headlines he was always competing but just not winning at least as much as tiger was however Phil was often very close to him in tournaments and that left a lot of people questioning what Phil's career could have been like if he hadn't come up with the greatest game changer golf had ever seen there was the 2001 Arnold's Palmer Invitational where tiger broke a slump of five tournaments without a win by outlasting an inform mikkelson by one stroke with a birdie on 18 on Sunday that set him on the path of winning four of his next five events including the 2001 Masters where he made it four straight major victories then came the 2002 US Open where the crowd took on a wet and rainy Beth Page black that saw Woods ends the week being the only player under par in the field while Phil slipped into second yet again despite having the crowd overwhelmingly on his side this made Phil Mickelson 0 and 40 in his career in majors while Woods had gone and won everything tiger was on top of the world with Phil mikkelson in his shadow Tiger Woods halfway to the slam and his second US Open Championship going into 2004 melson had 17 top 10 finishes in majors and yet hadn't won a single time tiger in that same period had won eight it wasn't even really much of a comparison yet that is until Phil secured his green Jack in the 2004 Masters beating Ernie ell's by one stroke at the great Augusta National at this point tiger was undergoing his second major swing overhaul in 5 years and was relatively struggling he'd go on to lose the world number one spot to VJ Singh at the end of the year and Phil picked up some momentum from there for the first time in four years Phil Mickelson won four tour events including the PGA Championship he was gaining some ground he had finally won majors and he was taking control of golf right well not exactly tiger began regaining his form walking out of 2005 with six tournament wins and two majors even when Phil began gaining ground tiger dragged him back to being at most second best however everything changed in 2009 the celebrity website TMZ released these photos of Tiger Woods mangled car but for the third time Woods refused to speak to investigators to EXP explain the 2:30 a.m. accident just pass his driveway but it wasn't a member of the media who issued the strongest condemnation of his behavior it was instead the fellow Pro who' introduced woods and his wife8 years ago I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in for one of the first times in his very long career Woods voluntarily took a step away from golf and you'd think this would be a great time for Phil mikkelson to take advantage he was Tiger's rival right shouldn't it be his turn now well he did perform winning the Tour Championship in 09 and the Masters the following year but it wasn't a complete takeover the one some people might have expected since he had rival tiger for so long in the past two decades mikkelson finished second five times at the US Open this year he already won the Masters and is creeping closer to that coveted number one ranking everybody who plays golf as professionals motivated to try to become number one in 2010 after winning the Masters Phil was in a very good position to become the top ranked player in golf he was one of the favorites to win that Year's Us open at Pebble Beach and after going 7566 in the first two rounds was in pretty good position to do so he went into the weekend just two shots back from the lead but 2 73s were only good enough for a joint fourth place finish the rest of the season saw more disappointing finishes eventually allowing Lee Westwood to grab that number one spot despite his failures the year before 2011 would come with one major bright spot for all the tiger vers phille rivalry proponents with melson sliding ahead of tiger to third place in the world golf rankings while Woods fell to seventh for the first time since the 1997 Masters however those expectations of him finally superseding tiger wouldn't come to anything as putting problems and inconsistency plagued the rest of the 36-year-old's Year Phil proves to be great but even without tiger being tiger melson was unable to grab the reins of the tour the way younger tiger had as the 2010s came around they were filled with very little from these two so-called Rivals they were older and slower and struggled to compete with the likes of Rory mroy Jordan spe or Dustin Johnson for a lot of people their time was over and then tiger went and won the 20199 Masters perhaps the greatest golf win of all time it seemingly ended the story of the goat and Phil Mickelson and their rivalry but that wouldn't exactly be the case because with Phil even though he was 5 years older than tiger wasn't done either in 20121 mikkelson became the oldest major champion in golf history when he held off Brooks Kea and Luis du tasen to win the PGA Championship by Two Strokes for many people with their special relationship to Phil mikkelson because of how well he treated so many fans they hold this Victory as potentially even more important to them than the 2019 Masters victory for Tiger but realistically since that point since Phil won in 2021 this rivalry has only been about Phil in 2022 he made the crazy money move to live where a lot of people thought he would retire after a long career and then he came back and had the performance of the tournament in the 2023 Masters finishing with a final round 65 to come in just four strokes back of John ROM while tiger well he withdrew after barely making the cut Phil's consistency yet again has shown through that despite being in his mid-50s he's still able to compete with the best while Tiger Woods has been wildly quiet this brutal rivalry was once so hard on Phil as tiger took over the world while mikkelson was in what was supposed to be his prime but now everything has flipped as this consistency that Phil has shown has shown Us Golf viewers something that tiger wasn't able to do Phil Mickelson was very similar to The Great golfers of decades past with his childhood and now with his entire career a lot of great golfers compete well into their 40s and Beyond but tiger well he wasn't exactly like that at least consistency he built a swing that was unsustainable for longevity however that swing created gamechanging moments L having courses lengthened because of him and a pure dominance the game will probably never see again having the two of them compete together for so many years gave us this wild contrast between history and Phil and the future in Tiger but my question is whose career would you rather have for me I would take Tigers today and any day Woods was a once in a-lifetime player even if we experienced him for a few years less than we did Phil thank you for watching my documentary if you want want to get access to all my videos at free as well as see them earlier than anyone else consider supporting me on patreon in the link in the description so I can make even more of these documentaries because I love doing it but with YouTube's copyright system it can really be very difficult thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one peace

Channel: ROLU Golf

Views: 132,502

Keywords: Rolu Golf, Golf Documentaries, Golf Stories, Tiger woods documentary, tiger woods and phil mickelson, phil mickelson documentaries, tiger vs phil, tiger woods vs phil mickelson, who was better tiger woods or phil mickelson, phil mickelson 2021 PGA championship, Tiger woods 2019 masters

Id: 3sgjOo0dZXU

Length: 11min 46sec (706 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024