He is one of the leading players of his generation, having won three major championships and a total of 29 events on the PGA Tour.

Phil Mickelson was born in San Diego, California and raised in Arizona and San Diego. Mickelson is ambidextrous; he swings a golf club left-handed, but writes right-handed. He graduated from the University of San Diego High School in 1988, then attended Arizona State on a golf scholarship, from which he graduated in 1992. While at ASU, he was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. In 1990, he became the first left-hander to win the U.S. Amateur title. In 1991, he had won his first PGA Tour tournament at the Northern Telecom Open as an amateur, becoming the first to do so since Scott Verplank at the 1985 Western Open in Chicago.

Mickelson continued to win many PGA Tour tournaments, including the Byron Nelson Golf Classic and the World Series of Golf in 1996, the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 1998, the Colonial in 2000 and the Greater Hartford Open in 2001 and again in 2002. Mickelson also shot a round of 59 at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf at Poipu Bay Golf Course on November 24, 2004. Mickelson was known for his powerful full swing but even more so for his superlative short game, most of all his daring "Phil flop" shot in which a big swing with a high-lofted wedge against a tight lie flies a ball high into the air for a short distance.

Despite these accomplishments, for many years Mickelson was often described as the "best golfer never to win a major." Mickelson often played well in majors: in the five-year span between 1999 and 2003 he had six second-place or third-place finishes. But victory always eluded him, for reasons that were ascribed to taking too many risky shots, missing too many short putts, or a general lack of what it takes to close out a big tournament. Undaunted, Mickelson continued to refine his game and his course strategy and psychology.

He would win his first major championship win came in the 2004 Masters, where he won with a 20-foot final hole birdie putt, defeating Ernie Els in a Sunday back-nine duel in which the stars traded birdies and eagles back and forth. In addition to getting the "majors monkey" off his back, this made him only the third golfer with a left-handed swing to win a major, the others being New Zealander Sir Bob Charles who won the British Open in 1963 and Canadian Mike Weir who won The Masters in 2003. (Like Mickelson, Weir is a right-hander who plays left-handed.)

The following year, in a Monday final round, Mickelson captured his second career major championship with his victory at the 2005 PGA Championship at Baltusrol. On the 18th hole, Mickelson hit one of his trademark soft pitches from deep greenside rough to within a foot and a half of the cup, and then made his birdie to finish at a 4-under-par total of 276, one shot ahead of Steve Elkington and Thomas Bj�rn. Mickelson captured his third major championship the following spring by winning the 2006 Masters. He won his second Green Jacket after shooting a 3 under par final round, winning by 2 strokes over his nearest rival Tim Clark. This win propelled him to 2nd place in the world golf rankings (his career best), behind Tiger Woods and ahead of Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen.

At the 2006 U.S. Open (golf) at Winged Foot, Phil finished second to Geoff Oglivy after a series of faulty shots led to his only double bogey of the tournament on the 72nd hole, costing him the championship. Reflecting on his performance afterwards Phil admitted: "I still am in shock that I did that. I just can't believe I did that. I'm such an idiot". [1]

Demonstrating grace after even the toughest defeats, showing appreciation to legions of his fans and always honoring the traditions and history of the game has made Phil one of the most popular players ever to play on the Tour.

His popularity among his fellow golfers is lower, however, to the point that he ranked number eight on a 2006 GQ Magazine list of the Ten Most Hated Athletes.[2] Colleagues on the Tour refer to Mickelson as "FIGJAM", which stands for "Fuck I'm Good--Just Ask Me".[3] In his book A Good Walk Spoiled, noted author John Feinstein compared Mickelson's personality to Eddie Haskell on the classic TV series Leave It to Beaver, in that he may have a kind exterior but in reality he is egotistical and rather mean.