"Phil defeats Father Time". Those were the words of CBS' Jim Nantz on Sunday as Phil Mickelson, a month shy of his 51st birthday, tapped in a par putt on the 72nd hole to win the 2021 PGA Championship. It's his sixth career major, including his first since 2013, and his first PGA Tour victory (non-Champions Tour) since 2019.
In the process Lefty set all kinds of records. No one had ever won PGA Tour events more than 30 years apart before yesterday (Mickelson's first victory was at the Northern Telecom Open in January 1991). He's now won a tournament in four different decades. His 16-year gap between a first major and a last is topped only by Jack Nicklaus (23) and Tiger Woods (22). And with odds anywhere in the 200- or 300-to-1 range, he's the least likely major winner in at least 15 years.
He also set a record that might be darn-near unbreakable, becoming the oldest player ever to win a major, joining this historic company.
1) Phil Mickelson (50 years, 11 months, 7 days): For context about Mickelson, he came into the week ranked 115th in the world and since last year's PGA Championship didn't have a single top-20 finish in 17 starts, with seven missed cuts in that span. It got to the point where he needed a sponsor's exemption to be able to play in next month's U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. Then he went out and was the leader after 36, 54 and 72 holes, beating Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen by two strokes.
2) Julius Boros (48 years, 4 months, 18 days): Not even a pro until he turned 29, the Connecticut native was 16 years removed from his first major victory at the 1952 U.S. Open and five years removed from his only other major win (the '63 Open) when he went out and outlasted Bob Charles and Arnold Palmer to win the 1968 PGA Championship. The World Golf Hall of Famer would win one final Tour event the following year before being instrumental in the formation of the Senior Tour.
3) Tom Morris (46 years, 3 months, 10 days): Unless you watched Sunday's telecast on CBS, you've probably never heard of Old Tom Morris. Born in 1821, the Scottish golfer won the Open Championship four times, the last of which came in 1867 when he was 46. More remarkable is that he nearly won it again the next year, finishing second, and he'd finish fifth as late at 1880, when he was 59 years old! Obviously it was a different era of golf, but Morris is also best known as one of the fathers of modern greenskeeping, being the first to introduce (among other things) tee boxes, lawnmowing greens and strategically placing hazards on courses.
4) Jack Nicklaus (46 years, 2 months, 23 days): It's arguably the most famous Sunday in major championship history. Six years removed from his most recent major victory, Nicklaus was hanging around the fringes of contention at the 1986 Masters, starting the day four shots back. After he bogeyed the 12th he was still three strokes off the lead, then led one of the most remarkable charges ever. He went eagle-birdie-birdie, capped by the famous 18-foot birdie putt he drained on 17. Overall he shot a six-under 30 coming in to take home his sixth green jacket.
5) Jerry Barber (45 years, 3 months, 6 days): Barber only won seven PGA Tour events in his career, four of which came in what normally would have been the twilight of his career. In a 19-month span between 1960 and 1961 and in his mid-40s, Barber won four events, capped by a victory in the 1961 PGA Championship in a playoff in wild fashion. He made a 20-foot birdie on 16, a 40-foot par putt in 17 and a 60-footer for birdie on 18 that all erased a four-stroke deficit with three to play.
On Monday's 18-hole playoff, a bogey by Don January on 18 gave Barber the one-stroke victory for his only major.