Phil Mickelson’s brother offers money ball tips to Lefty’s practice-round protégés

Phil Mickelson has been known to drive and putt for dough during his fabled pre-tourney golf dates with young guys eager to hoover up all the knowledge they can from the five-time major winner.

Mickelson, according to his sister Tina and brother Tim, also really, really likes to win at everything — whether it’s teeing it up with Tiger Woods, playing penny-ante poker games with young Tim, or silly computerized memory games with nieces and nephews.

“Everything was a competition,” Tim said during a recent Golf Digest interview in which Mickelson’s sibs dished about their famous bro. “He always won.”

Phil’s competitive juices flow even when he’s up against a 4-year-old, as Tina relayed.

“Phil challenged [Tina’s son] Lucas to a game, and, concentrating furiously, barely wins. They play again, and Phil barely wins again. Phil is punching the air like he does when he makes a big putt. He’s going, ‘Yeah!’” Tina said. “Lucas says, ‘Come on, Uncle Phil, one more game.’ And Phil says, ‘Lucas, I think you need to go practice on some easier competition for a while because you’re just not ready for me.’

“He was joking. A little,” Tina added.

Given that snapshot of Lefty’s cutthroat side, you know it must eat at him when he has to fork over big bucks to his adherents when the students better the sensei at his own game. So, listen up, Keegan Bradley, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson “and the other guys Phil loves to play for money in practice rounds,” Tim Mickelson advised.

“Here’s a tip: If you’re ahead on the bets, don’t let Phil know it,” he said. “If he asks where the match stands, just shrug like you don’t know, or tell him he’s ahead. Chances are, he’s not following that closely.

“But if you let him know you’re winning, especially with a couple of holes left, you’ve got a problem,” Tim noted, “because he’ll pour it on at the end and beat you.”

Tim, by the way, let the world in on a little-known secret about Phil’s brief 2014 turn as his assistant coach at Arizona State. Phil signed on to help recruit players for ASU but when things did not quite go as planned, Timmy’s older brother quit before he was booted out.

“I thought a phone call to a recruit from Phil Mickelson would be pretty convincing. So it was not a publicity stunt,” Tim averred. “Well, during his stint, he called three recruits, kids I really wanted. None of the three chose Arizona State.

“In January 2015, Phil resigned, joking that I’d fired him. I didn’t fire him,” Tim said, “ but the truth is, if he hadn’t resigned I would have had to fire him. He wasn’t getting the job done.”

SB Nation video archives: Urban golfing with a US Open champion (2012)