British Open 2017: Phil Mickelson is back for another major win at Royal Birkdale

Phil Mickelson may be winless since he stunned the field at the 2013 Open Championship and, at 47, just three years away from being eligible for the Champions Tour, but the five-time major winner has experience and a number of other factors working in his favor this week at Royal Birkdale.

For whatever reason, older guys succeed at the British Open more often than at any of the other three majors. In the past 20 years, five Open champs were over 40 and four of the last six to hoist the Claret Jug have been north of 39 years old, including Mickelson in 2013 and Henrik Stenson, who outlasted Phil in a dramatic final-round showdown last year at Royal Troon.

Royal Birkdale is also the course on which the young southpaw made his Open debut and one that owns a special place in Lefty’s heart as the track that launched his competitive aspirations.

“I’ve always had an affinity for that golf course, always loved it and enjoyed it and felt that it was a good golf course for me,” Mickelson told Golf Channel’s Tim Rosaforte recently. “I’m excited to go back because it’s where I first believed that I could win the Open Championship … It took me longer than I thought it would, but I did think I would win it.”

Much has happened in the intervening years, including Mickelson finally capturing his first Open title four years ago at Muirfield and coming out firing with an opening 63 on his way to a runner-up finish after that thrilling stretch-drive shootout with Stenson.

Probably the most consequential change for Mickelson in the recent past was his unexpected breakup with long-time looper Jim “Bones” Mackay. In fact, this week’s event marks the first major tilt in his professional career that Mickelson will undertake without Mackay on his bag.

For sure, he is comfortable with and has great confidence in his new looper, younger brother Tim. But it will be up to Phil to tackle the course employing his own years of institutional knowledge, which were recently recently summed up thusly.

Mickelson certainly has the tools to contend this week, though it remains to be seen if his strategy of switching out his driver for a suped-up 3-wood “on steroids,” as he described the “Phrankenwood” he navigated to a not-so-stellar T54 at the 2013 Masters works for him. It certainly did in 2013, when he teed off with a 3-wood on the 71st hole of that year’s Open and used it to become the only player that afternoon to reach the green on the par-5.

It’s his putting, though, that could be the difference between Phil taking home his second Claret Jug and going home empty-handed.

Mickelson, who has been grinding on the practice green with the pace of his putts, enters the week ranked seventh in putts per round on the PGA Tour, eighth in putting average, and fifth in birdie conversion, according to Golf Channel. He is also third in Open scoring average, at 70.2, over the last five years. Only Stenson (69.9) and Adam Scott (70.1) own better averages than Mickelson.

It wasn’t always that way for Mickelson at the Open. It took him 12 starts to earn his first top-10 finish, a third-place finish in 2004 at Royal Troon. Since then, he has that 2013 victory plus two second-place finishes — in 2011 at Royal St. George’s and in 2016 at Royal Troon.

Mickelson does lug a disappointing recent record to the first tee on Thursday, with just three top-9 finishes in 15 starts this year. But, after skipping the 2017 U.S. Open to watch his daughter graduate from high school, Phil is keen to get back in the thick of things and make his 24th appearance at the British Open a memorable one.