Chills and Spills with Phil the Thrill

Phil Mickelson is Scary Movie, Theater of the Absurd and Greek Tragicomedy all wrapped up into a dream shared by Tarantino, Fellini, Hitchcock and the Coen Brothers.
 
The best part is the unpredictability.
 
For that matter, throw in a little Edgar Allan Poe. At any given moment on any given Sunday any one of his pendulum swings can leave a pit in your stomach.
 
Prior to Sunday, perhaps you could argue the point. But not any more. Of the top players in the world today, Phil Mickelson is the one from whom you can never quite be sure what you’re going to get.
 
John Daly, you say? Wrong.
 
Daly is certainly unpredictable. But golf’s Paul Bunyan—even though he’s still the stuff of legends—simply isn’t among the world’s best players any more. Among other things, he doesn’t have his card to play on the PGA TOUR. And his world rank had plummeted to No. 492 prior to last week.
 
Phil, on the other hand, is still the goods and The Thrill
 
Sunday in China he squandered a five-shot lead during the final round of the HSBC Champions. Then, trailing by one, he hit a ball in the water on the 72nd hole. Yet he still managed to worm his way into a playoff with Ross Fisher and Lee Westwood.
 
Two holes later he converted a short birdie putt to win his fourth tournament of the year. Phil has always been an American brand and rarely ventures from our mainland. So it seems extra strange that, because of co-sanctioning, the HSBC was the first official event of the 2008 European Tour schedule.
 
Which means, yes, at the moment, Phil Mickelson, if he were a member of the European Tour, would lead the Order of Merit.
 
Anyway, Mickelson himself is acutely aware of the fact that there are more wild rides in his golf history than there are at Disney World. “It feels amazing,” Mickelson said. “The whole day was a whirlwind.”
 
How about the whole last four years for “Lefty.”
 
Let’s see: Two Masters victories; one PGA Championship; one blown U.S. Open in 2006; a widely-scrutinized coaching switch from Rick Smith to Butch Harmon; a wrist injury that ruined his chances at Oakmont where he had hoped to win his first U.S. Open and make up for the debacle on the 72nd hole at Winged Foot.