The Most Brutal Rivalry in Golf History

Tiger Woods Vs Phil Mickelson

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Two greats go head to head for decades on top of the golf world, but who came out ahead? That my friends, is for you to decide.

one was a charismatic Country Club kid
the kind of player that had graced the
golf world for over a century the other
was a quiet mun kid with a Minds like no
other and an ability never before seen
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson couldn’t
have been much more different yet they
shared the stage at the summit of golf
for a quarter century and that forced a
brutal rivalry that has taken a toll on
each of their legacies ever since the
very
beginning in golf we don’t see a ton of
rags to Rich’s stories at least we
didn’t see a ton of them in the 9s sure
there were a few but nothing like we
experienced with baseball or basketball
and so there’s never been a ton of focus
on the early lives of golfers because
they’re generally very similar golfing
father growing up at a country club with
every opportunity viable in front of the
kid Phil Mickelson well is almost a
perfect example of that he grew up in
San Diego and Scottdale Arizona his
father being an airline pilot and real
estate investor had plenty of time to
teach him the game and his grandfather
was a cadd at Pebble Beach by no means
did he grow up with everything at his
footsteps but it’s a story we’ve
definitely heard before but you can’t
really say the same for Tiger now
Woods’s father had been an elite athlete
before and just like Phil’s dad was a
veteran but that’s really where the
similarities ended tiger grew up playing
at public courses and a Navy course in
California where his father turned him
into a golf robot effectively he was
programmed to break all of Jack
Nicholas’s records and win everything in
golf from a very early age and on his
way to becoming a pro he eventually did
that even outshell an already
professional film Mickelson while coming
up as an amateur in the early 1990s the
mikkelson name was gathering hype as he
climbed up the rankings at Arizona State
he won three individual NCAA
championships became the first left-hand
golfer to win the US Amer in 19 1990 and
won a PGA Tour event even before he went
professional in January 1991 I am
getting some martime young Phil snagged
a lot of headlines and looked to be a
very big name for a long time in golf
and then a scrawny teenager started
really picking up momentum you have to
uh make a putt you make a putt you have
to hit the shot you hit the shot you
just sort of like drop into another Zone
and uh you block out everything Tiger
Woods his insane mentality and wild
athleticism grabbed the World by storm
and grabbed the title of the next big
thing kind of right out from under Phil
tiger won three straight us Junior amers
followed that up with three straight us
amers while also being the lam in the
1995 Masters and from there Tiger Mania
took over the world and distracted
people from Phil mikkelson Tiger Woods
Mania the golf Superstar Tiger Mania
Tiger Woods Mania officially has arrived
at the Copper Head course I don’t think
I have to remind anyone of how
incredible tiger was in those early
years in 1997 Woods won the Masters by a
then Record 12 strokes and two months
later set another record in the fastest
Ascent to world’s number one in golf
history 12 under in his last 27 holes
prompting six-time Masters champ Jack
Nicholas to utter quote he’s playing a
type of golf we are not familiar with I
felt ready to go uh probably actually
too ready to go when Thursday came
around I was too far up and I settled
down and I’m playing well now you know
obviously he he’s setting a standard
right now it’s very difficult for
anybody to keep up with in 2000 he won
six straight PGA Tour events and well
almost won a seventh and would have if
it weren’t for Phil Mickelson he beat
tiger by four strokes to win that Year’s
Buick Invitational in La Hoya California
at that point despite them both being
prominent players for a few years that
rivalry really started to take shape
though not necessarily grabbing all the
headlines he was always competing but
just not winning at least as much as
tiger was however Phil was often very
close to him in tournaments and that
left a lot of people questioning what
Phil’s career could have been like if he
hadn’t come up with the greatest game
changer golf had ever seen there was the
2001 Arnold’s Palmer Invitational where
tiger broke a slump of five tournaments
without a win by outlasting an inform
mikkelson by one stroke with a birdie on
18 on Sunday that set him on the path of
winning four of his next five events
including the 2001 Masters where he made
it four straight major victories then
came the 2002 US Open where the crowd
took on a wet and rainy Beth Page black
that saw Woods ends the week being the
only player under par in the field while
Phil slipped into second yet again
despite having the crowd overwhelmingly
on his side this made Phil Mickelson 0
and 40 in his career in majors while
Woods had gone and won everything tiger
was on top of the world with Phil
mikkelson in his shadow Tiger Woods
halfway to the slam and his second US
Open Championship going into 2004 melson
had 17 top 10 finishes in majors and yet
hadn’t won a single time tiger in that
same period had won eight it wasn’t even
really much of a comparison yet that is
until Phil secured his green Jack in the
2004 Masters beating Ernie ell’s by one
stroke at the great Augusta National at
this point tiger was undergoing his
second major swing overhaul in 5 years
and was relatively struggling he’d go on
to lose the world number one spot to VJ
Singh at the end of the year and Phil
picked up some momentum from there for
the first time in four years Phil
Mickelson won four tour events including
the PGA Championship he was gaining some
ground he had finally won majors and he
was taking control of golf right well
not exactly tiger began regaining his
form walking out of 2005 with six
tournament wins and two majors even when
Phil began gaining ground tiger dragged
him back to being at most second best
however everything changed in 2009 the
celebrity website TMZ released these
photos of Tiger Woods mangled car but
for the third time Woods refused to
speak to investigators to EXP explain
the 2:30 a.m. accident just pass his
driveway but it wasn’t a member of the
media who issued the strongest
condemnation of his behavior it was
instead the fellow Pro who’ introduced
woods and his wife8 years ago I am
deeply sorry for my irresponsible and
selfish behavior I engaged in for one of
the first times in his very long career
Woods voluntarily took a step away from
golf and you’d think this would be a
great time for Phil mikkelson to take
advantage he was Tiger’s rival right
shouldn’t it be his turn now well he did
perform winning the Tour Championship in
09 and the Masters the following year
but it wasn’t a complete takeover the
one some people might have expected
since he had rival tiger for so long in
the past two decades mikkelson finished
second five times at the US Open this
year he already won the Masters and is
creeping closer to that coveted number
one ranking everybody who plays golf as
professionals motivated to try to become
number one in 2010 after winning the
Masters Phil was in a very good position
to become the top ranked player in golf
he was one of the favorites to win that
Year’s Us open at Pebble Beach and after
going 7566 in the first two rounds was
in pretty good position to do so he went
into the weekend just two shots back
from the lead but 2 73s were only good
enough for a joint fourth place finish
the rest of the season saw more
disappointing finishes eventually
allowing Lee Westwood to grab that
number one spot despite his failures the
year before 2011 would come with one
major bright spot for all the tiger vers
phille rivalry proponents with melson
sliding ahead of tiger to third place in
the world golf rankings while Woods fell
to seventh for the first time since the
1997 Masters however those expectations
of him finally superseding tiger
wouldn’t come to anything as putting
problems and inconsistency plagued the
rest of the 36-year-old’s Year Phil
proves to be great but even without
tiger being tiger melson was unable to
grab the reins of the tour the way
younger tiger had as the 2010s came
around they were filled with very little
from these two so-called Rivals they
were older and slower and struggled to
compete with the likes of Rory mroy
Jordan spe or Dustin Johnson for a lot
of people their time was over and then
tiger went and won the 20199 Masters
perhaps the greatest golf win of all
time it seemingly ended the story of the
goat and Phil Mickelson and their
rivalry but that wouldn’t exactly be the
case because with Phil even though he
was 5 years older than tiger wasn’t done
either in 20121 mikkelson became the
oldest major champion in golf history
when he held off Brooks Kea and Luis du
tasen to win the PGA Championship by Two
Strokes for many people with their
special relationship to Phil mikkelson
because of how well he treated so many
fans they hold this Victory as
potentially even more important to them
than the 2019 Masters victory for Tiger
but realistically since that point since
Phil won in 2021 this rivalry has only
been about Phil in 2022 he made the
crazy money move to live where a lot of
people thought he would retire after a
long career and then he came back and
had the performance of the tournament in
the 2023 Masters finishing with a final
round 65 to come in just four strokes
back of John ROM while tiger well he
withdrew after barely making the cut
Phil’s consistency yet again has shown
through that despite being in his
mid-50s he’s still able to compete with
the best while Tiger Woods has been
wildly quiet this brutal rivalry was
once so hard on Phil as tiger took over
the world while mikkelson was in what
was supposed to be his prime but now
everything has flipped as this
consistency that Phil has shown has
shown Us Golf viewers something that
tiger wasn’t able to do Phil Mickelson
was very similar to The Great golfers of
decades past with his childhood and now
with his entire career a lot of great
golfers compete well into their 40s and
Beyond but tiger well he wasn’t exactly
like that at least consistency he built
a swing that was unsustainable for
longevity however that swing created
gamechanging moments L having courses
lengthened because of him and a pure
dominance the game will probably never
see again having the two of them compete
together for so many years gave us this
wild contrast between history and Phil
and the future in Tiger but my question
is whose career would you rather have
for me I would take Tigers today and any
day Woods was a once in a-lifetime
player even if we experienced him for a
few years less than we did Phil thank
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next one peace