Top 25 golf stories of 2013, No. 11: Phil Mickelson holes out at Merion, still settles for 6th U.S. Open runner-up

After another final round collapse at the U.S. Open, it appeared 2013 would be a lost season for Phil Mickelson.

The year in golf was defined by the two biggest stars of this generation -- Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson -- rising back to the top of the golf world and providing a major story for us to devour almost every month. It's hard to say anyone had a more eventful season than Tiger, but Phil was right there, creating drama and making headlines throughout the summer months.

At the midpoint of the year, it appeared this would be another season of excruciating close calls for Mickelson. He would re-write his 2013 story in July at Muirfield with a stunning, and relatively unexpected, British Open win. And what made that victory more impressive was that it came on the heels of the crushing second-place finish in the U.S. Open.

America's national championship is the white whale of Mickelson's career -- it's the one he's wanted the most, for the longest, but has settled for six second-place medals instead of the the big trophy. But there was something about the missed opportunity this June that felt like it cemented his runner-up status for his career. At 43-years old, his best chances of competing in golf's most grueling week and toughest test were thought to be in the past. A father's day victory, also his birthday, at Merion seemed inevitable. There was just too much working in Mickelson's favor all week, as he held the lead for much of the four days in Philly and started Sunday in the driver's seat.

Mickelson started the week with minimal on-site prep, choosing instead to fly private back to San Diego for his daughter's graduation just days before the opening round. He returned to Philly in the middle of the night Thursday, a few short hours before his tee time. The easy narrative was right there for the sportswriter crowd -- Phil puts his family first during his most important week of the season, and then wins it on Father's Day.

With all those non-golf forces working in his favor, Mickelson also added an on-course highlight down the stretch on Sunday that would likely be a harbinger for victory for any other golfer in this tournament. On his opening nine, Mickelson was just a bit off, not particularly sharp with any club in the bag. He started the day at 1-under, but two double bogeys in a three-hole stretch dropped him two shots back of Justin Rose when he made the turn at Merion. Then, the front nine failures were wiped away with one incredible shot on No. 10. With wedge in his hand, perhaps the best short-game player in the history of the game, stuck it from 76 yards out for an eagle to retake the lead:

He had erased the effects of another sputtering Sunday, and this was going to be the year he finally won the U.S. Open.

But that would be the last red number of the day for Mickelson, who carded three bogeys over his final six holes to again fall off the pace set by Rose. In classic Mickelsonian fashion, the lefty committed a crucial blunder when there was little risk facing a shot. On the par-3 13th hole, he airmailed his tee shot over the green. It was playing just over 100 yards and had been the easiest hole on the course for most of the week. Just a simple wedge and a couple putts were all that was needed to avoid an inexcusable bogey. But Phil outthought it, waffling on what club to pull and what line to take. It was the start of his unraveling, and probably the most difficult runner-up finish in his U.S. Open career.

The shock of another squandered chance floated off of Mickelson's face as he stood on the 18th green, incredulous at how it came undone once more. After the round, he repeatedly used the word "heartbreak" to describe the outcome and was candid as usually, saying this was the toughest loss he'd ever taken. From SB Nation's Emily Kayjust hours after the final round failure:

"This was my best chance of all of them because I was playing well, I had a golf course I really liked that I could play aggressive on a number of holes," he said, red-eyed, not from his travels but from pent-up sentiment. "I felt like this was as good an opportunity as you could ask for and to not do it, it hurts."

It looked like the theme of his 2013 season was written at Merion, but Mickelson turned around one month later to win back-to-back weeks in Scotland and earn the third leg of the career grand slam at the The Open Championship. It was a startling turnaround, given that his run there was the opposite of the U.S. Open -- very few contentions and a general malaise about his ability to win on the links.

That victory at the British only amplifies the importance of the U.S. Open, which he has already started discussing setting up a prep plan for in 2014. The entire season will be used to target a win a Pinehurst. Last season, however, his dramatic hole-out and another crushing runner-up were undoubtedly one of the top 25 stories of the year.

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The day Tiger Woods ditched Jack Nicklaus for a high school golf match

The day before Tiger Woods lost the Northwestern Mutual World Challenge to Zach Johnson in a playoff, the world No. 1 sat down with the boys in the NBC booth for a wide-ranging interview that played out like ‘This is Your Life.’

When Tiger Woods, fresh from an even-par 72 on Saturday at his Northwestern Mutual World Challenge, put on the headset for a post-round chat with NBC broadcasters Roger Maltbie and Terry Gannon, he may not have expected a rewind of This is Your Life.

An exclusive, all access look at the people, technology, and highly organized chaos that results in the NFL’s most advanced game broadcast.

Woods seemed surprised when Maltbie, in the interview that aired during Sunday’s finale and recalling for viewers of a certain vintage the old NBC documentary show, asked the world No. 1 if he remembered "this day."

The tape rolled and Woods, with a full head of hair, filled the screen as he shook hands with Jack Nicklaus during their first meeting at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles in April 1991.

"Yeah, you love that ‘fro?" today’s follically challenged Woods said with a laugh as he watched his younger self take a healthy cut at a golf ball with a rather familiar swing.

Maltbie hoped to entice Woods into talking about the "fundamentally" similar motion he used back in the day, but Tiger was focused on the mop atop his 15-year-old head.

"The ‘fro and the part," he said about the hairdo that was in vogue a couple decades ago. "That was good."

‘I’m really not that famous yet,’ a 15-year-old Tiger Woods, with a golf cap jammed atop a full head of hair, tells a local newscaster in 1991 (Video: YouTube)

Woods then revealed that, even as a young teen, his schedule was such a bear he had to step away from the Golden Bear and the charity tourney Nicklaus was attending to jet to his next gig.

"I had to actually leave early. They wanted me to play in the 'Friends of Golf' event ... but I had to get back to school because we had a high school match that afternoon," Woods said. "So I booked it back down and made it for my high school match."

Woods, who’s learning the ins and outs of social media from girlfriend Lindsey Vonn, also suggested he may be getting the hang of the whole tweeting thing. Reiterating that he looked forward to next year’s majors on tracks where he’s had past success, he said the outlook was positive for him at Pinehurst No. 2, site of the 2014 U.S. Open, where he finished T3 in the 1999 national championship and second in 2005.

"I’m excited about how my game has progressed," said Woods, who won five PGA Tour contests in 2013 but went major-less for the fifth straight season.

"Obviously the venues really suit me, winning [on] three of the four [Augusta, Valhalla, Royal Liverpool] and I’m ‘trending’ at Pinehurst," he added, employing a Twitter buzz word, much to the great delight of his hosts in the booth, who shared guffaws with their guest.

Speaking of Vonn, Woods refused to let Maltbie bait him into reviewing the skiing technique of his 2010 Olympic downhill gold-medalist girlfriend the way pundits continually analyze his golf swing.

"Oh, hell no," Woods said as NBC aired video of Vonn racing in Canada after coming back from last month's injury to her reconstructed right knee. "I’m not going there."

Woods was pleased to see Vonn back in racing form after she ripped ligaments and broke a bone in her knee last February and is on the mend from her recent setback. The Southern California native, who lost last week’s contest to Zach Johnson in unseasonably nippy conditions at Sherwood Country Club on home turf in Thousand Oaks, may have offered a hint about whether he'll watch Vonn compete live in the 2014 Olympic games in Sochi.

"It was below minus 40 [at the World Cup race in Lake Louise, Alberta] and it’s supposed to be a high of minus 30 up there so, um, no thanks," said Woods, who was bundled up in a mock turtleneck and sweater and gulped coffee during his on-air stint. "We thought it was cold here."

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Arnold Palmer’s Masters record is safe from Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods looks ahead to going after the win records of Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus, but he has no interest in targeting one that Arnold Palmer holds. The world No. 1 will kick off his 2014 U.S. season at Torrey Pines.

Tiger Woods, as even casual observers of the world’s top-ranked golf enthusiast are aware, has one hallowed record he could break in 2014 and another he’s coveted since he was a kid and may yet set. There’s one mark, however, that has hovered well under the radar screen, which is fine with Tiger since the world No. 1 has no interest even in going for it.

"Let me put it to you this way," Woods, following Sunday’s playoff loss to Zach Johnsonat Sherwood CC, told reporters about whether he had Arnold Palmer’s 50 consecutive Masters starts in sight. "I'm not going to beat Arnold's record. I'm not playing that long. That’s for sure."

Woods won five times on the PGA tour in 2013, so it’s well within his skill set -- and expectations -- to overtake Sam Snead’s all-time career achievement of 82 tour victories sometime next year. Though he hasn’t captured a major championship since the U.S. Open in 2008, Tiger remains relentless in pursuit of Jack Nicklaus’ feat of 18 major titles and likes his chances on Tiger-friendly venues in 2014.

"As far as the major championships, I've won at every one [Augusta, Hoylake for the British Open, and Valhalla for the PGA Championship] except for Pinehurst [site of the U.S. Open in June], and I'm trending in the right way. I've finished third [at the Open in 1999], second [2005]. You get the picture, right?" Woods quipped to reporters last week.

"So I'm looking forward to the major championship venues this year," said Tiger, who, in addition to four Masters victories, won the 2000 PGA at Valhalla and the 2006 British Open title at Hoylake. "They have set up well for me over the years and I look forward to it."

Then there’s Palmer’s iron-man accomplishment.

Woods, with 18 starts at Augusta, has a lifetime exemption to play in the Masters, a benefit Palmer and all other winners of the first major of the season enjoy as well. Palmer is 4-50 at Augusta, with wins in 1958, ’60, ’62, ’64, but, as Charlie Lemay noted recently, has not competed since 2004. He has also failed to make a cut since 1983.

The 84-year-old, seven-time major champion is now among the old guard, along with Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, who perform the Augusta equivalent of throwing out the first pitch at a ball game when they strike the ceremonial first drives to kick off the Masters. The Big Three also thrill fans by playing in the annual par-3 tournament on the eve of the actual tilt.

Woods expects to honor the tradition by taking a cut for show when he’s in his dotage, but don’t expect him to enter the field once he’s past his peak.

"You know, for me, I always want to win," Woods said. "If I can’t win, why tee it up? That’s just my own personal belief."

Recognizing that all athletes face that inevitable time when their skills have eroded so much they can no longer really contend, Woods said he’ll cross Hogan’s Bridge when he comes to it but he’s nowhere near that landmark yet.

"I know what it takes to prepare to win and what it takes to go out there and get the job done, and there’s going to come a point in time where I just can’t do it anymore," Woods said. "I’m a way away from that moment in my sport, but when that day happens I’ll make a decision and that’s it."

As for the other two standards he hopes to set, Woods could surpass Snead early next year.

"The easier goal is going to be getting to Sam's record; you could get to there basically by playing the first three events of the year and win three in a row," Woods told Sky Sports ahead of last week’s Northwestern Mutual World Challenge swan song at Sherwood.

He'll have a good shot at notching that first W of 2014 when he launches next year's campaign with a defense of his Farmers Insurance Open in January.

"Well, I've done well at Torrey Pines. I've done pretty good," he said about a layout on which he’s won seven times. "That's my first tournament back."

Woods has also noted often that Nicklaus was 46 when he won his final major title and Sunday pointed to several elder statesmen -- Snead, Tom Watson and Fred Couples among them -- who have lifted trophies "well in their late 40s and 50s." If history is any guide, such examples afford the 14-time major winner several more years to bank those Ws.

"Every other sport you’re done at my age, or younger. You know, in golf you can still win golf tournaments in your 50s, and guys have done it," he said. "Probably the more difficult thing is that you can still finish top 10, top 5s, but you’re probably just not quite as efficient as you need to be to win golf tournaments. But you can still be there."

While Woods expects to "be there" on the leaderboard as long as his abilities allow him to compete, he hoped to bow out of the running gracefully while continuing to respect the custom of that opening drive.

"I’ll be on that first tee starting out the event hitting a ceremonial drive as an honorary starter, I’m sure," said Woods, who added he would quit before he can’t see the flag with his second shot.

"I don’t know why [that's] even fun," he said.

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