FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — This could have been Phil Mickelson’s week.
This could have been his Ryder Cup.
The 55-year-old six-time major champion from San Diego who led an exodus of players to the breakaway LIV Golf League has made 12 appearances in the Ryder Cup, more than any other player in the biennial matches between Europe and the United States. He would have been a natural to captain the Americans at Bethpage Black, where their three-day effort to win back the trophy begins Friday morning.
Bethpage is the brawny public course outside New York City where the tradition of fans serenading him with “Happy Birthday” took off at the 2002 U.S. Open. It’s where Mickelson returned to golf shortly after his wife was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, and where two of his agonizing six runner-up finishes came in the only major he never won, the U.S. Open.
“That’s where I felt things kind of clicked” with the New York fans, Mickelson said in 2019, before his return to the course for the PGA Championship, which remains his last big appearance at the Long Island venu.