Remember Phil Mickelson vs. Henrik Stenson at Royal Troon? Much Has Changed Since

The British Open returns to the Scottish course but its great duel from 2016 may be getting less fanfare due to the combatants having left for LIV Golf.

Phil Mickelson is returning to Royal Troon, site of one of his greatest non-winning performances. / Erik Williams/USA TODAY Sports

TROON, Scotland — Phil Mickelson entered the last day trailing by a stroke, playing some of the best golf of his career, shot a final-round 65 ... and still lost.

That’s because Henrik Stenson went even lower to become the player hoisting the Claret Jug.

Stenson emerged as the first male golfer from Sweden to win a major championship, shooting 63 at Royal Troon to capture the British Open in 2016. He joined Johnny Miller as the only players to shoot 63 in the final round to win a major.

“Only time I can remember in my career where I played my absolute best golf and it wasn’t enough to win,” Mickelson said.

A good bit has changed in the world of golf since that epic day.

Tiger Woods missed that tournament, sitting out the entire year, but returned from back surgery to win a 15th major championship in 2019. Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau had yet to turn pro and have since each won two major championships. The Open was skipped for the first time since World War II due to a worldwide pandemic in 2020.

And Mickelson, then 50, won another major at the 2021 PGA Championship, becoming the oldest player to ever win one of the game’s four biggest tournaments.

But it was his move to LIV Golf along with Stenson in 2022 that shook up the game in a way still felt today, with some sort of peace still to be resolved. It is fair to wonder if their great Open duel has been diminished or in some way overshadowed in light of those decisions.

Although Mickelson had declined pre-tournament media opportunities at other majors, he was not asked to attend one here. Stenson was also not asked to appear on the pre-tournament interview schedule and that is unusual for the winner of a previous tournament that returns to the same venue. (Martin Kaymer, for example, did a formal pre-tournament interview last month at Pinehurst, where he won the U.S. Open in 2014.)          

Stenson, now 48, for his part has been involved with the R&A in various social media and digital content programs leading into this week.

Last week in Spain, LIV Golf recognized the opportunity approaching as they had both players conduct a pre-tournament interview session together.

“Great memories,” Stenson said. “It was a fantastic week of golf for both of us. Luckily for me, I was the one to draw the longer straw and come out with win. I’m really looking forward to the week ahead and hope to bring some birdies to match those memories.”

Mickelson was the first-round leader with a 63 that narrowly missed being a 62 and the all-time low round in a major (Branden Grace shot 62 at the next year's Open). He added a 69 in the second round to lead Stenson by one after 36 holes. With a third-round 68, Stenson led by one over Mickelson, who shot 70—and was five strokes ahead of Bill Haas, who was in third place.

“Some of the best golf I’ve ever seen,” said Jim “Bones” Mackay, then Mickelson’s caddie who this week will be working for NBC. “The quality of the golf was pretty much mind-blowing for me. Both those guys were absolutely incredible. I remember the crowds, the spectators were just—just the buzz around the place, the electric atmosphere was maybe something I never saw again. Maybe at a couple of Ryder Cups.”

Mickelson made a birdie on the first hole of the final round to take a one-shot lead while Stenson three-putted for bogey. But Stenson came back with five first-side birdies to Mickelson’s eagle and a birdie to lead by one with nine holes to go.

Stenson fell into a tie with a bogey at the 11th, but three straight birdies starting at the 13th hole—including a 50-footer at the 15th—gave Stenson a two-shot advantage. Mickelson narrowly missed an eagle putt at the 16th as Stenson also birdied. And then Stenson added another birdie at the 18th to shoot 63.

Mickelson had made four birdies and an eagle with a bogey and lost.

Stenson made 10 birdies and two bogeys.

“As I look back, I've always tried to put it in my hands,” Mickelson said. “Like if I play my game, if I play well, it will be good enough, and it always has been until that week when I played my best and it wasn't enough.

“But yet, I still really enjoyed that week. I look back on it fondly even though I didn't win. I loved the 36 holes over the weekend that we played, competed against head-to-head. We really had a great time because that's what it's about. It's not about the trophy as much as it is the process. That's what I remember, and my life experiences, being in the middle of it. That's why we work so hard.”

Mickelson was asked what he’d have thought if someone told him he’d shoot 65 that day and not win.

“I wouldn’t have thought it was right,” he said. “I played a great final round, well enough to win, and it just wasn’t. Like I said, I played some of my best golf and it wasn’t enough to win, which is the first time I can remember that being the case. I thought 65 sure would be enough.”

Reliving it last week, Mickelson quipped: “It’s not making me feel any better either way.”

Mickelson was on top of the golf world when he won the PGA at Kiawah Island, becoming the first player age 50 or older to win a major championship. A year later he couldn’t defend his title because he was in golf exile while awaiting his impending move to LIV Golf.

Early in 2022, Stenson—the only Swedish male player to win a major championship—was hailed as Europe’s next Ryder Cup captain for 2023, only to see the position stripped when he signed with LIV Golf that summer.

It seems a long way removed from that great final round at Royal Troon, where Stenson finished at 20 under par. Mickelson was 17 under par—with the next closest player, J.B. Holmes, 11 back.

Ryder Cup venom

There is nothing that makes people lose their minds quite like the Ryder Cup. We saw it again last week with the surprise announcement of Keegan Bradley as the U.S. Ryder Cup captain for 2025.

That appointment stoked all the flames again from last year’s 16½ to 11½ lose to Europe in Rome, where captain Zach Johnson was severely criticized in the aftermath as his captain’s picks—specifically Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler—bombed.

A narrative that they were part of a “boys club”—not helped by Johnson sharing a rental house with them at the British Open—was only exacerbated when the U.S. struggled.

And it was especially profound earlier this year with the release of the Netflix documentary Full Swing in which cameras not only showed Johnson hamming it up with Spieth and Thomas last year in England, but the phone call he made to Bradley to tell him he had not been picked for the team.

That was some raw emotion that Bradley showed, and his love for the event is well documented. The irony was apparent when it was Johnson—as part of his duties with the Ryder Cup committee—who called Bradley to offer him the job just three weeks ago.

Johnson has taken a beating in the court of public opinion, and certainly whenever a Ryder Cup team loses, the captain comes under immense scrutiny. It’s fair to question his pairings and perhaps the preparation, as the Americans saw most of their players with a lengthy layoff before the competition.

But it’s also important to look at the overall picture.  For example, here are the records of the six players, in order, who qualified automatically for the U.S. team:

Scottie Scheffler: 0–2–2; Wyndham Clark: 1–1–1; Brian Harman: 2–2; Patrick Cantlay: 2–2; Max Homa: 3–1–1; Xander Schauffele: 1–3. That’s just one winning record among the eight players who made the team with a combined mark of 9–10–2.

And that, ultimately, is why the United States lost.

Would Bradley have made a difference? Lucas Glover? Cam Young? Bryson DeChambeau? All have been mentioned as better choices than Johnson picked, and certainly all have their merits. But it’s impossible to say the results would have been any different.

With only six automatic spots, it’s almost inevitable—barring something drastic—that the captain isn’t going to take Nos. 7 and 8. That was Brooks Koepka and Spieth. Koepka went 1–1–1 and along with Scheffler lost a foursomes match 9 and 7. Spieth went 0–2–2 and had a tough week and in retrospect, it’s fair to say he should have played less.

But at the time of the picks, it was hard to pass him by. And then when you pick him, it makes sense to bring along a guy who he’s played well with, Thomas. They went 4–0 the year prior at the Presidents Cup. They were 1–1 at the 2021 Ryder Cup. And they were 3–1 at the 2018 Ryder Cup.

One of the big criticisms of U.S. teams of years past is the inability to bond as a team or to find proper partnerships. Spieth and Thomas were a good one in the past and it made sense to keep them together. And for all the angst directed at Thomas, he was not as bad as Spieth in Rome.

He did win his singles match after going 0–2–1 with Spieth as a partner.

Now look at the other captain’s picks. Sam Burns went 1–2; Rickie Fowler went 0–2 (and was apparently ill); Collin Morikawa was 1–3. None of the captain’s picks had a winning record, including the ones who nobody had a problem with being picked.

A decade ago, in the aftermath of Phil Mickelson’s harsh criticism of captain Tom Watson at Gleneagles, the PGA of America made changes to give the players more of a voice. It formed a task force which later morphed into a six-person committee, one of whom is the previous captain.

The idea was to groom future captains and create continuity. Johnson, for example, had been an assistant on four different teams before serving as captain. And past captains would also serve another term as an assistant to help further with continuity.

But the U.S. suddenly is short of vetted candidates. Blame the Mickelson to LIV Golf awkwardness, which took him out of a certain captaincy at Bethpage. And then Tiger Woods, long believed to be the 2025 choice, decided he didn’t have time and will wait for a possible future Ryder Cup.

Along the way, it probably didn’t help that the powers that be started recycling captains. Davis Love III, twice a Ryder Cup captain, was the Presidents Cup captain in 2022. Jim Furyk, the 2018 Ryder Cup captain, is this year’s Presidents Cup captain. Perhaps some newer, younger candidates should have taken those roles.

Both were assistants for Johnson in Rome, as were Steve Stricker (a past captain at both) and Fred Couples (a three-time Presidents Cup captain). Stewart Cink, who last played in a Ryder Cup in 2010, was the new-be and among the reasons why many thought he might get the job.

Instead the committee went outside the box. Among those helping pick Bradley? Spieth and Thomas—–members of the Ryder Cup committee. Thomas has no problem with Bradley playing if he qualifies.

“He could definitely be a playing captain,” Thomas said. “That's kind of the thought with John Wood being our manager; I think he has the opportunity to really take a lot of the day-to-day or a lot of the work, really, off of Keegan if it's needed, or any playing captain, if that's the route that's needed to go in the future.

“I just think it's opening up a whole new opportunity and I think no captain is going to know the players and their games better than somebody who is playing with us at highest level every single week. I obviously love the pick and I think it's a change of direction for the best.”

Jack gets his name back

Jack Nicklaus can now use his name again in golf course design. As crazy as that sounds, the Golden Bear has been embroiled in a legal fight for the past two years, with an arbitrator ruling that the 18-time major champion can again use his name for course design work.

The problem arose due to Nicklaus having years ago sold a good portion of his businesses, the Nicklaus Companies, to businessman Howard Milstein. The two were longtime partners in that venture until Nicklaus ended his employment in 2017, with a five-year no-compete clause. Nicklaus continued to do design work into 2022 but then later branched off to a subsidiary, which caused issues with the original company.

“The arbitration process was an arduous learning experience, but I am thankful for how it ended,” said Nicklaus, who has designed more than 280 courses in a 50-year-plus design career. “I get to keep doing one of the things that makes me happy—bringing new golf courses to life and making old ones new again. My goal has always been to create courses that challenge tour professionals yet still provide an enjoyable experience for the many golfers whose love for the game might be greater than their ability.

“I also try to respect the natural environment that existed before I showed up with a pencil and paper in hand. I am involved in some great projects at the moment and look forward to a lot more of the same now that the effort to keep me on the sidelines has failed.”

Nicklaus, 84, designed Valhalla, site of this year’s PGA Championship. Muirfield Village, home of his annual Memorial Tournament which he designed in the early 1970s, has hosted a Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup and a Solheim Cup.

The arbitrator's ruling only refers to Jack Nicklaus being allowed to do course design as the Nicklaus Companies continue to hold the legal right to license commercial uses of the Nicklaus name, image, and likeness.

This note has been updated.

An all-American run ... and other notes

Americans are on a roll. At least as it relates to the major championships. Since Jon Rahm won the Masters in April 2023, it’s been all USA in the game’s biggest tournaments.

Brooks Koepka, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman, Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau have seen Americans at the top of every major championship leaderboard for six straight.

That might not seem like that big of a deal. But it’s been more than 40 years since that kind of run.

You have to go back to 1981–82 when Bill Rogers (the Open), Larry Nelson (PGA Championship), Craig Stadler (Masters), Tom Watson (U.S. Open and the Open) and Raymond Floyd (PGA) saw Americans capture six straight major championships. Australia’s David Graham had won the 1981 U.S. Open. Spain’s Seve Ballesteros ended the streak when he took the 1983 Masters.

Six times since World War II, Americans have racked up streaks of six straight majors or more.      

The longest streak (not counting the war years) is 13 straight by Americans from the 1974 PGA Championship through the 1977 PGA. Lee Trevino won the first and Lanny Wadkins the last. Along the way, Tom Watson won three majors and Jack Nicklaus won twice. Gary Player was at either end of the streak, winning the 1974 Open and the 1978 Masters.

Can the Americans keep it going at Royal Troon? They had won seven in a row at the venue before Sweden’s Henrik Stenson won in 2016. Americans Scheffler, DeChambeau and Schauffele are the favorites.

And a few more things ...

The Genesis Scottish Open was the final Open Qualifying Series event, with the top three players not otherwise exempt earning a place this week at Royal Troon. Aaron Rai, Alex Noren and Richard Mansell qualified. Rai tied for fourth, with Mansell and Noren each finishing a shot back. The Open field is now at 158 players, meaning if there are any withdrawals, there will be no reserves added until the field dips below 56 players.

Robert MacIntyre birdied four of the last five holes to claim his second national open in five weeks and win the Genesis Scottish Open. MacIntyre, who was clipped by a shot a year ago when Rory McIlroy birdied the final hole at the Renaissance Club, did the same thing to Adam Scott who had finished a hole earlier with a par. The win came after MacIntrye, who is from Scotland, won the RBC Canadian Open last month.

Scott's runner-up finish was the 15th of his PGA Tour career. He has not won since the 2020 Genesis Invitational but he improved his position in the FedEx Cup standings to 49th, likely locking up a spot in the first playoff event next month.

LIV Golf saw its first double playoff as Sergio Garcia defeated Anirban Lahiri in a two-hole sudden death playoff and Garcia's Fireballs team won a playoff over Bryson DeChambeau's Crushers. Garcia won for the first time on LIV and the first time since his 2020 victory at the Sanderson Farmers Championship on the PGA Tour.