Phil Mickelson may have aged and may be sporting sunglasses on the course, but he can still compete at a high level.
Mickelson is chasing history at the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, S.C. this weekend. The 50-year-old is the oldest player to hold a lead at the PGA Championship through 54 holes. He is looking to become the oldest major winner ever.
Phil Mickelson is the oldest player to hold 54-hole lead in PGA Championship history (4th 50-year-old at any major in masters era).
It has been 16 years since he won at 2005 PGA, would be longest gap between wins at a single major in history pic.twitter.com/6j6uRiHb17
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) May 22, 2021
Mickelson shot a 2-under 70 on Saturday and is now 7-under for the tournament. That places him one stroke ahead of Brooks Koepka, who will join him in the final pairing.
Lefty and Koepka are both sporting interesting looks on the course. Koepka “means business” with his new goatee.
Mickelson has a different look going too. Over the last year or so, Lefty began playing with sunglasses on. He said the reason for the sunglasses was to help protect his face since he began using a cream to fight skin cancer.
“Back during Covid break, I did this Carac cream, which is like a skin cancer chemotherapy treatment on your face for like two weeks,” Mickelson said. “Your skin blotches up and you kill these cancer cells that you can’t see, and when I went outside, I had to wear some protection, so I wore these glasses to kind of protect the area around my eyes.”
Mickelson liked the sunglasses and stuck with it.
“I liked it,” Mickelson said. “They didn’t move around on my face when I was swinging, I went out and played with them, and I thought, ‘Oh, I’ll give it a try.’ So that’s kind of where it started. And then my eyes were much more relaxed at the end of the day, they weren’t squinting the whole time.”
Well, the sunglasses are working out quite well so far. He has a lot of work left in the final 18 holes to bring home the PGA Championship. He’s aiming to win it for the first time since his 2005 victory.
