Mickelson seeks missing piece of his career

Phil Mickelson turns 46 on Thursday. And as a special gift on his special day, he has a 2:09 tee time to a white whale of a golf tournament that has evaded him for more than half a lifetime.

At this stage, what’s the use in trying to downplay the personal importance of a U.S. Open?

“I could BS you and tell you I don’t think about (winning the only major left on his bucket list),” he said Wednesday. “No, I think about it all the time. This is the tournament I want to win the most to complete the four majors.

“I have to put that out of my head and try to execute and be patent and not think about results. You start thinking about results, you’ll never play your best golf.”

Mickelson is three-quarters of the way to a career Grand Slam and holding, having spent his most recent victory of any kind on the 2013 British Open. Put this one missing piece into the center of the puzzle and he’d join a very august group of those who have won each of the Big Four — Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

Fall just short, and Mickelson merely will add to the other 25 unfruitful U.S. Opens, a record six of which he was the runner-up.

The man is so full of frustrating near misses that over the course of Wednesday’s media session he ended up pointing to two different “most disappointing U.S. Open finishes.” Just one wouldn’t do.

So choose for yourself: The one-shot lead lost on a double bogey on the final hole at Winged Foot in 2006. Or the third-round lead squandered with a final-round 74 at Marion in 2013.

“Can’t dwell on the past. I’m looking forward to this week,” Mickelson said.

All kinds of life events, both troubling and touching, will have preceded Mickelson to the first tee Thursday.

There was the recent public revelation that he was connected to an insider-trading investigation and forced to pay back nearly $1 million he made in a suspicious stock transaction. There has been a certain relief, Mickelson said, in a resolution that did not include facing criminal charges.

“I’ve actually known for months what was going to happen. I’m just glad that it finally is out and over with and behind me,” he said Wednesday.

“It might have something to do with the fact that it’s behind me that I’ve played well the last two weeks (a second last week in Memphis, a T20 at the Memorial). I feel like I’m playing stress-free and much better golf. I’m excited that it’s behind me.”

On a more personally fulfilling note, Mickelson flew back home to California on Monday to witness daughter Sophia’s eighth-grade graduation, returning to Oakmont on Tuesday evening.

“It’s just important for me to be there for that stuff,” he said. “At 46 years old now, those are the differences that I’ll have, where a lot of the young guys in their 20s don’t really have to think about yet.”

Even given the interruption in his practice routine, Mickelson said he was quite comfortable with where his game stood. And motivation certainly won’t be a problem.

“There is nothing that would mean more to me than to cap off my career with a win here at the U.S. Open,” he said.