Houston's Clear Thinkers

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July 26, 2007

Don't mess with Mickelson

I've never had the opportunity to meet Phil Mickelson, but my sense from this episode and others that I've heard and read about lead me to believe that he's a good and fun-loving guy. In addition, Philly Mick is apparently quite a practical joker.

Veteran Sports Illustrated golf correspondent Chris Lewis has just come out with an entertaining book about life on the PGA Tour entitled The Scoreboard Always Lies: A Year Behind the Scenes on the PGA Tour (Free Press 2007) and, in this interview about the book, Lewis passes along the following anecdote about Mickelson:

We were in Akron last year, and Phil was playing with Aaron Baddeley. Their group comes off on Friday (I think it was Friday), and all the sudden, these Akron cops come over, grab Aaron’s caddie, Pete Bender, and drag him into a police car.

Pete, of course, has been around forever, and has seen it all – he used to caddie for Greg Norman, put in a bunch of years with Rocco Mediate, and so forth.

But now, after this round in Akron, the cops take him away, and he has no idea what’s going on. Turns out that years before, during a practice round in Maui (probably the last time Phil played the Mercedes), Pete had set a couple of snails down on the seat of Phil’s golf cart (they use carts during practice rounds there), and Phil of course sat on them. So years go by, and Phil never forgets.

Finally, last year in Akron, Pete winds up in the back of that squad car, and the cops tell him, “Mr. Bender, you’re here because of an outstanding warrant on a violation of a Hawaiian ordinance against cruelty to mollusks.”

Phil had set the whole thing up. He’s just standing there about fifty feet away, laughing his head off, while Pete’s in the police car scared out of his wits.

Posted by Tom at July 26, 2007 12:05 AM

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