Keeping Up With The Mickelsons

Oh, brother: If you think you’ve heard the best tales about Phil Mickelson, listen to his brother and sister Reminisce.

- Guy Yocom

TINA: When Phil and I were little and TIM was just starting to walk, Mom would head out at night to her monthly PTA meeting. While she was gone, Dad would build an obstacle course around the house. You know those tall, flexible poles with flags on them people put on the backs of their bicycles? Dad put them up all over the place. He’d lay them across the arms of couches and chairs for us to jump over, dive under and go around. There was a chin-up bar. Dad would Time us, and I had the edge because I was in gymnastics and was more agile than Phil. He’d get so frustrated. Just when he figured out a way to get under the pole quicker and get close to beating me, I’d have Dad change the rules. “Have us do more pull-ups, Dad,” I’d say, and Phil would fall behind. We all learned to look for an edge, and there was never any handicapping to accommodate our ages. Nothing was low net. We were a low-gross family.

TIM: My most vivid early memory of Phil is of being on a houseboat our family rented on Shasta Lake for a week each summer. We had a Jet Ski, and our dad would set up an obstacle course. He used empty oil cans, weighted down, as buoys. He’d Time us. I was 6, TINA and Phil were in their teens, and needless to say, I didn’t win much. Everything was a competition.