Alan Shipnuck pulls back the curtain on Phil Mickelson with unauthorized biography – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Phil, Alan Shipnuck’s “rip-roaring (and unauthorized)” biography of Phil Mickelson is easily the most anticipated golf-related book of recent years, and I am completely confident in saying that readers will not be disappointed. Whether they are Phil fans (or not, as in my case), there is much for the reader to learn about the man who has recently found himself at the center of one of the biggest controversies to ever engulf the world of professional golf—a result, by the way, of the early drop of an excerpt from this very book.

Far from being a hatchet-job or a tell-all, the book is actually a well-balanced look at a very complex character. Philip Alfred Mickelson is a man of contrasts, and the book covers the full range of his complexities. There is a lengthy accounting of the many acts of philanthropy that Mickelson and his wife, Amy, have undertaken, both on their own and through their foundation, and on the other hand, no shrinking back from mentions of the less salutary aspects of his character and behavior. These range from the sophomoric trash-talking and pranking that he engages in, to a gambling habit that may be putting him in serious financial trouble, and borderline illegal financial dealings—some of which appear to be linked to his gambling activities.

The picture of Phil Mickelson that I take away from reading this book is that he is a smart, hardworking, physically talented man with an ego that drives him to constantly prove himself, always trying to show that he is the smartest person in any room that he walks into. While many people, among them his legion of fans, seem to buy into his act, the anecdotes in the book make him come across to me as a fast-talking BS artist who is, on balance, a hard person to like. To me he is the personification of the archetypal entitled rich man—he’s got his nugget and he wants to keep as much of it as possible (“my number one, two, three, four, and five issues are taxes”), all the while denying the contributions of others (e.g., the PGA Tour) to his success.

Alan Shipnuck has spent years working on this book—decades, actually, if you count the entirety of the time he has spent covering PGA tour golf, dating from 1994, Phil Mickelson’s second full year on tour, and interacting with Mickelson along the way. Curiously enough, the pandemic lockdown of 2020 was a boost to the effort. With pro golf, like so many activities, on hiatus during the early, highly restricted months of the pandemic lockdown, Shipnuck was able to engage his legion of sources, closeted at their homes and bored, via telephone, gathering anecdotes and impressions.

I got the impression that this book could have been longer if Shipnuck had been able to include the off-the-record material that he gathered along the way—and speaking of “off-the-record”, the golf world was treated to a bombshell last February when he dropped a revealing excerpt from the book.

In a phone conversation with Shipnuck which Mickelson later claimed was not for publication or attribution, he revealed that his courting of the Saudi backers who are bankrolling the LIV Golf league, which Greg Norman has been stumping for these past several months, was a calculated move to gain leverage against the PGA Tour for concessions regarding rights to players’ media content. His admission that the Saudi government has a terrible record on human rights, that they are “scary motherf--ers to get involved with” who he was nevertheless willing to snuggle up to for the sake of a big paycheck, had a cascading effect on his perception in the eyes of fans as well as the corporate sponsors who are the largest contributors to his income.

Several sponsors dropped Mickelson outright, and his biggest, Callaway Golf—who have a lifetime contract (as long as he is playing professionally) with Phil—pressed “Pause” on their contractual relationship with him. He subsequently stepped away from tournament golf and dropped out of the public eye, supposedly to “work on being the man (he wants) to be.” This self-imposed (or not, as far as playing PGA Tour events goes) exile even extended as far as his withdrawal from the 2022 PGA Championship, passing on defending the title which is arguably his most outstanding professional accomplishment, winning the 2021 event to become the oldest winner of a men’s professional major championship.

“A grownup version of Shipnuck’s first book, 2001’s Bud, Sweat, and Tees”

Even without the early excerpt and the ripple-effect consequences of that bit of breaking news, Phil – The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar is a groundbreaking work, a grownup version of Shipnuck’s first book, 2001’s Bud, Sweat, and Tees, which was a peek behind the scenes of the wild side of life on the PGA Tour as lived by the hard-living and -playing Rich Beem and his equally colorful caddie Steve Duplantis.

While Beem, despite his 2002 PGA Championship victory, has been little more than a flash in the pan in the world of professional golf, Mickelson is one of the defining characters in late-20th/early-21st century professional golf, and this book will go down as an important chronicle of his life and impact on the game.

Alan Shipnuck previews new Phil Mickelson bio at Pacific Grove Golf Links

An appreciative group of golf fans got a preview of Alan Shipnuck’s upcoming unauthorized biography of Phil Mickelson the other evening, in a talk by the author at the restaurant at Pacific Grove Golf Links—and speaking for myself, it was well worth the 92-mile round trip from my home in San José for the preview, and the talk.

Speaking from the hearth of the fireplace in The Grill at Point Piños, Shipnuck told the audience, “This book has been three decades in the making. My first year covering the PGA Tour was 1994; that was Phil Mickelson’s second full season. I always gravitated to Phil, he was obviously very fun to watch on the golf course, he’s a very charismatic guy. More than any other modern superstar he’ll let you in a little bit. He’s always been good about reporters; he’ll court them, he’ll charm them, he’ll cajole them, he’ll bully them—I’ve been on the receiving end of all of that.”

In the wake of the success of Shipnuck’s 2012 golf novel The Swinger (with co-author Michael Bamberger), which was something of a roman á clef centered on a thinly disguised Tiger Woods-like character, he signed a contract with Simon and Schuster for a future “unspecified golf book”. He kicked ideas around for years, but was always most interested in Phil. In 2020, knowing that he was going to be leaving Golf magazine, the idea for this book was reanimated. In a sort of gruesome serendipity, the pandemic lockdown facilitated the process—with people stuck at home, Shipnuck was able to “ring up random Hall of Fame golfers” who talked for hours. One day he talked to half a dozen guys, a group with 130 PGA Tour and Champions Tour victories between them, and talked so much that he lost his voice.

After spending the summer and the fall of 2020, and into early 2021, working on the book, Shipnuck left Golf magazine to help start up Matt Ginella’s new media group, The Firepit Collective, and for three months did no work on the book. Calling his editor in early May of that year, he told him that there was no way that he could get the book done in 2022. “Fine, no problem,” he was told, “It’s evergreen—’23, ’24, whenever it’s ready.”

And then, a couple of weeks later, Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship.

At the age of 50 years, 11 months, and seven days, Mickelson became the oldest winner of a major golf championship, surpassing Julius Boros, who won the PGA Championship in 1968 at the age of 48. That night Shipnuck got a text from his editor that read, “Book is due December 1st; don’t let me down.”

Thus jumpstarted, work on the book picked up. Approached by Shipnuck to be interviewed for the book, to present his side of the stories that had been collected, Mickelson declined, intitially—then, early this year he called Alan on the phone. Without asking for or receiving an “off-the-record” assurance, Mickelson launched into a discourse on his involvement with the controversial Saudi golf league that is being spearheaded by Greg Norman, dropping the revelation that he was powwowing with the Saudis solely as a means of gaining leverage in his push against the PGA Tour for greater player control of and access to media rights.

“Phil knew that I was writing this book. I had asked him to talk to me—and he calls me up,” Shipnuck said. “Anything he says to me is going directly into the book unless we expressly agree otherwise. The whole thing about off-the-record is that it is a two-way street; both parties have to agree. He gets on the phone and he just starts talking, he never asked to go off the record; I never consent to it. He was very blunt, he was very honest. Some of the things he told me were quite provocative. Did he mean to go that far, or did he just get carried away by trying to show me how smart he was? It’s hard to say what he was thinking. I’m still baffled, to this day, why he called me. He could have called any other reporter to share his innermost feelings (about the Saudi Golf League.)”

The subsequent publication, in February 2022, of an early excerpt from the book revealing those revelations created, in Shipnuck’s words, “a global firestorm”, and he did interviews with the BBC and Al-Jazeera, among others. In the wake of the revelations, Mickelson went into exile—whether purely self-imposed or as the result of a suspension by the PGA Tour is not (and may never be) known.

The flames of the “firestorm” were fanned by the release of a statement from Mickelson claiming that the comments were off the record, but Shipnuck maintains that it was never discussed, and he has witnesses to the conversation (which was not recorded.)

“That’s part of what has made the last three months very complicated in my life, dealing with the fallout from that excerpt. I’m just happy that the book is here; when you guys get to read it you’ll see it’s a very balanced, fair portrait of a really complicated person. Phil has done a lot of great things in his life, and I celebrate all of it—his random acts of kindness, his mentorship of younger players, but there has also been a lot of messiness, a lot of controversy, and that’s in the book, too. I’m happy that it’s finally here, and that people can read it and make up their own minds.

I had received an electronic advance copy of the book the day before the get-together in Pacific Grove, and had read about 100 pages into the 239-page volume before hearing Alan speak. I’ll have more to say when I publish a review of the book, but I can say that it is a balanced look at a very complicated person, and that I am very happy to have had the opportunity to hear Shipnuck speak about the process and experience of writing this book.

The lucky group who attended this talk have their (autographed) copies of Phil – The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar, but the rest of the world doesn’t have to wait much longer; the official publication date is just a few days away, on May 17th, 2022. It is available for pre-order (which publishers and authors really appreciate) from all the usual outlets, including (and this is my preference) your local independent bookseller.