‘It’s F*cking Thanksgiving’: Charles Barkley Recalls Hilarious Conversation With Phil Mickelson

Winning a Major at the age of 50 was unthinkable until Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship last weekend. It was a historic win, and a result that no one saw coming. He became the oldest player to win a Major proving he has still a lot of golf left in him.

While most fans didn’t expect him to win, basketball Hall of Famer Charles Barkley might not be too surprised. He played alongside Mickelson when the duo paired up for version 3 of The Match. They beat NBA star Stephen Curry and NFL star Peyton Manning to win the title.

Barkley knows how dedicated Mickelson is to the sport, and how he can go a bit extreme for it too. During a recent podcast, he revealed how Mickelson was extensively preparing even for an exhibition.

“So he wanted to be prepared for The Match,” Barkley said. “So he’s like, ‘hey, I’m flying down for the day to play the course,’ and I’m like, yo man, it’s f*cking Thanksgiving. He’s like ‘yeah, I’m flying in the day before.’ And I had to drive like two hours up to Tucson. I’m like, if you’re going to fly in just for the day to play golf, let’s do it.”

Phil Mickelson: Record breaker

Over the course of his thirty-year career, and also his college career, Mickelson has broken multiple records. He often was in Tiger Woods’ shadows, with him never reaching the number one ranking, but he has still had a legendary career so far.

His triumph at Kiawah Island, to lift the 2021 PGA championship might be one of his most iconic wins. And along with it came a few more records. As previously mentioned, he became the oldest player to win a Major, surpassing the previous record set by Julius Boros, who won the 1968 PGA Championship at the age 48.

When he entered the tournament, Mickelson was ranked 115th in the world. So winning the tournament made him the lowest ranked champion at a Major since Shaun Micheel. He won the 2003 PGA championship ranked 169th in the world. Finally, this victory got him into an exclusive club with Sam Snead, Raymond Floyd and Davis Love III, as the only golfers to record a win in four different decades.

So even if he turns 51 in a few weeks, Mickelson is proving that he is still a force to be reckoned with.

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