‘It felt easy’: Phil Mickelson confident for Masters after best LIV finish yet

If you tuned into the LIV Golf Hong Kong event on Saturday, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking it was 2013. Two aging superstars — Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia — put together their best LIV finishes yet.

The stellar performances by the major champions had positive consequences for their pursuits of two other tournaments scheduled for later this year: the Masters and the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black. Here’s what you need to know.

Mickelson eyes Masters after strong result

Mickelson was one of the primary forces behind the creation of LIV Golf, and the upstart league’s biggest booster. But his on-course performances since LIV launched have been disappointing.

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Last season, Mickelson finished 46th out of 57 players in the individual LIV standings. That year, he recorded only one top-10, a T6 at the LIV Golf Riyadh event. In the inaugural season in 2023, he finished 39th out of 52 players with his best result, a 10th-place finish, coming at LIV Golf Bedminster.

But the six-time major champion turned a big corner this week in Hong Kong. The host course for the latest LIV event was Hong Kong Golf Club, an old, classic course that stretches to only 6,711 yards and features tight, tree-lined fairways. Such a course would typically be bad news for Phil, who is historically wild off the tee, but not this week.

Mickelson shot rounds of 67-65-64 to earn a solo-third finish with a total score of 14 under, by far his best LIV result to date.

After the final round, the 54-year-old sounded confident and attributed his fine play to dedicated offseason work and a strategic shift.

“So I really had a great offseason, and I figured some things out, and I’m playing a different style of golf,” Mickelson told reporters Saturday night. “I’ve been playing really well at home, and it’s great to take it here. I didn’t putt well at Adelaide, otherwise I would have contended there, as well. I played really good golf, and I had about four or five putts — today even — that could have gone lower and been an ultra low round to make a run.”

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In other words, Mickelson isn’t coasting his way to retirement. He has two big goals he’s working as hard as ever to accomplish: to win a LIV event and to add a seventh major victory to his resume.

“The fact is I’m hitting a lot of good shots. I’m playing some good golf, and this is a building week as I continue to build into LIV and my goal of accomplishing a win in LIV as well as winning another major, getting ready for Augusta,” he explained.

The 2025 Masters is Phil’s next opportunity to increase his major haul, and it might be his best chance, too. He’s been a force at Augusta National for much of his career, earning three Masters titles. And despite his poor play overall in recent years, he managed a runner-up finish at the 2023 Masters. So no one should be surprised to find him near the top of the leaderboard at Augusta a month from now.

By the sound of it, he’s feeling an immense amount of confidence in his game four weeks out from arriving at Magnolia Lane.

“It didn’t feel hard. It felt easy. I probably led the field in fairways hit. I haven’t seen the stats, but I’d be surprised if anybody hit more than I did,” Mickelson said about his play in Hong Kong. “My game is getting sharp. My short game is back. I had a rough couple of years. My short game is really sharp now. My iron play is back, and my game is starting to really come around, and I’m also playing differently. I’m playing a lot less stressed, and it’s coming.”

Sergio Garcia wins with Ryder Cup top of mind

While Mickelson had his best LIV result in Hong Kong, he didn’t have the best result. That honor belonged to another aging former Masters winner: Sergio Garcia.

Garcia, who like Mickelson has struggled for much of his LIV career, stormed across Hong Kong Golf Club this week, shooting a final-round 63 to capture his second-career LIV victory.

The 45-year-old is hoping to play well enough to earn a captain’s pick onto the 2025 European Ryder Cup team and add to his legacy in the biennial event. Here’s how he responded when asked if he thought European captain Luke Donald was following his performance.

“I think [Donald is] watching. We’ve been in touch, so I know that he’s keeping an eye,” Garcia revealed. “The only thing I can do is keep playing good golf, and I just want to help the European team like I’ve tried to do every single time I’ve been a member of that team, and hopefully he will think I’m good enough for it.”

Along with improving his Ryder Cup chances, Garcia took home $4 million for winning the individual title in Hong Kong. His Fireballs GC team also won the team competition.