The people love Phil Mickelson. As if that wasn’t clear enough throughout his 30 years in professional golf, there’s no hiding it now that he’s on Twitter. And Phil Mickelson is on Twitter a lot.
It seemingly doesn’t matter what time of day it is or what’s going on in his life, Lefty often shares his experiences on the social media platform, including on the flight home following his shocking PGA Championship win last May. And when he does make a post, his fans respond in droves, giddy to tangle one-on-one with one of golf’s greatest and most popular players.
Phil Mickelson shot is questioned by analyst — then Mickelson questions analyst
All of these things came true late Friday night (or early Saturday morning in Phil’s time zone). This week, the 51-year-old veteran is playing in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, the season finale of the PGA Tour Champions. Mickelson has made a huge splash on the senior circuit since joining in 2020, winning his very first start at the Charles Schwab Series at Ozarks National, and adding two more wins since, including the Constellation Furyk & Friends just over a month ago.
Now he’s trying to finish the season as the top player on the tour, and through two rounds he has a fourth win clearly in sight. But following a second-round 67 on Friday at Phoenix Country Club, Mickelson couldn’t sleep. So instead of lying in bed with his eyes open, he hopped on Twitter to chat with his faithful followers.
In a tweet posted at 2:30 a.m. ET, Mickelson wrote, “It’s past midnight here in AZ and I can’t sleep cuz all I can think about is hitting [bombs] tomorrow,” using the bomb emoji in place of the word.
It was a relatively mundane tweet, albeit with a distinctly Phil style, but if social engagement was his goal, he certainly succeeded. As of this writing, Phil’s late-night missive has received 352 retweets, 44 quote tweets, and a whopping 10.5 thousand likes.
Despite desperately needing sleep to be in top form for the third round, Mickelson took some extra time to respond to some of the replies, as is his habit.
When one user warned him to “Watch out for FREDDIE!!!” — a.k.a. Fred Couples who is currently three behind Mickelson — Phil replied, “I see him. He’s in my rear view mirror.”
When another fan said he couldn’t sleep because he was thinking of Mickelson’s calves, one of Phil’s favorite bantering points, the pro replied “True dat.”
Hopefully Mickelson eventually turned off his phone and got some rest. He’s currently T3 at the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, just three shots behind leader Kirk Triplett. Phil tees off for Round 3 on Saturday at 2:45 p.m. ET alongside Jim Furyk.