Lefty Has All The Right Shots

I don't know if you are like me or not but if I happen to have had any contact with a professional athlete at all I tend to like them and pull for them.  If they went to a school in North Carolina is the second way that I pull for athletes regardless of the sport.  I have never met Phil Mickelson and when he came up and joined the tour he was maybe third on on list of people I like and didn't know.  I liked David Duval and Justin Leonard and then Lefty.  So this probably makes them 10th on my list of players I pull for.  Davis Love, Curtis Strange those guys all went to school here so they are ahead of Duval, Leonard and Mickelson.

Time passes and you have to admire the way life has unfolded for Lefty.  He  left practice at the US Open this year to fly home to see one of his daughters graduate middle school and fly back all night and led the Open after the first day.  His wife had breast cancer and he took time off from the tour to be with her.He just seems to have life figured out that golf pays the bills but the most important thing in life his his family.

It was one of the U S Opens played at Pinehurst where Mickelson's wife was about to give birth and he had a beeper set the second it went off to drop out of the U S Open and fly home.  Mickelson just seems to understand there is more to life than hitting that itty bitty ball.

Sunday watching as Lefty's caddy "Bones" Mackay break down and cry  for his boss winning the British Open.  This is Michelson 5th major not his first  but MacKay cried as if it was the first.  There just has to be something special about Phil Michelson that the people who are around him every day feel that the way they do for him.

How many times after a big one like Sunday has Phil's family been there to enjoy it with him.  I think we all have moments in our life when it is even better to have someone you love  there to share the moment with you.  The way he has conducted himself Phil Mickelson has moved up my list to just behind Webb Simpson(Wake) golfer as my favorite.  I wish more athletes understood there is more to life than winning at all cost.

Garner wrapped up the Area One Legion Championship last night beating Pitt County 12-2.  Garner will represent eastern North Carolina along with Wilson when the State American Legion Baseball Tournament begins this weekend at fleming Stadium.