Mickelson all about the majors

ATLANTA – Phil Mickelson might have done the PGA Tour a favor.

Commissioner Tim Finchem is close to announcing a massive change in the schedule that would make the heart of the season shorter and the Tour Championship more meaningful.

Mickelson showed how little it means now.

Lefty decided to skip the tour’s version of the All-Star game – only the top 30 on the money list are eligible – so he could spend Halloween with his kids. At least that was the reason making the rounds on the practice range Tuesday, and confirmed later by a tour official.

No one should be terribly surprised that Mickelson is a no-show at East Lake, even though the Tour Championship is one of only two tournaments he has won after the majors have ended.

“It’s not the first time,” Tiger Woods said with a shrug. “We all know he doesn’t play a lot at the end of the season. Go look at his record. He doesn’t play much after Firestone.”

Mickelson marches to his own beat, and this indeed is a familiar path.

He thought he had an outside chance to win the money title or perhaps even player of the year if he finished 2001 with a flourish, but when that didn’t materialize – and with the impending birth of his second daughter – he didn’t play another event the final two months of the season.

Mickelson made it clear in late February that the Tour Championship wasn’t a priority, adding that a chance to win top awards, such as the money title, would be “things that need to be considered.”

But toward the end of the interview at La Costa Resort, he spoke volumes about the Tour Championship.

“It’s late in the year,” he said that day. “It’s anticlimactic.”

On the surface, Mickelson appears to be the first player in history to let a night of trick-or-treat get in the way of a $6.5 million tournament featuring only the very best players of the year.

Lefty won’t say this publicly, but what annoys him is the PGA Tour’s policy that players must take part in the pro-am to play in the tournament. He already cited that as the reason he didn’t play at the Memorial, which also has a Tuesday pro-am. Mickelson had plans to be at Pinehurst No. 2 to prepare for the U.S. Open that week.

The pro-am for the Tour Championship was Tuesday, a good reason for him to pull out. Mickelson reasoned that he couldn’t possibly get from San Diego to Atlanta for the pro-am after such a big night for the kids.

Of course, that didn’t stop Scott Verplank.

“I can’t say I agree with the rule, but I got to my hotel at 1 a.m.,” Verplank said. “I went trick-or-treating, left Oklahoma City at 9 p.m. But I wanted to play in this tournament.”

Halloween was a convenient excuse for Mickelson not making it to the pro-am. But ultimately, the pro-am was a convenient reason for what’s truly behind Lefty skipping the Tour Championship.

Maybe he just doesn’t want to play and he definitely doesn’t need the money.