Early Years
Mickelson was born in San Diego, California, to parents Phil Mickelson Sr. (an airline pilot and former naval aviator) and Mary Mickelson. He was raised there and in Scottsdale, Arizona. Although right-handed otherwise, he plays golf left-handed, as he learned by watching his right-handed father swing and mirroring it. Mickelson began golf under his father's instruction before starting school. Phil Sr.'s work schedule as a commercial pilot allowed them to play together several times a week and an extensive practice area in their San Diego backyard allowed young Phil to hone his creative short game. Mickelson graduated from the University of San Diego High School in 1988.
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Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“Today’s pressures on middle-class children to grow up fast begin in early childhood. Chief among them is the pressure for early intellectual attainment, deriving from a changed perception of precocity. Several decades ago precocity was looked upon with great suspicion. The child prodigy, it was thought, turned out to be a neurotic adult; thus the phrase “early ripe, early rot!””
—David Elkind (20th century)
“I dare say I am compelled, unconsciously compelled, now to write volume after volume, as in past years I was compelled to go to sea, voyage after voyage. Leaves must follow upon each other as leagues used to follow in the days gone by, on and on to the appointed end, which, being Truth itself, is One—one for all men and for all occupations.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)