Phil's big day a blessing for PGA

By Matt Vachlon

Phil needed this. His wife needed this. His family needed this.

But the PGA needed this more.

I mean they really, really needed this.

When Phil Mickelson’s putt on 18 clinched his third victory at the Masters and led to his ensuing embrace with his wife, Amy, it may have brought about one of the more touching sports moments in recent memory, but it very likely caused some of the PGA’s big wigs to high five as well.

And they’d be smart to cash in on it.

I’m not trying to be crass. There is nothing more touching in sports than raw emotion in its truest form and this was a prime example. While I will not pretend to know what Mickelson and his family have been through over the past year in dealing with Amy’s and his mother’s breast cancer, the fact is it had to be hellish.

So the Mickelsons were understandably ecstatic to have something positive happen.

But if you’re the PGA, you also had to be ecstatic.

You see, the coverage leading up to this week wasn’t about Mickelson. It was about Tiger. That’s not a total shock. After all, Tiger is back and unquestionably he’s the straw that stirs the PGA’s drink. Add to the fact that he kept himself in the running to win the tournament all the way through Sunday, and you can see why much of the coverage was warranted.

The problem is, Tiger still has a bit of an image problem right now. The resulting chaos doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon and the PGA desperately needs to distance itself from this.

However, thanks to one of the most ironic weekends in sports history it now has an opportunity to do so.

Sure a noticeably rusty Woods gutted out a tie for fourth place at his first tournament in five months. But his absence was due to self-induced marital issues. Mickelson also had distractions which kept him away from the game of golf. However, his distractions were of the life or death variety and were beyond his control.

Phil ended up the winner, both athletically and morally.

An added plus is that Phil Mickelson is not some Johnny-come-lately with a great story. He’s a pillar of the sport, as evidenced by the winning of his third green jacket and fourth Major and, as a result, he’s one of the few who can rival Tiger’s popularity.

Let me be clear, I’m still not an advocate for making athletes into role models, as I explained here . But what happened at Augusta on Sunday was something so truly special on an emotional level and so badly needed for the sport that the PGA would be foolish to not try and capitalize on it.