Phil Mickelson makes a statement: not an idiot any longer

The golfing gods can be cruel. One day you've won two majors in a row and are just about to win your third (with many calling you The Rival to Tiger Woods), the next day, your game is in complete shambles after one of the most embarrassing finishes to the final hole of a major, short of Jean Van de Velde. Last year, who could forget Phil Mickelson summing up his final hole at Winged Foot and the U.S. Open: "I'm such an idiot."

Well, this past weekend, Phil Mickelson moved a long way to exorcising his U.S. Open demons by winning his 30th PGA title at Pebble Beach by a dominating final round performance that left the runner up Keven Sutherland 5 strokes back. And it appears that Mickelson is an idiot no longer, having learned some valuable lessons from his humiliating finish at the U.S. Open. The biggest of all: Phil recognizes that he has a problem with a massive slice on his driver and needs to fix it. That's the same bugaboo that killed Mickelson and Tiger on the final hole of the Ryder Cup when they were paired together -- and Phil's 3-wood left Tiger against the fence with an unplayable lie. Unfortunately, Mickelson ignored his problem back then and it finally caught up with him. Now, Mickelson realizes he can't ignore it any longer.

"I believe I can take what happened at Winged Foot and make it a plus for the rest of my career. I think I'm going to be a better driver of the golf ball for the rest of my career. At least, that's the goal."