The Girls
Amanda, 5, and Sophia, 3, have enriched the experience far beyond the exorbitant purse, trophies and lifetime exemption into the field.
"To this day, a year later, Sophia still comes up to me and says, 'Daddy, you won a green jacket! Great job! High five!'" Mickelson said.
As for Amanda, Easter Sunday colored her childhood in a whole new way.
"Her new favorite color is green," Mickelson said. "Ever since then she only wants green notebooks and green pencils and green hair clips and green clothes. Everything's green, and it used to not be. It used to be pink and yellow. It's amazing how that's had an impact on us but amazing how fun it is to share that with them."
Mickelson has made it very clear what his priority is when he told the world he would walk away from the lead in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst and go home if his wife, Amy, went into labor with Amanda.
Their first daughter was born the day after Father's Day and his one-stroke loss to Payne Stewart in 1999.
That it took nearly five more years to finally get his first major victory didn't matter at all. When Mickelson walked off the 18th green at Augusta and picked up each of his daughters, it was a moment as enduring as his winning putt and gravitationally challenged leap.
"Daddy won, can you believe it?" he said to them.
They're getting the hang of living with major Dad. When Mickelson won the FBR Open in Phoenix in February, it was Sophia who put it all in perspective when her father was presented the traditional blue blazer of the host Thunderbirds.
"Oh my goodness, Daddy," she said. "You won a green jacket AND a blue jacket."
| See Phil Mickelson From All Sides | |
| The happiest player ever to win a major | |
| His colleagues | His family |
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| His journey | His moment |
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