When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
As he's done with Adam Scott at the Masters, Michael David Murphy has put together a supercut of all available Phil Mickelson swings from the 2013 Open Championship final round 66.
CPA K. Sean Packard, CPA "specializes in tax planning and the preparation of tax returns for pro athletes" and has broken down Phil Mickelson's winnings in Scotland from the last two weeks: His conclusion, well, Phil netted very little in actual on course earnings after the Queen gets her take to pay for George's diapers and California pays four teachers.
Seriously, this is an important topic as it relates to getting top players to play the Scottish Open, BMW at Wentworth or an English Open if it could ever be made to happen. Players simply avoid playing in the UK more than they need to because of the stifling tax rates on top of what they pay here at home. First world problems, indeed, but nonetheless important for everyone (myself included) to remember when we lament why more players don't play Royal Aberdeen next year, or why the PGA Tour does not play a WGC event in the UK or why we don't see more tournaments on the great links of the U.K.
For his two weeks of play, the world’s best golfer (rankings be damned) earned £1,445,000, or about $2,167,500.
The United Kingdom, which has authority to set Scotland’s tax rate until 2016, graduates to a 40% tax rate when income hits £32,010 then 45% when it reaches £150,000. Mickelson will pay £636,069 ($954,000, or 44.02%) on his Scottish earnings.
But that’s not all. The UK will tax a portion of his endorsement income for the two weeks he was in Scotland. It will also tax any bonuses he receives for winning these tournaments as well as a portion of the ranking bonuses he will receive at the end of the year, all at 45%. It is a significant amount for Mickelson, with only Roger Federer and Tiger Woods earning more among athletes from endorsements and appearances.
Packard goes on to lay out the tax bill in the U.S. (foreign tax credit!) and California
Without considering expenses, Mickelson will pay 61.12% taxes on his winnings, bringing his net take-home winnings to about $842,700. When expenses are considered (10% to caddy Jim “Bones” Mackay, airfare, hotel, meals, agent fees on endorsement income/bonuses—all tax deductible here and in the UK), his take-home will fall closer to 30%.
Of course Phil will benefit in the endorsement world and, oh yeah, he's the Champion Golfer of the Year having won The Open at Muirfield, over a star-studded leaderboard with a round that will talked about for ages. No tax bill can take away that.
GolfChannel.com has a nice roundup of quotes from Phil Mickelson making the media rounds, including his admission that he was so tired and beaten down from the U.S. Open loss that he didn't get out of bed much until a family trip and a dinosaur egg got him going again.
There's some great stuff too about the Open, changes in his diet and an epic Bones' story begging a college professor to help him graduate and what the win meant to him from his Dan Patrick interview, which you can listen to here:
Earlier this week Jim Mackay was on the Patrick show and also shared some super insights into The Open:
Finally, Phil hit the Today Show to talk about his Mickelson ExxonMobil teachers academy and to play table tennis.
**Thanks to Average Golfer for spotting Phil's appearance on NPR, too.
Karma, preparation, experience and incredible skill on a fiery links added up to a historic win by Phil Mickelson, who captures his fifh major and is a U.S. Open away from the career Grand Slam.
He appropriately joins a list of superstar winners at Muirfield and put away a leaderboard for the ages. It's hard to image a more impressive win and validation of both Mickelson's career along with Muirfield as a venue.
Your kneejerk reactions...
From a Herald story on Phil Mickelson's pre-Scottish Open press conference:
Mickelson, who posted a record sixth runners-up finish in the US Open last month, is finalising his preparations for the third major championship of the year by playing in the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open.
Castle Stuart is just five miles away from Culloden, which in April 1746 saw the final confrontation of the Jacobite Rebellion where English troops defeated those of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
"There are some plans to check out the battlefields of the war back in 1746 between the Hanoverians and the Jacobites," said Mickelson, whose wife and children are with him in Scotland. "I'm not sure, I've got to read up on it."
Stepping back from the U.S. Open for a day to consider Phil Mickelson's incredible sixth runner-up finish and while a lot of people want to question his decision to leave the driver in the locker or his putting (everyone stunk on the greens at Merion), it will all really go back to the decision on the short par-3 13th that cost him a spot in a playoff.
From an unbylined USA Today story:
But he hit a pitching wedge instead of a gap wedge to the hole, flying the green and leaving himself with a pitch from the rough he had no way of getting close to the hole. He made bogey, then compounded his error on No. 15 by quitting on a gap wedge and leaving it so short he had to chip from the front of the green for another bogey.
In the end it wasn't strategy but execution.
"Thirteen and 15 were the two bad shots of the day that I'll look back on where I let it go," Mickelson said.
I was standing behind the 13th green after Mickelson's shot with USGA Executive Director Mike Davis, who pointed out that there was a line about 20 feet left of the hole location that a shot with proper spin could take and like spin right to within 10 or so feet of the hole, mitigating the risk.
Thanks to GolfChannel.com's Jay Coffin for Tweeting this video where NBC's crack audio team picking up a frank conversation between Phil Mickelson and USGA Executive Director Mike Davis after the 3rd hole, which played 274 yards into the wind.
The transcript:
"274? That's terrible. Can't even reach it."
The hole was playing straight into the wind as forecasted.
**Mike Davis's response after the round:
Q. Phil expressed his displeasure about the third hole setup. How do you feel with the way the wind was coming and did you feel like you got that one right?
MIKE DAVIS: Well, let me start out by Phil is a class act. He was nothing but complimentary week from the standpoint of he embraced this golf course, which is great. He saw all the architecture when he played the third hole today.
We set the golf course up today for a south wind. So you saw us move tee markers up. For instance, if you're playing the 18th hole, you're dead into what would be a south wind. So that's how we set it up. That's why we didn't go to the back tees.
When we got to the third hole, we were really getting a westerly even a northwesterly wind. So it played long. It played longer than we would have ‑‑ but having said that, it was a back hole location that was the most receptive on the green, we felt that it could handle 3‑wood shots, if need be. So anyway, I mean, he mentioned that he thought it was too long. That's fine. We wouldn't have put the tee markers back where we did had we known we were going to get that wind.
But he was terrific and to be a six‑time runner‑up in the National Open Championship is ‑‑ well, it's not only a record, but it's a ‑‑ he's a very classy about it.
Jim McCabe with the news of Phil Mickelson heading back to Rancho Santa Fe Tuesday to be at his daughter's 8th grade graduation on Wednesday. 
He'll be back at Merion for Thursday's first round.
Having long ago decided to be home in Rancho Santa Fe the Wednesday before the first round of the U.S. Open to attend his daughter Amanda’s graduation from eighth grade, Mickelson got home even earlier thanks to the weather in Greater Philadelphia. The lefthander, having tied for second Sunday at the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, was on site Monday at Merion, but never did more than hit a few balls. When the heavy rain came and he saw that more precipitation was in the forecast for Tuesday, Mickelson decided to get back to some California sun and family duties.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
