Have you ever seen the dog-eared photo of Ernie Els – grinning widely and holding the larger champion’s trophy – alongside Phil Mickelson, crestfallen as he posed with the smaller runner-up version, taken at the Junior World Championships in San Diego back in 1984? When Els sees the photo, it makes him smile. It seems forever ago, and then again, it isn’t.

Young Ernie, mop-haired blond and a long way from his home in South Africa, was 14, eight months older than young Phil, who lived just up the road from Torrey Pines. Els won that day, but Phil, in time, would claim his fair share, too, famously clipping Els with his 72nd hole birdie (and leap) at the 2004 Masters. Els, 52, stopped hitting balls on the eve of last week’s TimberTech Championship in Florida to ponder the thought that he and Mickelson have been at this, competing against one another, for two-thirds of their years. They’ll resume once again this week at the PGA TOUR Champions’ season-ending Schwab Cup Championship at Arizona’s Phoenix Country Club.

Els can recall a shot he watched Mickelson hit into a par 5 at Torrey Pines when they were young teens, the ball coming in low, skipping, and then screeching to a halt as if on a string 1 foot from the flagstick. He’d never before seen a player his age hit a shot like that. Anywhere.

“I knew I was going to make it,” said Els, who would become a four-time major champion, “and I knew this guy was going to be around. And then, obviously, Tiger (Woods) came around in the 1990s, and that changed the whole narrative again. It was kind of going to be a Phil-and-me kind of era, I think, and Tiger made it into his era. Phil has always been a special player. Even back then, he always had that special touch that nobody else has, those shots that nobody else pulls off.”

Mickelson waited a long time to collect that first major, the one that he dreamed about while chipping and putting long after darkness fell on his backyard green in San Diego. He would not break through until age 33, edging Els at Augusta National. The good news is, Mickelson still is winning majors. He captured No. 6 only six months ago, a month shy of his 51st birthday, winning the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island. Mickelson will make his sixth start on PGA TOUR Champions beginning Thursday. Sitting 29th in the 35-man Charles Schwab Cup Championship field, he has no shot at catching 64-year-old physical phenom Bernhard Langer (only Jim Furyk, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Els do). Know this: Especially given where the tournament is being played, ol’ No. 29 is sure to garner the biggest slice of attention this week.

Out there – out anywhere, frankly – Mickelson still has that special touch. The golden Midas touch, if you will. He has won in three of his five career Champions starts, including last month’s Constellation FURYK & FRIENDS presented by Circle K tournament in Jacksonville, Florida. Despite a rainy week, fans traversed the St. John’s River in water taxis to watch the big left-hander as he was belting self-proclaimed bombs, powered by those Bunyanesque calves of his that own their own Twitter handle.

Phoenix isn’t technically “home” for Mickelson – that still would be Rancho Santa Fe, near San Diego, where Philip Alfred Mickelson was born and decided to raise his three children – but he feels quite comfortable immersed in the red Arizona clay. He built a phenomenal amateur career at nearby Arizona State, where he was a three-time NCAA champion, won his first PGA TOUR event (as an amateur) in Tucson (Northern Telecom Open), and made a home outside Phoenix as a young professional. Adopted as one of Arizona’s own, Mickelson captured the Waste Management Phoenix Open in three different decades. He’d already won six titles by the time he defeated Justin Leonard in a playoff for the 1996 Phoenix Open crown the day before Super Bowl Sunday; that victory, he would say, felt very much like his first major. In front of the massive crowds at TPC Scottsdale (some 156,000 close friends witnessed that first Phoenix triumph), Phil the Thrill embraced his role as the tournament’s marquee attraction, starring for 30 years. He hasn’t made a start in Phoenix since 2019, so being back this week stirs great memories and warm emotions. Positive vibes.

In Arizona, Mickelson forged a close relationship with his college coach, Steve Loy, which morphed into Loy becoming a business partner and the only manager Mickelson has ever had. Mickelson calls Loy his best friend. Of course, his true best friend was another great Arizona find, a young coed named Amy McBride, a Phoenix Suns cheerleader who has cheered on her husband through good times and bad, from so many painful close-call runner-up finishes to 45 PGA TOUR victories and a Hall of Fame career. (They’ve raised three children together, the first two Arizona-born.)

“This place will always be special to me for those two reasons,” Mickelson said Wednesday at Phoenix Country Club. “Coming back is always fun, and the people here have been so special and treated me so well, and have welcomed me, that it's been a very special moment. Especially winning the Phoenix Open, that's been really fun for me.”

Phoenix Country Club, a course Mickelson played once a month in his ASU days, might not be the best fit for his aggressive style of play – the course is short, at 6,853 yards, and relatively tight – but that matters little. Mickelson is playing because he is such a good fit for Phoenix, the Maestro of Excitement whenever he opts to compete against the over-50 set. As the game’s oldest major winner, he delivers great credibility to the talents of his PGA TOUR Champions peers. He loves playing against the Jon Rahms and Dustin Johnsons of the world, but it also means something that everywhere he turns in the Champions locker room, he sees a familiar face, and hears familiar laughter. No player in history ever had teed it up on PGA TOUR Champions while holding one of golf’s four major titles, which Mickelson shrugs off thusly: “It’s just math.” He is to PGA TOUR Champions what he and Tiger have been for so many years to the regular PGA TOUR. Big-time box office. Furyk’s first-year PGA TOUR Champions in Jacksonville was attended by more than 26,000 fans, a robust gathering for the legends. Certainly Mickelson’s presence helped. Don’t underestimate the Phil Effect.

“It’s an adrenaline rush for everybody when he plays, and the eyeballs are more on us,” said Billy Andrade, the 2015 Charles Schwab Cup champion. “I heard somebody say that when Phil played in Jacksonville that the TV ratings were better on our Tour than the (PGA TOUR, Shriners Children’s Open).

“You know what? We’re in a renaissance period on this tour. The guys who have turned 50 and have come out – your Ernie Elses, and Darren Clarkes, and Jim Furyks – have embraced it. And now Phil is going to play in Phoenix, and it’s so great for our Tour. He has so much energy.”

Adds Langer of Mickelson’s presence, “There's more buzz, there's more interest from the media, from spectators, sponsors. So it's good. It's always good when you have the best players in the field.”

Phil resided in Paradise Valley for more than a decade, supporting the local Phoenix sports teams and being a big part of the fabric of the community. He would tee it up at Grayhawk, often the first player out at “0-dawn-30” to play quickly, and can enjoy a post-round beverage (high-power coffee, perhaps?) at the clubhouse eatery that bears his name – Phil’s Grill. His instructor, Andrew Getson, teaches at the club, which brings Phil back to town. Mickelson had a hand in building and developing the famed 36-hole Whisper Rock club, home to low-handicappers and plenty of fun money games. It opened in 2001, was private, and many members are his friends. When in town, he makes ample use of a great practice facility there. After this week’s event, Mickelson said he is shutting it down for 2021 to work on his fitness, mainly aimed at regaining speed in his swing. The work, and the drive, never wanes. It’s no surprise that Mickelson is the type of curious sort driven to find out what the course record is when he steps onto a new course. (Note to Phil: At Phoenix CC, it’s 61.)

Of course, at nearby TPC Scottsdale, Mickelson is tied for most Phoenix Open victories (three) with Arnold Palmer, Gene Littler and Mark Calcavecchia. Palmer won his three in consecutive years (1961-63); Mickelson’s spread between his first Phoenix Open triumph (1996) and last (2013) was 17 years. That last victory included an electric round of 60 that had the masses at TPC Scottsdale surrounding the ninth green (his 18th hole) in high anticipation during that second round. Mickelson appeared to stroke a great birdie putt to deliver his first 59 on TOUR, only to have the putt cruelly lip out. The response was the biggest collective groan ever heard. Sixty it was. It stands as his lowest round on the PGA TOUR.

“Heartbreaking,” Rickie Fowler, who was playing alongside, still considers the lipout, recalling it last week in Mexico. He and Jason Dufner and their caddies stepped aside to leave the stage for Phil that day, and everything seemed perfectly staged for a huge Mickelson moment. “It deserved to go in, and unfortunately it didn’t,” Fowler said. As for the overall atmosphere? “It was insane. Hard to describe. It was like the wind came out of everybody’s sails right there.”

Watching from afar, Calcavecchia, who, when living in Phoenix himself, went to Suns games and played lots of practice rounds with Mickelson, laughs and said he was secretly pulling against the putt, quietly hoping that the Phoenix Open’s “Three Win Club” stayed at three. So much for that notion. Two days later, Mickelson was crowned champion.

“I’m kidding,” Calcavecchia says with a grin. “Phil is awesome. He’s really awesome. It’s obviously a different atmosphere at Phoenix Country Club than it is at TPC Scottsdale, but he’s going to bring out a lot of fans, and I’ll be watching. When he plays our Tour, it’s nothing but great things.”

After his press obligations on Wednesday at Phoenix CC, Mickelson, ever one to try new things, was off to begin his newest venture: He will serve in the commentary booth (with Charles Barkley) for the next version of Capital One's: The Match, this one pitting Bryson DeChambeau against Brooks Koepka in Las Vegas the day after Thanksgiving. Mickelson was lined up with both players for a question-and-answer session; he said he hoped to get both to articulate their different styles to how they think and go about their games in such distinct ways. And of course, here and there, when he sees an opening, Phil will “maybe throw in a few jabs.” You know. Phil being Phil. Those who want to see him more frequently in a broadcast booth are going to have to wait. He is having too much fun inside the ropes, still chasing greatness.

For the PGA TOUR Champions, Mickelson is an absolute asset and top draw, and fans in Phoenix this week will be lining up to watch him. Said Els, “A guy like Phil, to play full-time out here would be an unbelievable boost. He attracts a lot of attention wherever he goes.”

He should know. He’s been watching Phil Mickelson for a long, long time. His earliest instincts were spot-on. Special indeed.