Phil Likely to Skip the US Open

In case you missed it, Phil Mickelson announced that he will probably miss the US Open to attend his daughter's high school graduation.



You can get all the details from this PGATOUR.com article, but basically it comes down to this: Phil's daughter Amanda is the school president and scheduled to give the commencement address. Since her graduation is on Thursday morning of the US Open, and Phil lives in California -- which is two hours behind Wisconsin, where the US Open will be held -- even an afternoon tee time is unlikely to give him enough time to fly back after the graduation ceremony.

Look at it this way: It takes roughly four hours to fly from CA to WI, and then you have the two-hour time difference. If Phil was able to leave at 11am CA time, it would still be around 5pm WI time before he arrived -- much too late to play.

Phil hasn't withdrawn yet. It's possible that something could happen to make it all possible -- perhaps the graduation ceremony has to be rescheduled for some reason, or the first round of the US Open gets a weather delay. But Phil isn't counting on either, and said he wanted his alternate into the event to be ready to play, as well as for the USGA to know before they made the TV tee times.

But even if Phil misses the Erin Hills major, the next two sites -- Shinnecock Hills and Pebble Beach -- should give him good shots at the one major that has eluded him. The 2020 site, Winged Foot, might suit him as well...

Assuming that daughter Sofia doesn't have her graduation during that week.