For the first time since 1990, a men’s major season came and went without Phil Mickelson in the field. The absence was not the result of one missed cut or a qualifying collapse. He remained eligible for the Open but sat on the non-playing exempt list.

That distinction matters, but the larger feeling does not change. For more than three decades, Mickelson was part of major-championship weather: sometimes brilliant, sometimes chaotic, always capable of changing the temperature of a Sunday.

Muirfield was the perfect chase

At the 2013 Open, Mickelson began the final round five shots back on a course that punished impatience. Then he made four birdies across the final six holes and closed with a 66.

He won by three and finished as the only player under par. It was a classic Mickelson performance, but not because it was reckless. The memorable part was how he matched aggression with control, choosing exactly when to press while everyone else leaked shots.

Kiawah rewrote the age limit

Eight years later, Mickelson won the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island by two at age 50, becoming the oldest winner of a men’s major. The week felt improbable until it suddenly did not.

He traded momentum with Brooks Koepka, holed out from a bunker at the fifth and managed the closing stretch while the gallery spilled around him. The player famous for chasing impossible shots won by protecting the lead when it mattered most.

The empty space says something

A major season without Mickelson feels like the end of a broadcast habit. The left-handed swing, the raised thumb and the possibility of a spectacular mistake had become part of the event itself.

His 2026 absence does not erase the complicated chapters around his career. It simply makes the scale of the run clearer. From 1990 onward, major golf almost always had Phil in the frame—and now it does not.