Forget chasing the no. 1 ranking. Phil Mickelson was moreworried about being able to get out of bed.
Mickelson revealed Tuesday he has psoriatic arthritis, whichcauses his immune system to attack his joints and tendons andproduced such intense pain he couldn’t walk. He noticed the firstsymptoms five days before the U.S. Open, and the pain eventuallygot so bad he made a visit to the Mayo Clinic.
Weekly shots have brought the disease under control, andMickelson said there shouldn’t be any negative impact on his long-or even short-term health.
“I’m surprised at how quickly it’s gone away, and how quicklyit’s been able to be managed and controlled,” he said. “I feel 100percent, like I say. but when I’m laying there on the couch and Ican’t move, you know, yeah, I had some concerns. but I feel a lotbetter now.”
As if that bombshell wasn’t enough for the day, Lefty droppedanother one: the burger connoisseur is now a vegetarian.
“I know, I know,” he said as reporters laughed. “As long as Ibelieve that there’s a possibility that it will help me overall,yeah, I’ll continue to do that. If it will somehow keep this inremission or stop it from coming back, yeah, I’ll be able to do it.but I haven’t been put it to the real test. The real test isdriving by a five Guys and not stopping.”
Mickelson has been threatening to replace Tiger Woods as worldNo. 1 since The Players Championship in early May, only to stumbleat each opportunity. That’s led many to wonder what’s ailing him,particularly after his lackluster round Sunday at Firestone, wherehe made seven bogeys and a double-bogey _ and just one birdie _ onhis way to a 78.
Turns out, the ranking was the least of his worries.
Mickelson, who turned 40 in June, said he woke up five daysbefore the U.S. Open with “intense pain” in his tendons and jointsthat left him unable to move and his joints feeling sprained.Stretching, walking and anti-inflammatories alleviated the pain,and he went ahead and played Pebble Beach, where he shot 66 onFriday to put himself in contention. He wound up tied forfourth.
But the condition got progressively worse during the U.S. Openand a family vacation to Hawaii afterward, spreading to his knees,hips and elbows.
“That’s when I got concerned,” he said. “I certainly had thegamut of thoughts. … I would just lay down and I couldn’t rollover. I was concerned about being able to swing a club and soforth.”
After the British Open, Mickelson made a trip to the Mayo Clinicin Rochester, Minn., where doctors confirmed the diagnosis ofpsoriatic arthritis. according to the Mayo Clinic website, thecondition causes joint pain, stiffness and swelling. while it canbe linked to psoriasis, the arthritis can appear without thepresence of skin lesions.
There is no cure for the condition, according to the Mayo Clinicwebsite, but the disease is treatable. Weekly shots of Enbrel lowerhis immune system, and Mickelson said the difference was noticeablealmost immediately.
“I feel great now and things have been much, much better,” hesaid. “I’ll probably take this drug for about a year, and feel 100percent. I’ll stop it and see if it goes into remission and it maynever come back. It may be gone forever.”
“It’s not that it’s cured, but it may never come back,” headded. “Or if it does come back, I’ll start the treatment again andshould be able to live a normal life without having any adverseeffects. So I’m not very concerned about it.”
The arthritis is the latest health scare for Mickelson’s family.his wife, Amy, and mother are both battling breast cancer; thelong-term prognosis for both is good.
While Mickelson said the arthritis didn’t affect his play atPebble Beach or St. Andrews, where he was never a factor, he onlyresumed his regular practice routine last week. Revealing hiscondition earlier might have lessened some of the criticism of hisgame these last few weeks.
But that’s not Lefty’s style.
“First of all, I don’t want excuses. And second, I don’t want todiscuss something when I don’t know what the outcome is going tobe,” Mickelson said. “For five or six weeks, I was a little unsureof how this was going to affect me long term, career, what haveyou. now that I feel confident it’s not going to affect not onlythe rest of my career or the rest of my life, but even in the shortterm it shouldn’t have an effect, I feel a lot better about it andI’m a lot more at ease to discuss it.”
Mickelson certainly looked at ease Tuesday during his practiceround at Whistling Straits. He joked and laughed often with playingpartners Dustin Johnson, Jeff Overton and Steve Marino, and it wasclear there was more riding on the round than simple practice.
When Mickelson drained a 10-footer on 18, he gave a hearty fistpump.
“I’m probably not as sharp as I would like to be,” the four-timemajor champion said. “I didn’t play well at the British, obviously.I didn’t play well last week, on the weekend, but I’m able to workon it. I had a good session with Butch and I believe that thegame’s coming around. I’m not sure where I’ll be on Thursday, buthopefully I’ll be ready.”