Why Phil Is The People's Champ

'Bones' Mackay story from 2004 Masters is classic Phil Mickelson

Mickelson had just won the Masters for his first major victory and had a bunch of obligations shortly after the round. Interviews, press conferences, dinner with the members, etc.
Bones, who doesn’t consider his job finished until he’s loaded the clubs into the car and said goodbye to Phil, hung out in the Augusta National parking lot and waited.

“There we are, he’s won the Masters, it’s 6:30 on a Sunday evening and I don’t see this guy for like three or four hours,” Mackay said. “So I’m sitting in this parking lot or near it outside the Augusta National clubhouse and it must have been 10 o’clock. I look out to his car and I see some figures, it’s pitch dark out there, and it’s Phil and these two or three other people around him.”

Bones doesn’t recognize the others, which is weird since he’d been Mickelson’s caddie for more than a decade at the time and knew pretty much everyone in his life.

“So I walk up there to kind of help with packing the bag, and as I walk up to him I see these guys are hugging Phil,” Mackay said. “They’re not just hugging him, it’s like an emotional hug. … I’m like, ‘Man, who are these guys hugging Phil?'”

“It turns out these are the guys that work in the lower locker room at Augusta National (that) Phil’s been tipping all these years and taking such good care of,” Mackay said. “Now that Phil’s won the Masters he’s going to the champions locker room and these guys are losing him forever and they’re just devastated. So they’re hugging it out in the parking lot and I thought, ‘That’s really cool.'”

Phil, man.

(GolfWeek.com)