Phil Mickelson looks at his career Grand Slam on the home court of the US Open | Phil Mickelson

Phil Mickelson believes that behind his amazing US PGA Championship victory, he has a “unique opportunity” to complete a professional grand slam in his hometown of San Diego.

Just nine days ago Back in the years on Kiawah Island In order to become the oldest Grand Slam champion in golf history, Mickelson reluctantly accepted a special exemption for the 121st US Open in Torrey Pines. He will celebrate his victory on the Wednesday before the start of the game. 51st birthday.

The exemption is required because Mickelson has fallen out of the top 100 in the world, and he has joined Gene Saracen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods The prospect of winning all four majors together looks increasingly out of reach.

“Now, you always need some luck, you always need something to gather and click, but I know I play well, I just want to give myself every opportunity to play my best.”

Mickelson won three victories at Torrey Pines, including back-to-back victories in the Buick Invitational (now the Farmers Insurance Open) in 2000 and 2001, but three months after the last success, the South Stadium played A major redesign.

In the next 18 games, the left-hander has achieved 4 top 10 finishes. In the past seven years, he missed the promotion 3 times, retired due to a back injury once, and missed the European Tour for a year. And achieved the best results. The 14th place in 2017.

“What happened to me was that I spent a lot of time as a child, and when the course was redesigned, all local knowledge disappeared,” Mickelson added.

“I really didn’t come out and spent a lot of time. It’s difficult to get tee time here, and when you do, it’s a long round. So except for the farmers, I won’t spend a lot of time here.

“I really tried very hard to spend the last week of vacation here. I spent time here to really learn and relearn the greens. So last week I spent a lot of time on the greens to see if I could get the local again. Knowledge, we will see how it goes, but I have a lot of interesting relearning and spent a lot of time here.”