Phil Mickelson, The PGA Championship & The TPI Connection
By Mark Pajich
Phil Mickelson’s win in the PGA Championship came as a surprise to many in the golfing world. International bookmakers, a notoriously stingy bunch, thought so little of his chances of winning that they were offering odds of up to 300/1 prior to the start of the tournament. However, Phil’s longevity and competitiveness in the sport has been nearly 2 decades in the making.
Like many fellow compatriots, exercise and diet were not priorities early on in his career but things began to change in the 90’s with Tiger Woods’ arrival on the pro tour. Golfers suddenly found themselves competing against a team of athletes.
So, in 2003, Mickelson started working with Sean Cochrane of Sean Cochrane Sports Performance. Sean is an exercise physiologist and biomechanist. He is TPI certified, and one of the leading sports performance coaches in the US.
Although there isn’t a lot of information on the types of training Michelson was doing at that time, we can safely conclude that heavy weight training would not have been part of the program. Having hired a biomechanist, it’s clear that the focus of the program would have initially centred on how his body moves in relation to his golf and working to identify and correct any weaknesses. As he improved, strength, power and endurance training would then be brought into his routine.
In 2010, things took a dramatic turn when Mickelson announced that he was being treated for psoriatic arthritis. Psoriatic arthritis is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system starts attacking the body’s joints. In Mickelson’s case, it developed quickly to the point where he couldn’t walk. The disease is an incurable, degenerative condition with current treatments focused on disease management. It is a career ending diagnosis for any professional athlete.
However, while Mickelson was being treated for psoriatic arthritis, Sean Cochrane, together with TPI co-founders, Dr. Greg Rose and Dave Phillips, began working on Mickelson’s exercise program to combat the physical effects of the disease and to improve his fitness so he can keep playing, and remain competitive, at the highest level. This would not have been an easy task. I know from personal experience that training someone with psoriatic arthritis requires a very fine balancing act between limiting the natural stress that exercise puts on the already overworked immune system and attempting to minimise the risk of joint inflammation, all the while trying to improve their strength and fitness.
The final big event on Mickelson’s road to the PGA Championship occurred in 2016 when he hired Dr. Ara Suppiah as his medical advisor. Dr. Suppiah, born and raised in Klang but now a US citizen, was the US team doctor at the 2016 Ryder Cup. He is a certified ER physician, trained cardiac surgeon, sports medicine physician and he’s the chief medical analyst for NBC Sports. It was during this time that Mickelson started his coffee concoction, also introduced to him by TPI co-founder Dave Philips, and then in 2019 commenced a fasting diet to help mitigate the damage caused by psoriatic arthritis, a practice he continues today.
The culmination of all this hard work being the oldest winner of a major in PGA history whilst battling an autoimmune condition for more than a decade -an astonishing feat. Whether Mickelson can maintain this momentum, and his health, only time will tell.