LONG SHOT: Phil Mickelson’s Big Bet That Paid Off

Jon Rahm is now the new #1 golfer in the world. 

The history between Rahm and Phil Mickelson goes way back. They’re both graduates of Arizona State’s golf program and Mickelson’s brother was the golf coach of Rahm when he was playing in Tempe. So you could say that Phil was one of the first pros to really see Rahm’s potential. And having that inside information gave Mickelson a crazy idea of how he could use it to his advantage.

According to Jason Sobel of Action Network, Mickelson was sitting with some other pros during a weather delay at the 2016 St. Jude Classic and offered anyone a bet that Rahm would be in the top-10 of the World Golf Rankings within the next year. Thinking that those were pretty good odds, fellow PGA TOUR player Colt Knost took the bet and even offered Phil 2 to 1 odds on the bet.

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Knost was extremely confident about taking that bet because some of the best golfers in the last few decades couldn’t break the top-ten. And he was backed up by everyone he talked to. “I told a ton of people about this bet and everyone was agreeing with me,” Knost told Sobel. “Everyone was like, ‘You know how hard it is to get to top-10 in the world?’”

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by Golf Digest (@golfdigest) on Jul 21, 2020 at 2:28pm PDT

Well, you can see where this one’s going. Rahm began his career on the PGA TOUR with a 3rd place finish in his first event, then he followed that up with a win at Torrey Pines that next January, then had a runner-up finish at The Colonial to hit the 10th spot on the World Golf Rankings just before the 12-month deadline for the bet. Knost wouldn’t admit how much money he had to pay Phil for losing the bet but he did say “there was a comma involved.”

I guess the moral of the story is that you never bet against Phil Mickelson, no matter the odds. Lefty was certainly right about Rahm’s monster potential and it’ll be interesting to see how long Rahm ends up staying in that newly earned top world ranking.

Cover Image Via PGA TOUR Media