The bold shot on 13 just Phil being Phil

The defining shot of the 2010 Masters Tournament was classic Phil Mickelson -- a risk ultimately yielding reward in the form of a third green jacket.

His blast from the pines on the 13th hole Sunday also brought perhaps the defining statement of Mickelson's career. Asked the difference between a great shot and a smart shot, the left-hander delivered what could be his mantra.

"I don't know," he said. "I mean, a great shot is when you pull it off. A smart shot is when you don't have the guts to try it."

There it is. Phil Mickelson in a nutshell.

"That's him," said Jim "Bones" Mackay, his caddie. "He wouldn't want to play any other way. That's how he's built."

"That's Phil," said Steve Loy, his college coach and longtime manager. "The weaker players are always utilizing that kind of thinking as 'I'm not going to beat myself.' He'd rather be bold enough to have the courage to do what most people can't."

In a week when Mickelson came within inches of making three consecutive eagles, the shot on No. 13 stands out.

It was the shot that involuntarily lifted his pregnant sister, Tina, out of the strict bed rest her doctor imposed.

It was the shot that prompted his cancer-stricken wife, Amy, to get ready to face the public for the first time in nearly a year and greet her husband with a triumphant embrace.

It was the shot that prompted three-time Masters winner Nick Faldo to exclaim from the broadcast booth, "the greatest shot of his life."

Mackay, who has seen most of them, isn't arguing.

"His life changed when he made the putt on 18 at Augusta in 2004," Mackay said, "but (the shot at 13) was the best shot I've ever seen him hit."

'If I'm going to win ...'

Mickelson birdied No. 12 Sunday to take his first lead all week, then he pulled his tee shot on 13 through the fairway. He arrived to assess his options from the pine straw behind two trees, with a hole "big enough for a ball to fit through," and Mackay was ready with all the particulars.

It was 207 yards to the flag, 187 to carry the tributary to Rae's Creek.

"It was much scarier in person," Mackay said. "The gap in the trees was much smaller than it looked like on TV. The thing I was concerned about was there was a lot of pine straw and you could lose your footing. If you lose your footing, who knows where the ball is going to go."

Mackay was trying to gauge where Mickelson's mind was as they debated between a soft 5-iron and a hard 6.

"All I did was say to him, 'Don't forget when you made all the eagles yesterday on 13, 14 and almost 15, don't forget that pitch shot you made,' " Mackay said. "Basically saying if it comes to you laying up here you're as likely or more likely to get up and down and make four as anybody in the tournament. He said, 'No, I'm absolutely going for this.' So I backed off and now we're waiting for the green to clear."

Groans greeted K.J. Choi's putt up ahead. Mackay assumed from the way Choi had been playing that it was a birdie miss. But he asked a TV crew member for confirmation and found out Choi made bogey. He went back to Mickelson for a quick reassessment.

"K.J. made six; you're up by two -- does that affect what you want to do?"

Mackay remembers Mickelson's response verbatim.

"Listen, if I'm going to win this tournament, I'm going to have to hit a really good shot under a lot of pressure," Mickelson said. "I'm (going to) do it right now."

Mackay grabbed the bag "and got the heck out of the way. You almost knew he was going to hit a great shot based simply on the way he said what he said."

Mickelson put a fearless swing on his 6-iron, catching the ball flush to shoot it between the two pines. His clubhead whooshed past a thick tree by inches.

"Looked (to be) in the stream," Lee Westwood said from his vantage point halfway down the fairway.

The ball settled 4 feet below the cup.

"The great thing about that shot for me was the sound," Mackay said. "The second he hit it, he hit it so pure that we knew it was going to carry."

Mickelson ended up missing the short eagle putt, which would have been his third of the week on 13. But the birdie he made with a ticklish comebacker kept him two up on Westwood.

"It's one of the few shots, really, that only Phil could pull off," said Westwood, who called it a "high-tariff shot." "I think most people would have just chipped that one out. But, you know, that's what great players do -- pull off great shots at the right time."

"It's one for the replays," said Larry Mize, whose playoff chip-in on 11 in 1987 is one of the most memorable shots in Masters history. "Everything about it, from being right next to the trees to barely clearing the water, it does rank up there."

Playing Mickelson golf

That Mickelson would take such a risk at such a major moment surprises no one who knows him.

"I knew that he fancied having a go at it and that's Phil's personality, and game, as well," Westwood said. "He's that kind of player. ... That's what everybody wants to see. That's why everybody likes watching him."

Said Mackay: "He plays completely without fear. He's absolutely convinced he can pull off every shot."

That hasn't changed as far back as college. Loy, his coach, said his star player always played to his own tune. "There were many times I asked him to just chill out because we were going to win this golf tournament and he still had the throttle on full speed," Loy said.

As a freshman in the NCAA Tournament at Oak Tree in Edmond, Okla., Mickelson held a two-shot lead on the final hole with his ball buried in thick junk. Loy begged Mickelson to take an unplayable lie. Mickelson refused, chopped it out and made par.

"After he wins the NCAA he said, 'Now, coach, what did you learn from this tournament? Don't always question me when I'm trying to do something that may be different from the rest of them out here,' " Loy said. "As a freshman! It's always been that way for him."

His college roommate, Rob Mangini, has seen Mickelson pull off so many shots that nothing surprises him anymore.

"The thing about cheering for a friend like that who has that kind of immense talent is he takes you on a ride," Mangini said. "It's talent, guts and charisma, and he has fun doing it. To a lesser player, it probably makes him jealous a little bit. This game is hard. There's a lot of guys who are very good players and there's only a few who have been truly touched by that higher power of thinking they can pull those things off routinely. He has the guts to succeed and the guts to fail."

That his aggressiveness doesn't always pay off is a reality Mickelson accepts.

"There've been a couple of cases where regretfully he wishes the outcome hadn't been that -- they've been at major championships," Loy said. "But overall, he knows that if he's going to play Phil golf he accepts the challenges and accepts the disappointments that go with it. Anybody around him that doesn't understand that would have a real short career."

Amy said her husband's philosophy was reinforced by his good friend Mack Brown, the University of Texas football coach.

"Mack Brown has a saying, 'You do what you do,' " Amy said. "I've been watching my husband for 20 years and I've seen him pull off so many shots like that. What people don't understand is that there are times when Phil can see a shot that maybe we wouldn't. I personally believe that type of behavior or play has benefitted him more. I know he's lost some tournaments, but it's also won him a lot of tournaments."

Aggressive at Augusta

Mickelson's philosophy feels most at home at Augusta National Golf Club. The course design and setup invite his brand of risk-taking more than other major championship venues, where thick rough can curb creativity.

"The golf course itself, as difficult and challenging as it is, when I go through the gates I don't feel like I have to play perfect golf," Mickelson said. "I feel like I can have mistakes and still make pars. I don't have to drive it perfect. I can go in the trees and hit shots under the trees and up by the green somewhere and with my short game salvage par. At Augusta, I feel like skill and touch and short game are always a factor where you can salvage par."

Mackay said his man held nothing back in 2010.

"Phil would not have won the Masters last year if he was not as aggressive as he was," Mackay said. "Last year at Augusta I would say was arguably the most aggressive he's ever played in his entire career. No question. Every putt he didn't make for birdie was going 4 or 5 feet by. He said, 'I am going to go out of my way to win this event,' and it worked out very well for him. ... If he wasn't an aggressive player he would have finished about 10th that week."

Said Mickelson: "That's absolutely correct. But I play aggressive at Augusta every day because I feel like the sections are so small you have to be aggressive to make birdies. If you miss shots there, I really believe I can get up and down a great percentage of the time. ... So I'm going to play that golf course very aggressive every time."

In his mind, there was no alternative to looking at the narrow gap on 13 and determining, "it was an absolute go."

"In this day and age when you're playing against the best players in the world, you've got to hit shots and pull it off," he said. "The guy that comes out and plays conservative and doesn't take on any risk and lets the whole field give it to him, he's not going to win much. He's got to go out and be aggressive and hope you pull the shots off and try to win rather than let somebody lose.

"That day was back in the '70s when (Jack) Nicklaus was winning his majors that he would let guys give it to him and so forth. Today there are too many good players, and Tiger (Woods) has changed that whole mind-set. You have to go out and win that thing."

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