NAPA, Calif. (AP) - Phil Mickelson has now gone three consecutive PGA Tour seasons without a victory, his last title coming at the 2013 British Open at Muirfield. He still has a chance to win before the end of the calendar year by playing his final event this week at the Safeway Open.
That's not to suggest it's been a bad year.
Mickelson has accrued the most world ranking points of anyone who has yet to win around the world this year. He was a runner-up at Pebble Beach and the St. Jude Classic, though most of his points came from his runner-up finish at the British Open. Mickelson has 196.03 points this year.
Paul Casey is next on the list at 186.19 points. The bulk of those came from consecutive runner-up finishes in the Deutsche Bank Championship and BMW Championship during the FedEx Cup playoffs. Casey has gone just more than two years since his last victory in the KLM Open.
He was followed by Matt Kuchar (184.91 points), Rafa Cabrera Bello (174.97) and Kevin Chappell (168.34).
Casey earned just under $3.9 million this year and plans to play the next three events before taking the rest of the year off, meaning he will sit out the Hero World Challenge (free holiday money) in the Bahamas.
It was aggravating to play well enough to win during the FedEx Cup playoffs but lose to great finishes by Rory McIlroy at the TPC Boston and by Dustin Johnson at Crooked Stick. Much like Mickelson, however, Casey isn't about to consider it a bad year just because he doesn't have a trophy to show for it yet.
Would he rather contend consistently or just have one week where he sneaks out a victory?
"I would rather take the latter, what I've been doing recently," Casey said.