LIV Golf highlights: Phil Mickelson vs Jon Rahm in Michigan
Highlights from Jon Rahm’s 2-and-1 win over Phil Mickelson in semifinals of LIV Golf Team Championship Michigan at Saint John’s, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025.
Phil Mickelson and Jon Rahm have eight major championships between them. Each has been at the pinnacle of golf.
It was obvious why their singles match Saturday, Aug. 23, between two friends and fellow Arizona State alums, at The Cardinal at Saint John’s in Plymouth Township had the biggest crowd of all 18 matches during a shotgun start in the semifinals of LIV Golf Team Championship Michigan.
So, what can the average golfer learn from these two behemoths of the sport so many of us love?
No, most of us can’t hit it 320 yards and spin the ball to stop it on a dime around the greens.
But there are lessons to be learned after watching all 17 holes as Rahm, of Legion XIII, defeated Mickelson, of the HyFlyers, 2-and-1. It was an exciting match sealed when Rahm drained a slippery 20-foot birdie putt on the par-4 No. 17 and let out the only big fist pump of the match to help his four-man team advance to the three-team championship bracket Sunday afternoon. (The winning foursome splits $14 million.)
Here are four tips golfers can take to the range and the course.
1. Tee it high, let it fly
Want to hit the ball farther off the tee with the driver? You must start by trying to hit up on the ball more — the one club where this is encouraged.
Don’t be afraid to tee the ball higher, and dip your trail shoulder and ear below your lead shoulder and ear to get more carry by hitting up on it.
Both Rahm and Mickelson teed the ball high, with Mickelson’s entire ball exposed above the crown of his driver when he laid it behind the ball at setup.
Rahm, 30, consistently outdrove Mickelson, 55, by 30-50 yards — and a few times even more than that — but Mickelson still hits it plenty far. He nearly drove the green on the downhill 375-yard par-4 No. 1.
2. Pull driver, not 3-wood … usually
Both players were aggressive by hitting driver on nearly every non-par-3 hole. It’s a smart strategy more amateurs can adopt, so long as trouble is not too much in play — many amateurs aren’t any more accurate with a 3-wood, and the distance added with driver allows you to hit a shorter club into greens.
Mickelson’s tee-to-green play was as good, if not better, than Rahm’s on Saturday. Something else cost Mickelson, which we’ll get to.
3. Jon Rahm’s tip for hitting out of thick rough
Even the pros can struggle hitting out of lush rough. The Cardinal, in its second year since being reimagined as a championship course, had plenty of that as a defense to being a shorter length, 6,980 yards, than the pros typically play.
Rahm missed the fairway left on No. 4, and I could not see the ball while standing 10 yards away. Rahm said even he couldn’t figure it out and took a “hit and hope” approach that only advanced maybe 100 yards, barely avoiding a creek bisecting the fairway. The ball finished with him forced to play his third off the cart path. (He airmailed that shot and conceded the hole to Mickelson.)
Rahm said most average golfers won’t have the swing speed to hit out of rough that was 5-6 inches in some places at The Cardinal, but did offer a tip: “Take your medicine” if it’s that bad a lie and/or position.
“A lot of times is you grab your club, open the face, swing as hard as you can and hope it goes straight,” Rahm said. “If you don’t have the speed, you’re not going to be able to do much. If it’s that bad a lie, pitch it out to the fairway and try again from there. If not, keeping that face open a little bit in case the hosel comes in and closes the face is nice.
“You’re never really going to spin it. It’s just going to come off straight. … I’ll say just take your medicine and move on.”
Both Rahm and Mickelson showed short-game wizardry around the greens, hitting from gnarly rough. They were both short-sided multiple times and countered by opening the club face on what was likely their lob wedge, and swinging with speed to pop the ball high into the air with a chance to land softly for a good look at making the putt.
Most golfers don’t play courses with rough in tournament conditions, and are better off hitting chunk-and-runs with lower-lofted clubs to limit big mistakes.
However, if you the miss green in a bad spot and need to pop the ball up in the air and stop it quickly, open the face — it will look scary at first — and swing with speed. Get comfortable with it in practice before taking it to the course.
4. ‘Putt for dough’
The old golf idiom, “drive for show, putt for dough,” has truth, at least in the latter half. That was born out in Saturday’s match.
Mickelson did not make a putt Saturday outside 7 or 8 feet, and that was the difference in the match. He made birdies on the short par-4 No. 1 and par-5 No. 5, and failed to capitialize on numerous looks from 15-30 feet, leaving him with his hands on his hips on several occasions while some fans groaned. (Mickelson was also conceded a birdie on No. 17 after Rahm’s match-ender.)
Rahm started slow, a day after saying his young daughter — who has yet to learn to stand — could have putt better than him. But Rahm said Saturday he felt better on the greens after practicing following his singles match loss Friday, Aug. 22, to Adrian Meronk, 2-and-1.
The putts started to drop for Rahm as his match against Mickelson developed after his curling 5-foot birdie putt on No. 1 horseshoed out of the cup, which “felt like a knife to the heart to start the day,” he said.
Rahm finally made a testy 12-footer down the hill on the par-4 No. 8 to get up-and-down to halve the hole, then sunk about a 25-footer to even the match on the beautiful par-3 No. 9 over water.
Rahm, credited with six birdies (including two conceded after Mickelson bogeyed), said he stayed confident and was hitting good putts all day. He called the Ray Hearn-designed greens “fairly tricky to read sometimes,” with putts breaking either a lot more or a lot less than what he saw.
Now, Rahm has the last laugh on his good friend. A few months ago, he lost in a scramble while paired with Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen against Mickelson and Grant Horvat on YouTube, which has about 4 million views across parts 1 and 2.
“I am happy that whenever he brings up me losing to him and Grant, I can just hold it over his head,” Rahm said. “That’s the most recent win.”
Marlowe Alter is an Assistant Sports Editor at the Detroit Free Press. Email him at: malter@freepress.com. You can find him, occasionally, on X for plenty of Michigan golf course content and more: @marlowealter.
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