Carmel golf writer Alan Shipnuck takes on Phil Mickelson’s story in a new book.

While Monterey County has produced many great writers, another local is making a strong case to be included in the local pantheon.

Alan Shipnuck is no stranger to golf fans. After nearly three decades covering professional golf for Sports Illustrated and GOLF Magazine, Shipnuck has established himself as one of the premier golf writers. With dozens of cover stories for national publications, countless awards by the Golf Writers Association of America, and two bestselling books to his name, Shipnuck’s resume as a golf scribe speaks for itself. But now, with the release of his new book Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar – that would be Phil Mickelson – Shipnuck has crossed into the mainstream.

“I had no idea the book would generate this much attention,” Shipnuck says. “My goal was just to write a really fun, really lively, intensely readable book that tells a great story about an incredibly interesting character.”

Armed with extra time on his hands due to the Covid-19 shutdown, Shipnuck delved headfirst into his new project from the comfort of his Carmel home, interviewing hundreds of current and former players, caddies and others who could offer firsthand perspectives on one of the most polarizing figures in golf. The result is an uncensored and all-encompassing life story about the man they call “Lefty.”

“This book is three decades in the making,” Shipnuck says. “I’ve been covering Phil since the early ’90s. My first year on tour was his second as a professional, so our careers have really run kind of parallel to each other.”

Shipnuck wrote his first cover story for Sports Illustrated in 1994, as a 21-year-old intern and undergraduate student at UCLA. Just a few years prior, 20-year-old Mickelson won his first PGA Tour event while still an amateur at Arizona State. While Shipnuck was a student at Salinas High School, he worked as a “cart boy” at Pebble Beach, and also covered high school football for The Salinas Californian. Mickelson’s maternal grandfather, Al Santos, also worked at Pebble Beach as a caddie starting in 1919, walking the famed course now home to a tournament Mickelson has won five times.

“The local ties definitely add another layer to it,” says Shipnuck, who will be inducted into the Salinas Valley Sports Hall of Fame later this summer.

So, with nearly three decades of covering golf – and more specifically, Mickelson – it only made sense for Shipnuck to bring it full circle, with this biography released May 17.

For Shipnuck and his publisher, the timing couldn’t be any better. The PGA Tour, which for generations has been the premier tour for professional golfers across the globe, has come under fire recently with the emergence of the newly formed and Saudi Arabia-backed Super Golf League. The upstart tour, with its seemingly endless supply of cash flow, has attempted to lure several of the PGA Tour’s biggest names to their schedule of tournaments. Among the list of Tour players said to be considering the switch is Mickelson.

In excerpts of Phil shared by Shipnuck via his new media platform The Fire Pit Collective, are statements by Mickelson indicating he was using the option of playing in the new league in order to compel changes in the way players are compensated on the PGA Tour. The comments, published in February, created an immediate firestorm for Lefty and his media counterpart. The ensuing carnage resulted in millions of dollars in lost sponsorships for Mickelson, but created a wave of momentum for Shipnuck and the book.

“I think Phil’s biggest miscalculation was the emotion the general public has regarding Saudi Arabia,” Shipnuck says. “He’s always spoken a bit loosely and it’s gotten him in trouble before, but nothing quite like this.”

Shipnuck continues to cover the PGA Tour, and heads this week to Tulsa.

Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthroized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar is available at local bookstores. Read more of Alan Shipnuck’s work at firepitcollective.com.