Who is 61-year-old PGA Championship debutant Tracy Phillips?

One of the most intriguing players in the field of the 106th PGA Championship in Louisville, Kentucky, is Tracy Phillips. The 61-year-old is playing in his debut PGA Championship having finished T17 in the 2022 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship.

Phillips is the director of Instruction at Center Ridge, where his father served as a head professional for 40 years. He has been the top-ranked golfer, winning the PGA Junior Championship. Since encountering an injury, he paused his golf career, but he stayed in touch with the sport by caddying and didn't join any club for about 20 years.

Tracy Phillips said in an interview (as quoted by golf.com):

“The giving up for 20 years and stuff like that, if anyone had an injury or something like that, I’d say don’t wait 20 years. Maybe make it a little bit quicker than that. But I’m very blessed with the situation I’ve been put in.”

Even though he grew up with golf, a professional golfer and a dad as a teaching professional, Phillips stopped playing the sport for a while due to a herniated disk, which kept him out for eight months. Later, he realised that he had lost his natural golf swing.

Tracy Phillips had to rebuild to include more latency, but he began sliding too laterally with his hips. He could not depend on his short game since a short game is meaningless.

Since his friends urged and talked him into golf again, he stumbled onto one of George Gankas' online lessons and improved his leg movements to get back his original swing. He worked with Billy Ray Young, who helped him develop a strong mentality. Phillips said:

“And I worked with a guy who helped me mentally, Billy Ray Young. He doesn’t call himself a sports psychologist, but he certainly helped me a lot in terms of bringing back kind of the old me, the 15-, 16-year-old that was pretty confident with himself inside.”

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Can Tracy Phillips beat other champions at Valhalla?

Phillips will tee off alongside Keita Nakajima and Denny McCarthy at 1:06 p.m. (ET). Other stars Scottie Scheffler, Tiger Woods, Rory Mcllroy, Michael Block, Xander Schaufelle and Brooks Koepka will also be competing.

About playing at the age of 61, Phillips said (as per the aforementioned interview);

“You think about it, what other sport can a person play at 61 years old and play in one of the largest events ever imaginable. There’s not another sport you can actually do that in.

"And let alone play in the PGA of America, our major championship. Hopefully there’s some inspiration that people get out of it. If anything, it says you can play this game at a pretty old age.

As a junior, Tracy Phillips looked forward to winning the PGA Championship, Masters, Open Championships and U.S. Open. He also said:

“These guys I’m playing with are so good. It’s scary how good they are. So I’m just soaking that in terms of watching how they do it, I play with Denny McCarthy tomorrow.

"I hear he’s a great putter. I’m probably going to watch him roll a bunch of putts in so I’m just going to go out and have some fun.”

According to Tracy Phillips, no matter if he wins or not, the other players will learn about perseverance from his game.