Phil Mickelson has arthritis
Mickelson has revealed that he has psoriatic arthritis, which causes his immune system to attack his joints and tendons. At its strongest, it produces such sharp pain that he can barely walk, let alone swing a golf club. He first noticed the effects of the condition just before the US Open, which started June 17th, at which point he visited the Mayo Clinic for diagnosis.
According to Mickelson, weekly shots should remove any long-term or short term impact on his golf game, and he seems to have few concerns. “I’m surprised at how quickly it’s gone away, and how quickly it’s been able to be managed and controlled. I feel 100 percent, like I say. But when I’m laying there on the couch and I can’t move, you know, yeah, I had some concerns. But I feel a lot better now.”
Mickelson, 39, woke up five days before the US Open with intense pain in his tendons and joints that left him unable to move and his joints feeling sprained. Treatment included stretching and anti-imflammatory pills, which allowed him to compete at the US Open where he performed pretty well, tying for fourth, but the pain flared up again the next week while on vacation on vacation in Hawaii.
“That’s when I got concerned,” he said. “I certainly had the gamut of thoughts. … I would just lay down and I couldn’t roll over. I was concerned about being able to swing a club and so forth.”
Mickelson’s game has looked a little shaky at times during recent tournaments, but he doesn’t want to use this as an excuse. “First of all, I don’t want excuses. And second, I don’t want to discuss something when I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. For five or six weeks, I was a little unsure of how this was going to affect me long term, career, what have you. Now that I feel confident it’s not going to affect not only the rest of my career or the rest of my life, but even in the short term it shouldn’t have an effect, I feel a lot better about it and I’m a lot more at ease to discuss it.”
Mickelson is currently preparing to play the final Major of the year, the PGA at Whistling Straits in a couple of days time. A good performance could see him overtake Tiger Woods as the number one golfer in the world.
Tags: