My Five: Lefties Who Got It Right

By Jaime Diaz

February 2, 2011

Last Sunday, two left-handers finished 1-2 on the PGA Tour, only the second time it's ever happened. For decades natural left-handers were encouraged to switch to playing right-handed, mostly because of the lack of availability of quality clubs. Ben Hogan said he was naturally left-handed, as are Johnny Miller, David Graham, Curtis Strange and Nick Price (while Phil Mickelson and Bob Charles are naturally right-handed). Although their percentage among their golfing peers remains far short of the general population's estimated 10 percent left-handedness, the last decade especially has seen a big increase in the number of professionals worldwide who play from the "wrong side." Here are the five best ever.

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1. Phil Mickelson

Everyone knows that Lefty laps the field with 38 victories and four majors. But do you remember that he won three straight NCAA individual titles, joining Ben Crenshaw as the only player to achieve that feat? Or that he's never led the PGA Tour money list or been Player of the Year? Or that he crashed into a tree while skiing in 1994 and broke his right femur, requiring a titanium rod that remains in his leg? That his most impressive wedge shot is not the amazing Backward Shot, but the Hat Shot, in which he flops a ball from close range over the shoulder of a volunteer and into the hat the person's holding. Or that in 2008 he was inducted into the Italian-American Hall of Fame? So there you go.

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