WM Phoenix Open

TPC Scottsdale (Stadium Course)



    seeing is believing

    What it was like giving Phil Mickelson the gift of sight and other tips from a golf optometrist

    Dr. Jeff Eger has plenty of stories from working with golfers of all levels for more than three decades
    February 01, 2025
    Augusta National
    AUGUSTA, GA - APRIL 1990s:  Phil Mickelson plays from the fairway during a 1990s Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in April in Augusta, Georgia. (Photo by Augusta National/Getty Images)

    It’s not surprising, knowing what we know now, that Phil Mickelson won the 1990 U.S. Amateur, the 1989 and '90 NCAA championships and six other college titles early in his career. What is shocking, however, is that he had trouble seeing the entire time.

    It sounds ridiculous but according to optometrist Dr. Jeff Eger at the start of Mickelson’s four years of college golf at Arizona State, the future World Golf Hall of Famer couldn't see "anything longer than a wedge land" and admitted that all he could read on an eye chart was “the big E.” Eventually, a young Lefty met Eger, working for All American Sports Vision, to get fitted for custom contacts lenses.

    Eger is a 77-year-old optometrist out of Mesa, Ariz., who specializes in vision therapy for athletes and was a five handicap at his best. During the 30-plus years at the job, he has worked with seven-time PGA Tour winner Gil Morgan, Arizona State golfers in the early '90s and hundreds of young athletes in need of glasses or contacts around the southwest. Lefty went to him over the 1990 Christmas Break to figure out what was wrong with his vision.

    In January 1991, shortly after being treated by Dr. Eger, Mickelson competed in the PGA Tour’s Northern Telecom Tucson Open, where he made a 72nd-hole birdie to best Bob Tway and Tom Purtzer and become just the seventh amateur to win a tour event since 1945.

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    Even now, looking back at his time with Mickelson, Dr. Eger can hardly believe how successful the golf great was at an early age despite his poor vision. “When I fit Phil, I didn't fit him with his first correction ever with glasses, which is what most doctors would do,” Dr. Eger recalled. “I fit him with contact lenses. In less than five weeks, he beat the pros as an amateur.”

    Dr. Eger still remembers Mickelson’s reaction when he first put the lenses in, contending that it looked like the blood rushed out of his face. “And then he mumbles something. To this day, I don't know what he mumbled,” Dr. Eger said. “And all the blood then rushed back to his face with this huge childlike smile the first time he put that contact lens in.”

    Dr. Eger wanted to fit the lenses in small steps, but Mickelson was initially resistant after testing them on the course since it was—and this is where Dr. Eger pauses for effect—the first time Mickelson had seen his drive land in two years.

    We all know how things went for Mickelson, but Dr. Eger has been floating around the golf world for even longer than ol’ Lefty and has his share of unbelievable golf anecdotes, constantly opining on the importance of childlike imagination and creativity on the course and hoping that Mickelson finds that smile he saw in his office once again.

    Indeed, Dr. Eger doubles as a pseudo psychologist at times. One of his favorite golf memories is talking about the sport with Nick Price at the 1997 Phoenix Open. The two ended up in a pretty heavy discussion about “feel state,” a go-to phrase for the optometrist. Somehow, though it led to a “Seinfeld” reference.

    “I said, ‘Nick, I've been interviewed a couple of times on newscasts and I haven't been able to precisely define what the feel state is. Could you tell me what it is?’ And he looked at me like, you know, like I was an idiot. And he said, ‘The feel state, that's just trusting what your eyes tell you to do.’ So, have you ever seen Elaine in “Seinfeld”? Where she tells Jerry to get out of here. Mm-hmm. I did that to Nick Price. And we cracked up.”

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    Most of Dr. Eger’s golf obsession revolves around trying to crack the “feel state,” tuning out overthinking and zoning in on just seeing what’s in front of you in order to really focus and achieve perfection. He saw that in Mickelson and in a chance encounter with another young amateur golfer who’d go on to become a USGA champion and a winner on the PGA Tour—a 12-year-old Chez Reavie.

    Suffice it to say, the middle schooler impressed the doctor from the start when randomly paired with him at a local course; Eger still contends Reavie was one of the best young drivers of the golf ball he had ever seen.

    “Chez put every single drive as a 12-year-old down the center of the fairway. Every. Single. Drive. And he hit it about I don't know, maybe 245,” he said. “And I was playing really good that day. And you know, when you play with somebody over your head, you want to stay up with them, right? And I noticed that Chez missed a lot of gimme putts, two- or three-foot putts, that he should have made. And I told him, this is shortly after I worked with Phil, I said, ‘You know, you might be the next Phil Mickelson.’ And he smiled. And I said, ‘As long as you work on your short game.’ And then he didn't smile.”

    What he saw (and continues to see) in the best golfers is an automatic pilot of sorts, an ability to be “dumb like a fox” and focus so intently that they don’t even notice any obstacles on the course. It’s a good tip for yours truly and hopefully for any golfer out there who tends to think too hard, test out too many practice shots and ultimately play worse because there are too many thoughts rattling around in the brain.

    Phil Mickelson could barely see in front of him and was winning tournaments at a historic pace. Of course, he’s Lefty and we’re not, but it’s funny to think that this particular optometrist both wants you to see better than you ever have before and simultaneously not see too much in order to play your best golf.

    “It's not about thinking. It's not about overanalyzing. It's about seeing global, seeing in slow time,” Dr. Eger said. “Trusting what you saw yourself do perfectly, and then just do it with trust, and you have fun.”