When it comes to the most iconic short game of all time, the debate for many people comes down to Seve Ballesteros and Phil Mickelson.
There is something about the players who have the best short games which particularly endears them to golf fans. Clearly, they possess an unbelievable imagination with the shots that they are able to produce to get themselves out of trouble.
At times, it even felt as though Phil Mickelson was secretly delighted when he landed himself in bother. Everyone can probably recall a moment where Mickelson managed to steal the show from a ridiculous position with an audacious piece of brilliance.
But there is definitely an argument that Seve Ballesteros is golf’s greatest showman. It did not matter if the Spaniard found his ball under a bush, in a car park or behind a wall, he would usually find a way to play the shot.
Tiger Woods suggested whether Phil Mickelson or Seve Ballesteros had the better short game
There is no wrong answer when it comes to the debate of which player had the better short game. Mickelson himself identified Ballesteros as his inspiration, with the pair winning 11 major titles between them.
But when asked by No Laying Up ahead of The Match in 2018 which part of Mickelson’s game he would swap into his own, Tiger Woods suggested that he would probably put his great rival just ahead of the European.
“Definitely his short game. It’s sick. What he can do around the greens is just amazing. I got a chance early in my career when I was working with Butch and Seve was working with Butch at the same time that we’d coincide a lot of my training camps around Seve. So I got the chance to get to know Seve at a pretty good level short-game wise, watching him hit a lot of shots and have him explain a lot of things, how he did it,” he said.
“What he did was phenomenal, but I think what Phil does is even better, because Seve had a 56 degree sand wedge and he had to make it work. The pins weren’t as tight then, but the greens were a little bit slower, but with the pins with being so tight and Phil going to 60 or 64 degrees of loft, he’s able to hit shots that no one else can hit. But then again, he’s trying to pull off shots that no one’s ever tried to pull off, and he does. That’s what makes Seve so amazing, he hit shots that we only maybe even thought about or entertained for a millisecond, but he’d pull it off. Well, Phil’s doing the same thing. It seems like higher risk to a lot of us, it’s not higher risk to him because he’s that good.”
Phil Mickelson still producing some of the ‘greatest shots’ many world-class players have ever seen
Mickelson’s longevity is one of the most impressive attributes in the current game. He became the oldest major champion of all time in 2021, while he remains competitive on LIV Golf.
He has not been able to take that into the major championships in 2025, but he did produce one of the most incredible shots of the year at LIV’s most recent event.
Few will forget the chip in Mickelson had at LIV Golf Virginia when he seemed to be standing with much of his back to the target. Speaking after the round, Bryson DeChambeau helped outline just how impressive the shot was.
“Man, he created some Phil Mickelson magic there. Vintage Phil. To see him get up on the side slope, and he’s just staring at it. You could just see his wheels turning, and then he hit the shot, and I got the perfect angle of it. It literally looked like the top of this roof right here. Just came back down, landed perfectly, and I go, oh, my gosh, he’s going to make it, and it went in the hole and I was like, that’s got to be one of the greatest shots I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” he said.
Clearly, Mickelson and Ballesteros had the talent to win even more majors than they did. However, few players can say that they have come close to providing as much entertainment as the pair.
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