Like Bob Dylan, Phil Mickelson said no to becoming a fossil

Bob Dylan turned 80 Monday, and probably hasn’t spent much time thinking about it.

Whether you like Dylan or not — if you don’t, it says a lot more about you than him — he hasn’t spent the later years of his life being stagnant. He’s made records in the last year, five years, 10 years and 25 years that were nothing like his work in the 1960s that became permanently etched in American music lore.

He could have written “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and “Like a Rolling Stone” alone and lived comfortably off the royalties. To some, that would be heaven. To the great ones, it would be the opposite.

Mickelson had a lot of people talking about age Sunday when, at 50, he became the oldest winner of one of golf’s major titles, the PGA Championship.

The reaction his win got across the golf world and from the fans at the event in person was unlike anything any of the other 155 players could dream of receiving.

There are many reasons for it. At the front of them is that Mickelson has been so prominent for so long that just about everyone who watched him Sunday felt they knew him.

Score one for age, sure, but mostly for a body of work and the power of personality.

If we’re being real, we know that most pro golf tournaments on television are deadly dull and full of reverence. You’d think the commentators were describing the work of Monet instead of DeChambeau.

Hey, great golf does require great talent and imagination on top of a willingness to work that most of us don’t possess. It takes intense concentration and repetition, and a whole lot of time alone honing your craft. None of that lends itself to charisma or charm.

Mickelson, however, has been sort of an anti-golf golf star. He has been like what Tina Turner sang at the start of “Proud Mary.”

You know, every now and then

I think you might like to hear something from us

Nice and easy but there's just one thing

You see, we never ever do nothing nice and easy

We always do it nice and rough

Doing things nice and rough cost Mickelson in major tourneys earlier in his career. There were some bad gambles from a person known to gamble on and off the golf course.

Of course, gamblers are more interesting than button-down anything.

On Sunday, Mickelson did what the few and the unforgettable in sports and life do. He embraced the big moment while those competing against him couldn’t keep up.

We saw it from Tiger Woods a thousand times, it seemed. We saw it from Michael Jordan, from Kobe Bryant, from Serena Williams. We saw it from Tom Brady yet again, earlier this year.

The platform is sports, but the stories are always about people. I can’t watch a Major League Baseball game on television. I don’t know those guys. I couldn’t identify them if I passed them in Aisle 7 at Target.

If a major golf tournament is a battle between a Justin and a Dustin, meh. If Mickelson is in the hunt, I’m watching. Whatever he’ll do, it will be interesting. And, he acknowledges to the fans in attendance that his world view isn’t limited to himself and his corporate overlords.

If LeBron James is playing, I’m watching. We know him. We’ve known him for almost 20 years. He’s filled our memory banks with greatness. He’s played in the last nine NBA Finals. We know you have to get past him if you’re another team or star trying to grab your own glory.

Bob Dylan is 80. He has a songbook unlike anyone else’s, but never lived off his past like so many acts that pass through county fairs and casinos 25 years after they peaked.

Last spring, his “Murder Most Foul” became his first No. 1 single on the Billboard charts. Ever. And it’s 17 minutes long!

Mickelson could have been content just to reap the easy pickings from the Champions Tour, the 50-and-overs. Except that he couldn’t.

Playing “Let’s remember” isn’t in the DNA of the great ones. Save the past for someone else, adapt to be part of the present, keep pushing toward the future.

And leave the fossils in the petrified forest.

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